Day #7: Majdanek

A few days ago we visited Majdanek and it's taken me a while to fully process my experience there. 

By the time we visited Majdanek, we had already been to three other camps--larger and more well known camps--so I had not anticipated such a different reaction at Majdanek. I also did not expect to have such a personal connection. I'm polish (well, 1/8 polish). My grandmother's mother came over to the US before she was born, so they both narrowly avoided WWII and the Holocaust, but I'm guessing much of their family who was left behind did not. At Majdanek I learned that it wasn't just polish Jews that were persecuted in the camps--it was Catholics too. My great grandmother and her family were Catholics. So in some way, shape, or form, my ancestors were involved: either as the perpetrators, bystanders, or victims. If any of them lived in Lublin, would they have stood up? Or would they have turned a blind eye? 

Obviously, finding that unexpected personal connection made the experience that much more powerful, but so did the rawness of the camp. It has been the most untouched camp we've been to; a few signs indicating what the buildings or ovens were for, but all in all, it was untouched. I didn't feel like I was in a museum on a field trip; it happened there. It felt real and I felt like I could process my emotions genuinely. Clearly, the Holocaust was incredibly sad, and museums, exhibits, and more structured and touristy concentration camps portray that very well, but it can get repetitive and after seeing so many and I can feel a bit desensitized, especially because we are so detached from the situation. Nothing compares to seeing the evidence firsthand at Majdanek. 

The most powerful part of the tour was seeing the shoes of a little girl. We went into a barrack with the walls and middle of the room lined with clear boxes of shoes. The advantage of Majdanek being so off-the-map was that it had very few other visitors, which made things seem less rushed and allowed time for contemplation. So whereas I rushed by the shoe exhibit at Auschwitz, I stayed for a while at Majdanek, looking at one particular shoe that must have belonged to a little girl, with a little floral design and straps. And then I realized that the reason her shoes were there was because she had been killed. And I knew this factually. I can spit out statistics and tidbits. But it wasn't until seeing those shoes that I had "that moment." (Marcella C)