The sun is shining, the birds are chirping in the trees, the flowers springing up through luscious good quality soil all the sights and sounds of a mid summers day abound yet my soul is cold, my bones are freezing and the a deep chill runs over my skin.Work Makes Free
Auschwitz, the final resting place of millions of men women and children, who liked me listened to the birds felt the sun on their face and watched children skip and jump all the way to their deaths. Millions walked in, very few came out alive.
Auschwitz is a must see for all humanity, the worlds greatest testament to human cruelty, barbarism and failure. Arriving in the middle of the afternoon on a bright summer day, the truly staggering loss of life that occurred in the 3 death camps that make up Auschwitz cannot truly be comprehended. Despite the exhibitions, the bales of human hair and several hundred thousand pairs of shoes, even after looking at the photos and the endless lists of names it is difficult to comprehend the number of lives that this place claimed. There are no graves to mark the fallen, no Jewish synagogue where people can remember their lost loved ones, only a pond where the ashes of some 1.5 million Jews were scattered after being incinerated.
This place will anger the hearts and mind of even the most even tempered of men, this is a place where ghosts live and the sense of despair and dismay that permeates the very ground can almost be felt as you walk by cell block after cell block.
When a train pulled in, men woman and children were separated into two columns those that could work and those that were undesirable.
Those old men, young children and women where sent straight to the showers or so they thought, many people wonder how could so many be fooled into believing that that was where they were really going despite the sombre looks on the male only population of the camp.
Many photos exist that were taken by Nazi medical specialists that show the crowed of people willing walking quite happily to what many of them suspected would be their deaths. As I looked at the last photo I couldn't help but be moved at the sight of two young boys arm in arm skipping down the road to the gas chambers with out a care in the world as if this was a great adventure.
Less than 30 seconds after leaving these photo two young children came skipping through the group of people that I was with laughing and giggling arm in arm, we all stopped. Stopped moving, talking, breathing even thinking. Disbelief and shock that was written on my face was reflected back in the eyes of all those near me. No one moved as we watched these two young boys stop and turn and look at us and wave and then keep on skipping. They could have been ghosts, we all expected them to simply vanish or slowly fade away in this place of hell I wouldn't have been at all surprised.
At the end of the march of death I reached the memorial to the millions murdered. A simple black marble slab lies in the remains of furnace 1 and furnace 2. In this very area I was standing over, one million people were killed because of racist bigotry. Political prisoners, blacks, Jews, poles and gypsies were murdered simply because they existed.
Next to the memorial are errected two simply black marble head stones that stand on the east side of a simple 10 foot by 10 foot pond. These two black markers each represent the ashes of five hundred thousand Jewish men women and children.
Standing before these two simple unmarked grave stones with the sun on my face, the birds chirping and the breeze lightly blowing I wondered how could the world have ever let it happen, how could the civilised world stand back and ignore what was happening around them. How could the people whom the Nazis occupied not know what was going to happen to those that were in any way different to the ideals of the madman Hitler.
And so I whispered a prayer for the millions fallen to whatever divinity may choose to listen, knelt and placed a rock at the base of the graves as so many visitors have done before me and turned and walked away. As I crossed back under the archway and out onto the main road I realised that was one of the few, one of the few who entered the home of death and then walked out again.
Right then and there I vowed that this should never happen again, that the world should learn from one of its darkest hours so that the sacrifice that the millions who died during the Second World War made would not be in vain.
As I stood there a German curator walked over spoke to me.
'I've seen that look on so many men's face.'
I replied, 'What look?”
'The look of those who have seen this place of death and swore that this should never happen again, but you know what, It is still happening'
I was shocked but I pondered on his statement and realised he was right, in Africa as well as eastern Europe ethnic cleansing still occurs millions are discriminated, ostracised and murdered simply because they are of a different colour or race, or worship a different god or follow a rival leader. I'd have liked to believe that the world had learnt its lesson but it seems that man kind has a long way to go and I hope that it doesn’t require our complete extinction before we better ourselves.
And so for those of you that come to Europe too travel and experience the wide variety of food, wine and women. Take a day out of your trip to visit Poland, beneath the surface of this beautiful country hides some of man kinds most hideous scars that time should never be allowed to completely fade. Take a minute to visit Auschwitz; only a minute, to learn, to remember so it never happens again.
As always
Carpe Diem
Ralph Bragg