Wow! Where has the last month gone?! I can't believe its already almost April!
This last week we had vacation. I went with a smaller group to Krakow Poland for about a week. We stormed castles, ate gelato, tamed fire breathing dragons and flying rats, bartered with local merchants, and survived Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was a pretty intense week!
The main reason we chose Krakow was because we wanted to see the Auschwitz concentration camp. This trip was one of the most eye opening and life changing experiences of my life. Going to camp and learning so much about it. The things people went through. The process of how things worked there. It overwhelmed me. I didn't cry while at the camp like I thought I would, although I was close a couple of times. These are the reasons I came close:
1-Auschwitz was a work camp. There you would be worked to death, literally. If you weren't strong enough to work you were killed immediately. If you weren't able to work you were killed. If you worked too slowly you were hung by your wrist in a way that would dislocate your shoulders, rendering you unable to work, therefore you would be killed.
I have days, more often then I'd like to admit, where I have a hard time getting going. I usually get stuff done, but for whatever reason I never seem to accomplish what I need to accomplish, and the things I do get done happen at a painful slow pace. And usually not with any semblance of good attitude.
Do you ever have days when you just want to stay home? Relax, take it easy, recuperate? And on said days have you still had to go to work, or go to school, or do your best to get everything done that you need to get done that day? Those are the days I'm talking about. I still am productive but my heart isn't in it.
I can't imagine anyone in those camps being able to put their hearts into the work they were doing. My natural reaction to that would be dragging my feet as I did it. The consequence being that I would be hung, shoulders dislocated, and killed. I probably wouldn't have lasted very long there unless I was able to overcome my natural reaction to being "tired". And that is a very sobering thought. So I've been thinking a lot about what I need to do to change the way I think when I'm feeling that way. I believe that whatever it was that helped those prisoners to find the strength to carry on amidst their trials and afflictions, whatever characteristic they possessed that helped them to persevere, whatever it is it exists in me as well. Its like finding out you've had a dormant superpower your entire life and now you need to figure out how to use it correctly. That is how I felt when I thought of the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau. And that is one of the many life changing things I learned there.
2-At Auschwitz-Birkenau there were several gas chambers. As part of the selection process and registration they would have those they couldn't put to work or experiment on sent to the "showers" to disinfect from diseases. 2,000 people would be required to strip down and squeeze into a room together. Then gas would be dropped in through vents in the roof and within 20 minutes everyone would be dead.(About 10,000 people a day were killed this way.) The 2 main gas chambers are still there, in piles of rubble left by the soldiers who destroyed them just before liberation to try to cover any evidence. Standing at the top of the steps got to me. Hundreds of thousands of people...women, children, the sick, the elderly and handicapped...who had no idea was about to happen to them, descended those stairs believing they were about to see a brighter future.
With everything I've learned recently its made me take a step back to evaluate myself. What do I believe? What am I capable of? How would I have reacted? What would I have done? Who am I? And would I be strong enough to stand up for that regardless of the consequences?
I am grateful that I didn't have to live through that, and now more than ever I have an inexpressible respect for anyone who lived through the holocaust and WWII. And to my Omi and Opi, who lived in Germany during WWII, who have shown me the strength and perseverance that is in me. Because of their examples I know what I am capable of. And that is a self liberation that brings an entirely new level of hope and promise!
See what I mean? LIFE CHANGING!
