Auschwitz: 'A chance to finally say goodbye'

[SteveJ]

Auschwitz survivors tell their stories

I realised, looking back, that there was a lot of hatred towards us way before our deportation. I remember one Easter, some young guys coming from the church and how one of them came over to my sister who was sitting on our front step, and slapped her in the face saying: “our priest just told us, you killed Jesus.”

They made us undress, they shaved off our hair. My mother had given my older sister, Rachel, her earrings, containing one big diamond and two smaller ones. She had forgotten to take them off. The woman who shaved her hair tore the earrings from the holes in her ears, while my sister screamed: “They’re my mother’s!” She said to her: “Be happy we’ve left your head on.”

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...oodbye-auschwitz-survivors-tell-their-stories

 

[Sassy Colin]

There was an interesting piece on BBC Breakfast about a group of children who were taken to Lake Windermere after having been liberated from Auschwitz:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/bbc-a...holocaust-survivors-went-from-hell-to-heaven/

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-01-15/when-is-the-windermere-children-on-tv/

 

[Kentonio]

Can't even imagine what it must be like for some of them going back for the first time since they were liberated.

 

[Sigma]

Visited Auschwitz a few weeks ago. Was crazy, very powerful experience being there.

 

[Foxbatt]

Who actually liberated the Auschwitz?

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Soviets wasn't it?

 

[esmufc07]

Horrific stories and a horrific place to visit. The depths to which humanity will sink is shocking.

 

[2cents]

Who actually liberated the Auschwitz?

Red Army.

 

[VeevaVee]

I've never really thought about this aspect of it all, but Steve's first quote and this one struck me - the majority must've had no idea it was coming, which is even more frightening.

They talked about how most people had no idea of what was going to happen to them. That might seem strange today, but back then it was quite normal. We didn’t have television, or even radio or a newspaper. Our main source of news was the village crier, who, maybe twice a week, would walk up and down the street with a piece of wood and a hammer, which he knocked on, calling people to attention. One day he declared: “The people should not go to bed tonight. They should not put on their pyjamas and nightgowns, they should keep their day clothes on and pack a suitcase, because in a few hours a horse and cart will come and pick them up and take them to the next town.” I was 19 when the Hungarians took us away. First to the synagogue. There the women and girls were inspected by the local midwife who was on site to check we were not hiding any precious things, such as jewellery, inside us. She kept apologising, saying she had to do it and she felt ashamed. I desperately wanted to tell her, “I know it’s not your fault that you’re having to do this.”

Before the Hungarians handed us over to the SS, we were told we had to hand over our jewellery. They told us if you don’t hand it over, we will shoot you. That was the first time we had an idea of what their intentions were

and then...

My father had been sent to work. He was 51. There was no chance for any conversation with my mother. No farewell, even if we had thought we might be seeing each other for the last time. It was all too fast for any of that.

Today I remain haunted by the idea of my mother and baby sister going into the gas chambers, each of them asking the other what’s going on, what’s happening, as they choked on the gas. I can’t get it out of my head.

My father might have survived, but I found out later from an acquaintance in a village close to ours that a commando had come to his barracks and asked “who wants another, better work? If so, come with us.” He fell for their trick, and was murdered.

Just horrendous.

It still blows my mind that such unnecessary pain can happen on such a grand scale just because of one person, or a group of people deciding they want it to.

 

[Foxbatt]

Red Army.

Thank you. That's what I thought too but because of all these different statements by everyone I was not sure. It sure seems that it was the Poles themselves or the US troops from the comments of some Politicians.

 

[Tucholsky]

I've never really thought about this aspect of it all, but Steve's first quote and this one struck me - the majority must've had no idea it was coming, which is even more frightening.


and then...




Just horrendous.

It still blows my mind that such unnecessary pain can happen on such a grand scale just because of one person, or a group of people deciding they want it to.

For those interested in original video recordings about the crimes and horrors of the German Concentration Camps:
1945 US made Movie about the Concentration Camps

WARNING: Contains disturbing images

 

[Mr Pigeon]

One of my kids asked about Auschwitz a few days ago and I didn't know how to begin explaining what it was. How do you tell someone that there was a place, like many others, where people were sent to die? No words can begin to explain the hell on earth that it must have been. We keep ourselves so blind to atrocities that we fool ourselves into thinking that, as terrible as things were, they are still within our realm of understanding or imagination.

Media partly has something to do with it - every movie that portrays Auschwitz masks the worst atrocities of that place and the other camps. I fooled myself into thinking that children were somehow protected from the worst, but then I read the below quote and realised how little I knew.

It's very upsetting but it has to be remembered.

Spoiler

The children of Auschwitz concentration camp have to be divided into four groups:

1. Children burned to death immediately on arrival.
2. Children killed in their mothers’ wombs or as soon as they were born.
3. Children born in the camp and allowed to live.
4. Children deported to the camp as prisoners.

In the initial period, all pregnant women without exception were sent to the gas chambers. By 1943 they were permitted to deliver their babies, but the new‑born had no right to live. A midwife drowned the neonates in a barrel of water and then burnt them in the block’s heating stove. At least the mothers were saved. Experiencing the shock of labour and suffering from the severe camp conditions, they were generally not aware of what had happened.

It was harder when a mother knew that her baby would be taken away from her, but at least she was lucky to keep her child after birth. However, after a five‑month fight for her child’s survival she was commanded to bring it and watch it being killed. I remember one mother who hugged her little son and accompanied him to the crematorium.

One train brought about a hundred pregnant women. They were brought to the camp hospital and regardless of the term of their pregnancy all of them had their uterus perforated. Many lost their lives as a result.

Kościuszkowa, J. The fate of children in Auschwitz. Kantor, M., trans. Medical Review – Auschwitz. March 15, 2019. https://www.mp.pl/auschwitz/. Originally published as “Losy dzieci w obozie koncentracyjnym w Oświęcimiu.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim. 1961: 60–61.

We are a horrible species.

 

[Cascarino]

I don’t know if it’s changed nowadays but when I was in school we never covered it. I hope that has changed as what happened during those days and how it came to be is something that everyone should be well versed in.

 

[2cents]

For those interested in original video recordings about the crimes and horrors of the German Concentration Camps:
1945 US made Movie about the Concentration Camps

WARNING: Contains disturbing images

Never heard of this before, thanks for sharing.

 

[Eyepopper]

I'd urge anyone interested in this sort of stuff to read a book called Mans Search For Meaning.

A first hand account of what it was like to live in one of these places, being treated no better than an insect, in full knowledge that you could be killed at any moment, for any reason, and that no questions would be asked.

 

[carvajal]

I was a few years ago.
Despite the rooms with loads of suitcases, shoes and glasses, or the tetric rooms where they slept, what impressed me most were the photos of the prisoners, which populate several rooms.
Their scared faces, and the date of admission and death, which rarely exceeded three months.

 

[Foxbatt]

We are a cruel species and we have never learnt. Countries bombing and invading and killing maiming other people. Look around the world. No one is safe anywhere. The powerful do not care. Look at Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, China, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, South America etc. No one cares. Now it is almost the same isn't it. You get a drone and kill so many innocent people too. How many innocent people have been killed by drones? Too many. Isn't that simple murder when you kill innocent people? Or is a war crime?

 

[Tucholsky]

We are a cruel species and we have never learnt. Countries bombing and invading and killing maiming other people. Look around the world. No one is safe anywhere. The powerful do not care. Look at Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, China, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, South America etc. No one cares. Now it is almost the same isn't it. You get a drone and kill so many innocent people too. How many innocent people have been killed by drones? Too many. Isn't that simple murder when you kill innocent people? Or is a war crime?

No it isn't and it is not even close.
Don't say that, it demeans the victims of the holcaust and the Nazi crimes.

And there will be no further discussion about that.

On any other day we can have a discussion about drone killings and in what way they are war crimes and/or simply murder in the appropriate thread.

 

[momo83]

Crazy that this only happened a few generations ago. We take the peace in Europe for granted

 

[oates]

One of my kids asked about Auschwitz a few days ago and I didn't know how to begin explaining what it was. How do you tell someone that there was a place, like many others, where people were sent to die? No words can begin to explain the hell on earth that it must have been. We keep ourselves so blind to atrocities that we fool ourselves into thinking that, as terrible as things were, they are still within our realm of understanding or imagination.

Media partly has something to do with it - every movie that portrays Auschwitz masks the worst atrocities of that place and the other camps. I fooled myself into thinking that children were somehow protected from the worst, but then I read the below quote and realised how little I knew.

It's very upsetting but it has to be remembered.

Spoiler

The children of Auschwitz concentration camp have to be divided into four groups:

1. Children burned to death immediately on arrival.
2. Children killed in their mothers’ wombs or as soon as they were born.
3. Children born in the camp and allowed to live.
4. Children deported to the camp as prisoners.

In the initial period, all pregnant women without exception were sent to the gas chambers. By 1943 they were permitted to deliver their babies, but the new‑born had no right to live. A midwife drowned the neonates in a barrel of water and then burnt them in the block’s heating stove. At least the mothers were saved. Experiencing the shock of labour and suffering from the severe camp conditions, they were generally not aware of what had happened.

It was harder when a mother knew that her baby would be taken away from her, but at least she was lucky to keep her child after birth. However, after a five‑month fight for her child’s survival she was commanded to bring it and watch it being killed. I remember one mother who hugged her little son and accompanied him to the crematorium.

One train brought about a hundred pregnant women. They were brought to the camp hospital and regardless of the term of their pregnancy all of them had their uterus perforated. Many lost their lives as a result.

Kościuszkowa, J. The fate of children in Auschwitz. Kantor, M., trans. Medical Review – Auschwitz. March 15, 2019. https://www.mp.pl/auschwitz/. Originally published as “Losy dzieci w obozie koncentracyjnym w Oświęcimiu.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim. 1961: 60–61.

We are a horrible species.

How old was your kid who asked? Where did he/she get the topic from?

 

[Synco]

We are a horrible species.

We aren't. I think you've written a very good post there, but here I have to disagree.

I can somewhat understand the impulse leading to that conclusion, in the face of the unspeakable things people are capable of. But it obscures the truth that there were victims and perpetrators, and brave people who did the right things under the harshest condictions. The people that were murdered were part of the same species after all, and should in no way be implicated in the moral depravity of what their murderers did to them. I know that wasn't intended, but I think the 'human nature' metaphor inevitably leads to that pitfall (among other things).