1.3 million people live in New Hampshire according to the 2014 census.
1.1 million people were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camps between the years 1940 and 1945.
During that same timeframe, a total of over 11 million people were murdered in the various concentration camps, Jewish ghettos etc.
This week we visited the Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps which are about an hour outside of Krakow. I was as mentally prepared as I could be. Having done walking tours in Berlin, Prague and Krakow, the devastation of the Holocaust was certainly top of mind. You can’t visit these places and not feel the loss. Last week while having some down time in Prague, we watched Schlinder’s List for the first time. We met other travelers who had already been to Auschwitz and they told us that we’d see a room full of human hair, a room with an enormous pile of eyeglasses, another room full of shoes, etc. Items left behind from those who were murdered by the Nazis.
The first set of remnants left behind that we saw was the room full of human hair. Hair shaven off of men, women and children after they were murdered naked in masses because they were Jewish. Suffocated with poisonous gas because the Hitler regime wanted to destroy them. I will never forget this site and how I felt so much sadness for the loss of so many innocent people.
What touched me and hurt me more than anything was the room that had a massive pile of dishes. Was it because I hadn’t heard about this particular display or something else? I don’t know. What I do know is that when these millions of people were taken out of the Jewish ghettos or their homes, they were told to pack their things, that they were being brought further East in Europe where they’d have a better life. They packed their special dishes believing that they’d use them again someday to share meals with their friends and family. Instead, they were brought to a concentration camp and upon arrival were immediately deemed either 1) fit for slave labor or 2) sent directly to the gas chamber. If you were old, crippled, a child, a pregnant woman or just unfit - you were automatically in the second group. The piles of brightly colored dishes, many with family names on them, just hit me really, really hard. Those of us walking this earth freely are so incredibly lucky to live in the times we are living in and to be able to share meals with the people we love.
We had an escort guiding us through the grounds at Auschwitz-Birkenau. After about an hour, our guide said, “I’d like to tell you my story…”. She went on to tell us that her father-in-law had been imprisoned at Auschwitz for 14 months. He was a Polish prisoner, not a Jewish prisoner. At one point of the war, select Jewish prisoners were given jobs outside the walls of the concentration camp. Her father-in-law was a 19 year old baker who gave bread to these Jewish workers. He knew the risk he was taking giving these prisoners food they were not allowed to have. But he had extra, and he wanted to help them. On the day it was discovered that he was giving food to these people, he was thrown in the concentration camp too. After suffering in Auschwitz himself for 14 months, he was moved to a camp in Austria. It was there, at that age of 21, that American soldiers liberated the camp, and therefore him. When he was rescued, he was 66 lbs. 66 lbs. I don’t know how tall he was, but when our guide gestured towards his height, it was taller than me, and I’m 5’ 9”. I can’t imagine 66 lbs on my frame. She said that when he went home, no one recognized him. He was skin and bones and nothing else. He suffered from health issues for the rest of his short life, perishing at the age of 42. Before he died, he asked her to work at Auschwitz. She promised him that she would. She then revealed to us that she was oldest guide at Auschwitz having worked there for over 40 years. The authenticity of this woman and her personal connection certainly made our experience ever-so-more-real.
I knew that I’d learn many things on our journey around the globe: maybe a little Italian, new things about myself and about my relationship with Jake….expand my palate to enjoy new foods. What I didn’t expect was to relearn so much history. I am loving it. As sad as most of it is, it gives me a new type of appreciation for my life and the times in which I am living.