Lessons from Aushwitz and Birkenau

Our tour through Auschwitz/Birkenau started with our entrance through the main gate with the inscription, “Work Will Set You Free.”

Birkenau Gas Chamber:  One of the two gas chambers used at Birkenau.  As the Soviet Army approached Auschwitz and Birkenau the Nazis tried to destroy the evidence of their activities.  They attempted to destroy the gas chambers, but the explosions were incomplete.  The gas chambers are still there as a grisly reminder of the atrocities of the Nazis.   

1.1 million were murdered.  The first prisoners executed in a gas chamber happened in Block 11 (Building 11) in August 1941, and later gas chamber executions were moved to Birkenau.  Prisoners died from beatings for random minor reasons.  Those not killed in gas chambers were starved, shot, died from medical experiments or were hanged.  The prisoners arrived by train. They were unloaded and sorted on the spot.  Those who could work were sent into one group.  The rest into another group who were set in a line for the gas chambers.

Auschwitz was originally set up as a concentration labor camp.  Prisoners were arrested, processed and admitted and sent to work in various programs.  Work was difficult, dangerous, and very labor intensive.  One meal per day, at night, after they were returned to their Block.  After 3 or 4 months, the workers became walking skeletons and were unable to work.  They were set aside and died from starvation, disease, or execution.  The lost laborer would be replaced by the newly arrested coming to the camp.

Between 1940 and 1943 the Nazis deported 1.3 million people to KL Auschwitz: 960,000 Jews (865,000 went the gas chambers upon arrival) / 74,000 non-Jewish Poles / 21,000 Roma /15,000 Soviet prisoners of war /15,000 from other locations.  1.1 million died in Auschwitz.  90% of the deaths had a Jewish background.

The arrests started with those who openly opposed the Nazi regime, followed by the political leaders, the teachers and scholars, the reporters, the wealthy and finally the Jews.  It was determined the Jews were the biggest problem for reasons ranging from their level of high education (they were taught critical reasoning processes to enable their theological discussions) and their tendency to avoid social interaction with other faiths.  The concentration camps, and finally the gas chambers, became the Nazi’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”  

Walking through the barracks which had been converted into museum displays we saw complete rooms of:  Suitcases: all labeled and identified….the owners had been told to clearly mark their suitcases so they could be collected when they returned, not knowing they were being taken directly to the gas chambers.  Hair.  The hair had been cut off the dead people, stored and then rewoven into cloth for uniforms.  Shoes: stacks of shoes which would be broken down and the components reused.  Rings, watches, jewelry: removed from the dead bodies and processed and the metal used in manufacturing.  Nothing was wasted….except the people.

We too are becoming an “Us vs Them” culture. We seem to have forgotten is that we exist on a single planet, and no matter the theological differences, political tendencies, or personal heritage it takes all of Us working together to make a functioning society.  The reality is, it is only “Us” and we are all in this together.