My Visit to Auschwitz.

We entered the gate of Auschwitz 1, the words "Arbeit Macht Frei" above our heads, a lie told to the millions who walked through unknown.

The feelings as soon as you entered the gates were confusion. How could a place like this, be a place once filled with Jews, and anyone the Nazi's deemed imperfect. It is hard to believe, or to see what it once was, it is now filled with the voices of people who don't want to forget, but it was once filled with fear and sadness. 
When entering Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau) I felt overwhelmed, this is where most of the gas-chambers were, this is where thousands walked into their death without realising. It was hard to believe I was standing where the trains would come and drop off thousands of people, into the unknown.

The Death Wall

One quote that caught my eye was one by George Santayana, who said "Those who do not remember the past are condemed to repeat it" which is one of the main reasons why I want to keep the conversation of the holocaust going. Each life that was lost deserves to be remembered.

Whilst in Auschwitz 1, I came across a photo of a Jewish boy from Poland, named Moses Pomeranc, this boy was the same age as me at the time and died on my birthday. This hit me straight away, for it makes you consider how your life is now and what it could of been like if you were that age in the 1940's. Moses was transported from Radom on the 20th of February, he died less than a month later. This was a real life, as important as ours, and it was taken away due to antisemitism. 

Their suitcases, with names and the date.

Another person who enetered Auschwitz was Elie Wiesel, a Jewish man born in Romania who lost both his mother and his sister at Auschwitz. Wiesel said "how could it be possible for them to burn people, children and for the world to keep silent?"

 

Zlata Razdolina - Russian Jewish Composer

The lives of 1.3 million people were forgotten about after entering Auschwitz 1 and 2, but we have to ensure these lives are remembered now, whether this is through talking, visiting these places or even sitting and thinking about the 1.3 million, or the 6 million overall.



Every individual who perished was part of a community, behind the 6 million who perished are individuals who lived life across Europe. Although we may not know their names, or what they look like, think about their culture, their lifestyle, their ideas. They were human, like us. They lived a life before this happened, they had jobs, they had friends and family. One man's hatred took this away. The "perpetrators" were not only those who committed murder, but also those who played any part in the complex mechanism of the genocide.