Grab Bag: Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Remembrance

Weaving together three strands of my own life, while the world bows its head in remembrance.

This is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Hitler’s concentration/execution camps, a somber remembrance taking place there, around much of the world, and in my own heart.

It is only recently that I have woven strands of what once seemed like separate events into a single braid. What seemed distant, an exploration of history, I now realize is as intimately connected and personal as anything else in my life.

When I was in 7th grade, I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and wrote a paper about it for my political science class. From the time I was 8 or 9, I read everything I could find on the topic, but I never thought about why I was so eager to explore such horrific history at that age. I always chalked it up to being a fairly serious kid with two major interests: The Holocaust and slavery and racism in America. During this time and for another decade or so, I would wake up screaming to a certain type of siren. I had no idea why it troubled me or even why it was familiar.

Fast forward to 1998, when I was invited on a press trip to Poland. I wanted to go because I had almost finished the first edition of my book Salt & Pepper and was eager to visit the Wieleczka Salt Mine near Krakow. That Auschwitz-Birkenau were on the itinerary made me determined to join in.

The 3-hour visit to the mine was enchanting. Soon after we entered, I licked my finger, rubbed it against a black wall, and licked it: Yes, it was made of salt. I will share that story, with photos, another time.

After leaving the mine, we went to Auschwitz. Our guide was a young Polish woman, who lead us with minimal words, a respectful silence, and a quiet dignity. She stood by, not speaking, as we took in each new horror. The clear blue sky and warm sun seemed so incongruous to what felt like and was a descent into the evil that humans are capable of.

We walked through corridor after corridor, the walls of which were covered with photos of some who perished there. At one of the doors that lead to the Wall of Death, a pair of striped pajamas rested crumbled on the floor just before the first step out of the build. Prisoners about to be executed had to disrobe completely before stepping out to the wall, fully naked, where they were shot. Several small vases filled with flowers were tucked here and there in the wall. A man, alone, stood, his head leaning against the wall, tears sliding down his cheeks.

The Wall of Death at Auschwitz

Several buildings were devoted to possessions taken from the more than a million Jewish people killed here. Each museum case, which extended the length of the buildings, included glass installed at an angle, so that it seemed to cover our heads and gave a feeling of being encased in what we saw: One held eye glasses, some in cases, others not. One held luggage, mostly black and brown suitcases, piled high. One held thousands of canisters that had contained the poison gas used to slaughter our fellow humans.

Another held shoes, mostly rugged work boots, the kind worn in harsh winters. But near the front, close to where I was standing, was a single high-heeled red sandal, with an ankle strap. The story this shoe told, of a young woman in the prime of her youth, perhaps out on a date with her love, nearly broke me. I thought of my life-long love of red shoes, of the joyful shock of hearing Elvis Costello’s (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes for the first time. I began to cry, silently.

Soon, we came to the room that held wheelchairs, wooden crutches, metal crutches, artificial limbs, and leg braces, piled as high as the suitcases, glasses, shoes, and canisters. I lasted, fixated, for just a few moments before stumbling outside, sobbing. My most recent longterm relationship had been with a man who was paralyzed from his lower chest down, the result of a neighbor kid and him playing with his father’s gun. Sometimes he used a wheelchair, sometimes braces and crutches. In addition to Jews, those with such physical infirmities were rounded up and murdered.

Next we went into the room where the “showers” had been, the showers that spewed poison gas, not water. Low benches ringed the room and on an opposite wall, a row of candles cast haunting shadows. Next, we were escorted into the room with two large ovens, an image so horrific that I can’t, won’t describe it. Beyond this room was a door to the outside, where railroad tracks received the train cars full of prisoners, some as young as two.

No one except the man in charge of our itinerary spoke and he kept rushing us, not allowing us to linger in contemplation. We boarded the bus and within a few moments, were at Birkenau, a smaller and possibly even more cruel place. Candles, flickering as darkness began to fall upon the landscape, were set on railroad ties. We were lead into a long narrow room with wooden bunks, beneath which were holes where prisoners stood knee deep or higher in human sewage, hoping to escape the eyes of the guards.

I don’t remember anyone speaking.

As news over the weekend and today focuses on the 80th commemoration of liberating the camps, I began to revisit all that I had seen and read over the years. Suddenly, what was, I believe, the first strand of this braid came into focus.

I am about 3 ½. I am alone in our living room while my mother cooks dinner. Night begins to fall and all I see is the black and white television. Suddenly, there are piles of naked dead bodies being moved by a bulldozer. I watch, transfixed and horrified. Maybe the sound is off as there is no narration, though I recall hearing the sirens that will plague me for most of my life. Overwhelmed, I stand up and walk into the kitchen, where my mother is standing facing the stove. I lean against the back of her legs, neither speaking nor moving. My head is turned, so that my right cheek rests against her peddle pushers. As I think of it now, I can feel the roughness of the fabric and see the red and white striped pattern.

I am not Jewish, though I did have a Jewish aunt and three cousins for a couple of years, until she and my uncle divorced. I attended Friday evening services with them a number of times and recall the kindness of the rabbi, who welcomed me by name, with a big smile. The marriage didn’t last long and after a few years I lost track of Frankie, Beno, and Elisa, whose father had died in a fire before their mother married my uncle.

The world must not forget. Auschwitz is preserved so gracefully, almost as if it is simply frozen in time. Displays are organized, but minimally so, each museum case devoted to a single thing, which provides both intimacy — those red shoes! — and scale, the thousands of shoes, of canisters, of eyeglasses, and so much more.

And now what? Cruelty is blossoming, in our own country and in so many other places on our little blue planet. My thoughts turn to Gaza and the Palestinians, to Darfur, to our trans community, to women, to our immigrants, to the migrants at our border seeking refuge, and my heart breaks all over again.

Have we learned nothing?