Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz, Poland
2007
Auschwitz, Poland
2007
Jim and I are on a train, making our way to Auschwitz. “I wonder if this is the actual route they took”, he comments ever so somberly. “I wonder how much they knew what going in to here. What were they thinking when they pulled up here?” His tone is unusually pensive.
The setting is just as horrible as the concentration camp in Dachau. So the harse reality doesn’t slap me in the face the way it did for Jim. But the exhibit of the solders’ socks made with the hair of the prisoners seems particularly cruel to me.
Jim is very quiet as we all are. We walk around in silence and try to figure out how to even respond to all of this ugliness. Just then, our silence is broken. An older couple approaches us. We are standing by the execution wall where the prisoners had to stand and be shot or watch others as they are executed. The wall has an ugly history, one of murder, shame and grief.
“Excuse me, would you be so kind? Would you take a photo of my wife and I in front of the wall?” he asked ever so cheerfully, oblivious to the thoughtlessness of his request.
The thought of cheerfully posing in front of this horrific wall offends me as it does Jim. He looks at me and I look back at him in disbelief of this disrespectful gesture.
“No”, Jim answers, “No, we won’t” and we walk away.
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