By Shiraz Rimer, Year 11
I stood there on the muddy Polish ground where millions of human beings suffered, agonized and died. In the very place where so many innocent souls endured pain. Where people were dehumanized and treated in the worst way possible. Where a man was no longer a man.
The sky was grey, but like Primo Levi said, the sky over Auschwitz is always grey. As I walk on the soil that I know many prisoners walked on before me, I feel the weight and depth of the place. My feet following in the footsteps of history. I am in a ghost city. In the heart of a machine built by hate.
In the crematoriums, I have a hard time breathing. I can feel the death still floating in the air. On the walls, I see the scratches. Thousands of people died within these walls. In the next room, I see the four big ovens built to burn the Jewish bodies. Our guide tells us that when the Jews in the room were all dead, the Sonderkommando had to go in and search the motionless, skeletal bodies for gold teeth and jewelry. The Sonderkommando was made up of Jews who were forced to do this job under death threats. They sometimes recognized their family members and friends. After searching for jewelry, they would also have to cut the hair off of the women. This was then used to make carpets, socks and blankets. In the museum, there is a room full of that hair, 7 tons of it to be precise. Once this ‘chore’ was completed, they had to load the bodies onto the carts to roll them into the ovens.
Everything the Nazis did at Auschwitz was laced with inexplicable sadism. The prisoners had to endure every second in inhumane agony. They were completely and utterly dehumanized. Not a single aspect of life was left untouched. We will never truly be able to understand what it was like to be at Auschwitz. No matter how hard we try, the pain that the prisoners had to endure on a daily basis is unimaginable.
When I get home, the only thing I want to do is take a hot shower. It seems to be the only way to wash away the hard, tiring and freezing day. As I step in, reality hits me and I feel disgusted by my actions and thoughts. How come I can take a hot shower? Sleep in a bed? These simple luxuries were ones that the prisoners could only dream of. My day was not even comparable to what the prisoner’s days were like. How could I be so selfish. On my way to school, I think “It’s freezing” but I don’t know what it’s like to be freezing: I’m wearing a warm coat, pants and a sweater. The prisoners had only their pyjamas. At lunch, I hear myself say “I’m starving”, but the reality is, I don’t know what starvation is. At night, I can’t sleep because the images of Auschwitz are stuck in my head like a nightmare, but to the prisoner this nightmare was their reality.
