My Connection To Auschwitz

I need to deviate from my normal blog this one time and let this soak in.

Got back from Auschwitz late last night. Not sure how to start.

Overwhelming is probably the best description. No one would believe the enormity unless they saw first hand the piles of items the Nazis took... like combs - piles and piles of combs.... piles and piles of tooth brushes, wire rimmed glasses, human hair shaved from the dead which they later returned to Germany for textiles and stuffing... clothing on clothing... and the part which really made me quiet was seeing the stacks of baby shoes. You would not believe the pile... and these were just a fraction because most were sent back to Germany. I had to estimate there were hundreds which ranged from 3 months old to just barely toddlers. Tough to even write about and... really tough to hold it together while looking at them.

I was already down, then around the corner I saw something that would later make my heart sink even further, if you can imagine that. In another exhibit they had placed stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of luggage. Most of them had self-written names with addresses... because the Nazis said they would be getting their belongings right back and delivered to them a little while later after they were settled.


I didn't associate anything from all the names from all the suitcases because I wasn’t looking that closely - there were just too many to process in my mind. Everything started to become numb as I disassociated myself from what was in front of me. There were so many suitcases and so many names just in this one enclosure. It was hard to imagine 1.1 million of these suitcases over 4 years. There were too many to read right in front of my eyes so it was easy to skip over them because the names were unfamiliar to me. I am sure they were just ordinary European names, Polish names, Jewish names, names from everywhere... names I had never really seen, but they became common names too quickly when I skipped over them... too common... all were phantom people to me... people I did not know... people that were ghosts to me... I had no connection to them... then one suitcase changed it all for me. As I stared at it, I realized that these were people that were known and loved by others and they just disappeared brutally without a trace, minutes after getting out of the rail cars just like cattle. Right then I knew how horrible it was. I thought I knew before... but I didn't.  I did not really know until I saw that one suitcase and I put myself into the situation. What would you think if you saw your name on that suitcase… or your spouse’s name… or your child’s name… or someone you really loved? Tough to think about it until you realize that those suitcases were just that. In that life could have been someone you knew or loved... and all of them had someone.