Auschwitz-birkenau Pt.2

The journal entry I wrote immediately after visiting Auschwitz is full of cliches. I had to say, at that time, what so many have already said. I needed to see my feelings on the page, needed to relay the sweeping trauma of what I’d observed and my own inability to grasp it…my terror, my numbness, my privilege to even be there after the fact—as just another tourist. Scanning back over those pages is strange. At certain points, I’m surprised by the particularity of my own internal dialogue and of the unforeseen circumstances that surrounded our trip to the camp.

Just twenty four hours prior to being in Krakow and then Oświęcim (the town associated with Auschwitz), I had been in the Dublin airport preparing to arrive in Poland. Actually, preparing for an incredible three week trek across multiple European countries with some of my closest friends. Poland was just our first stop on a grand tour. But while waiting at our gate in the early evening hours, we received news of a shooting in Nashville at the Covenant school. Three adults were dead. Three children were dead. That was all anybody knew. I vividly remember my friend Annalise laying her head on my shoulder for the duration of the flight, silently crying. The horror of that news made us ill and so had the guilt of being an ocean away, embarking on a great and joyous adventure.

Also noteworthy: I opened and closed my journal entry on Auschwitz with statements about food. Food. Without hesitating, I had recounted our journey to Auschwitz by feeling out its bookends…which happened to be mealtimes. I suppose that makes sense—we hopped on the bus around noon and arrived back to Krakow’s city centre by about seven o’clock. And, we were an insatiably hungry crew of college students. The page reads, “We grabbed sandwiches and then jumped on the bus.”. “When we got back, we ate burgers and then went straight to sleep.”. I chronologically began and ended my writing, like my day, with perfunctory breaks for food. Not even noteworthy, local food. Just fuel. Though slightly embarrassed by that, I think it’s worth mentioning. Because honestly, I find the number of normal, nondescript things I did on that day totally absurd.

I woke up. I ate. I explored. I ate.

I rode in routine transportation towards a former death camp. I saw it, and then I ate again.

I talked with friends. I talked with strangers. I nourished and moved in my body.

I just lived in my body.

I’m not trying to be glib. In fact, upon re-reading my journal I expected to find better evidence of how emotionally rocked I’d been by Auschwitz. The shock of the Covenant school shooting was still heavy upon me. Bits of information had made their way to us overnight and into the next morning. My friends and I were disturbed. Sitting on those red velvet seats of the public bus taking us out to Oświęcim, much of what we pondered silently and discussed among ourselves had to do with Covenant, with the friends of friends and families from our home neighborhoods whom we knew heaved in grief. I wondered if Auschwitz would be even more unbearable given the horrors we were already grappling with (even from so far removed).

I assumed I’d be a mess in the camp, crying mournfully, making connections between mass genocide and loss of innocent life in our hometown just the day before.

Truthfully, I felt none of this anticipated connectivity.

The horror of Auschwitz was so vast in scale, so unimaginably gruesome, that I was (somewhat gratefully) unable to imagine the freshly blood-stained hallways of Covenant school even as I trodded on such wretched, blood-stained ground. The disassociation surprised me. I guess I was too consumed by what was directly in front of me: human hair, striped uniforms, discarded gas cans, barracks, brick chimneys…and I’ll be honest…the piles of stuff, the signage, the buildings, and the curated materials left less of an imprint on me than what was naturally occurring during the hours I was there. The chirping of birds. The shifting patterns of light and weather. The jostling of strangers in tight quarters. The body language of my friends. I remember being engrossed by the strangeness of cleanly swept, completely empty rooms and outdoors, freshly mowed grass. The sounds of distant cars drifted over Auschwitz’ dominating fences and the babbling sounds of small children floated down internal corridors.

Recalling these subtle and organic occurrences is made easier by looking at the photos I took. What my journal entry fails to capture, the images contain. Because it was illegal to photograph the various, disturbing objects on display and because I chose not to photograph certain rooms or chambers out of sensitivity, most materialistic subject matter was off limits. So, without omitting characteristic features of Auschwitz (the main gate, chimneys, the “Halt!” sign), I half-heartedly documented my journey through the camp’s interior by being as vague as possible, by cooperating with what was before me rather than assuming a narrative I hadn’t experienced.

Perhaps that’s why the camp appears so tranquil through my lens. I had no real way of re-injecting the atmosphere with that vile energy which once filled it. I had no real way of re-asserting what had happened there.

I only had my little camera, little nuances of light and shadow, little changes in expression at every turn.

I only had what I could hold and what I felt, which was an unexpected sense of responsibility. A responsibility for every step I took, for every interaction I had with another human on the premises. A responsibility to be fully there and to be fully honest. Being on the camp’s premises proved more meditative than educational, and I think that’s ok.

Let us reckon with the wounds, in the ways that we can.