April 9, 2013

31 of 65

Ghosts of Auschwitz

This is a travel story. Let me set the stage.

Our son Michael was participating in a summer session of Semester at Sea, taking classes while sailing to exotic locales on a cruise ship for three months. An optional parents’ trip was scheduled to meet the ship in St. Petersburg, Russia; spend a few days, then sail to Gdansk, Poland; see some sights in Poland; and return home. Neither Cathy nor I had been to that part of Europe, so we would have liked to go, but . . .

Cathy is a Registered Nurse, specializing as a lactation consultant. To work in that field it is necessary to be certified by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners (“IBLCE”). Certification requires completing specific education and passing an exam that is given no more than once a year. She was scheduled to take the exam on a date immediately after the parents’ trip concluded, and she was enrolled in review classes in the days leading up to the exam. She simply could not go.

To make matters worse, we were moving just a week before the trip was to begin and were not sure that the significant remodeling of our new (to us) house would be completed. It was quite a stressful time.

As a good husband, I knew how difficult this period would be for Cathy. Clearly the most helpful thing I could do was go to Europe alone to spend some time with Michael.
It was another “once in a lifetime” opportunity.

Cathy even told me I should go.

St. Petersburg was called Leningrad during Russia’s Communist years. During World War II, the Germans had attempted to capture the city, but failed. The siege which lasted from September 1941 until January 1944 had resulted in millions of deaths – perhaps as many as 4.5 million – but had prevented the German (and some Finnish) troops from pushing any further into Russia. The Russian stand at Leningrad, combined with the defeat of an army of over one million German troops at Stalingrad (now Volgograd) during the winter of 1942-43, turned the tide of World War II and was pivotal to the defeat of the Nazis.

Now rebuilt and restored, St. Petersburg, the former home of the czars, is a thriving industrial and cultural center and home of the magnificent Hermitage Museum, beautiful churches and the nearby Peterhof Palace. The city is so far North that during the summer – a time known as the White Nights – the sky remains light until midnight or beyond.

Gdansk, Poland is another city that has been important historically, as well as in modern Europe. It is a major port on the Baltic Sea. Known to the Germans as Danzig, it is the city where the first battle of World War II was fought. It was the home to Lech Walesa and the 1980s Solidarity movement that brought an end to Communist rule in Poland.

From Gdansk, a group of us traveled by train to Krakow, once the capital of Poland, and which is still, even more than Warsaw, the cultural center of the country. Krakow was not heavily bombed during World War II, so sites such as the Wawel Royal Castle and the 14th Century St. Mary’s Basilica remain. The house in which Nicolas Copernicus dwelt in the 15th Century is now a restaurant on the same street as the apartment in which Pope John Paul II lived when he was a student 500 years later.

There was so much to see. The next day our group boarded a bus to visit the City of Oswiecim. That is the Polish name, though most people refer to its German name – Auschwitz.

Auschwitz, of course, was the most notorious of the German concentration camps in the Second World War. It is located barely a mile from an even larger camp – Birkenau, sometimes referred to as Auschwitz II. Though they were used as labor camps, Auschwitz, and more especially Birkenau, had one primary purpose:  Extermination. Prisoners – men, women, and children, mostly Jews – were brought by train from across Nazi-occupied Europe and systematically murdered in large gas chambers. It has been reported that as many as 3 million died there. Historians now believe that the number was only half that; but the number is staggering.

Auschwitz has been restored and made a museum lest the world forget what occurred there. I knew that the visit would be an emotional experience, but I was not sure what to expect. Frankly, I was a bit nervous. Some of those on the bus with us seemed ready to cry even before leaving Krakow.

What I saw when the bus pulled into the parking area was not at all what I had anticipated. It was a warm day. Children played and people were sunbathing in a grassy park. Vendors sold hot dogs and soft drinks along the sidewalk. Should I look for an “I ♥ Auschwitz” bumper sticker as a souvenir, I wondered.

Groups touring the camp were required to follow guides. Ours led us through the gate to our first stop, the theater. Everyone had to watch a brief film giving an overview and historical introduction to the complex. The film concluded and we were led through another gate into the concentration camp, itself.

The mood suddenly changed. It was very quiet. It seemed strange to see lawns and streets lined with large trees. We gazed into barracks where prisoners had been quartered and into the offices of German administrators. As we walked to the building housing the heaps of shoes and the room full of eyeglasses taken from victims who were forced into gas chambers, I began to hear faint voices in my head. Within minutes, the voices were louder and clearly begging me for help. They told me they were suffering and hungry. They asked about their children, their families. The voices pleaded with me to take them away.

I mentally answered that I could do nothing. I was 60 years too late to provide any assistance. I said it was inappropriate for any of them to remain. They were dead. They needed to move on.

The guide showed us the bakery and described how the bread was kneaded and rolled each morning, how it was placed into the oven. He took us past the much larger ovens built for cremation.

The voices changed as I moved from place to place, but they all asked me for help; begged me to get them out of there.

I was on a tour, listening to a guide, being shown the wall where some, because of special crimes, had been lined up and shot. I told the voices that I could do nothing. I prayed that angels would come to lead these victims to wherever they should be. They were not ready to go. It was obvious they did not know they were supposed to go. Still they begged me to take them away.

The voices quieted as we walked away from the main area of the camp and toward the exit. We had to get back on the bus to see Birkenau.

Poland was just then becoming a member of the European Union. I asked the guide how people felt about the much stronger ties they would have with Germany because of that membership. “The Pope is German,” he said. “It will be good.”