Auschwitz, Seventy Years Later: A Short Story, and Context
I've been traveling for 10 days, and I'm finally home from SteemFest and a second business conference I attended the week after in Munich. This 50-word short story and accompanying backstory are, in part, my attempt to reckon with what I saw and experienced on a day trip to Auschwitz.
I have posts coming about the experience of SteemFest — lovely, entertaining posts full of people and joy and learning. But I felt that I must write this first.
Auschwitz, Seventy Years Later
Rachel’s group toured barracks, gas chambers, ovens.
She had come to remember great-uncle Shevah, who lost a leg in WWI and died here in WWII.
“The SS took everything useful,” her guide explained in the prosthetic room. “If unfit, they were killed right away.”
Rachel wept, praying he hadn’t suffered.
Thank you for reading my story. The pictures are my own, taken on November 10th, 2018 when I was in Poland for the SteemFest conference, and went with a group to tour Auschwitz.
It was a profound experience, and one I didn't feel I could write about in a regular blog post. I needed to separate this somehow, and I chose fiction as the vehicle for sharing at least a little of what that experience was like, and what it meant.
But now that I have gotten started, I find that I have more to say.
It is a lot to take in — that people treated other human beings like lesser creatures in the Holocaust. Less worthy of food, warmth, decency, life. That they lied to them, told them they would be sent to camps to work instead of to their death. That many Jews were transported and retained in horrible conditions which many could not survive. That the SS sent thousands of them into gas chambers, telling the Jews that they were going to clean, hot showers. That they killed them at first in small numbers, and then developed more and more efficient ways to kill the massive numbers of Jews that were rounded up from their homes throughout Poland and sent by train to camps like Auschwitz and neighboring Birkenau (Auschwitz II).
One of many signs around the maintained ruins of Auschwitz describing the buildings and conditions of the Nazi concentration camps.
My father fought in Germany in the war, and some of the stories he told me will stick with me for the rest of my life. Other than that, I have no unique perspective on any of this, and no personal history to share. My ancestors did not spend time in Nazi death camps. But millions did, And an estimated 1.1 million Jews died in the Auschwitz camps alone.
According to Wikipedia:
No one knows exactly how many people were sent to Auschwitz, or how many died there. However, historians estimate that between 1940 and 1945, the Nazis sent at least 1.3 million people to Auschwitz.[4] About 1.1 million of these people died or were killed at Auschwitz.[4]They don't know the actual count because many people were erased. They were gassed, then burned. Our guide at Auschwitz told us several of the ways ashes were dealt with, but I can't remember them. There was more information than I could take in. I do remember that she said the grounds of Auschwitz are covered with ashes.
Let's talk about the numbers. I can't even visualize one million. Can you? Think about this.
Here's a picture of one thousand dots:
One million is one thousand thousands: 1,000 x 1,000. If we copied this picture of 1,000 dots and put it in one long scrolling list on a page, maybe we would begin to get an idea.
But to imagine each dot as a person, with hopes, dreams, and unique abilities — babies, gifted musicians, barbers, butchers, mothers, fathers, seamstresses, shop owners, young men and women hoping to get married and build a life — is even more mind numbing. And devastatingly sad. There really is no way to sum up or simplify one's feelings about the holocaust, and I won't try.
Personal stories give perspective, I think. That's what I tried to do in this 50-word story. I wanted to consider one life, and the outcome that may have occurred due to that person's state of being.
The character in the story (Rachel) visits Auschwitz in the modern day to honor the memory of her great-uncle. All she knows is that he died there. But when the guide (like our group's guide) describes the process of selection, and that those who were seen as unfit to work were sent immediately to the gas chamber, she believes that a piece of lost history falls into place. Because she knows that one detail about his prosthetic, she believes that she may be able to guess what happened to him. And she prays that means he did not suffer, as those did who lived through cold winters with almost no food or clothing in unheated buildings.
A Real Auschwitz Story
One of the incredible things that happened on the trip to Auschwitz is that I spent time chatting with @techslut and @mrlightning who are down-to-earth, smart, funny and wonderful to talk to. @mrlightning has an amazing story of his grandfather who lived in Auschwitz. He survived and went on to live his life and to marry again (his first wife and his child did not survive Auschwitz). @techslut was able to do some research and wrote about it. You can read it here.
I hope this helps me to end this on a somewhat lighter note. Thank you for reading.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://jaynalocke.com/2018/11/18/auschwitz-seventy-years-later-a-short-story/
To me it was a bit of a surreal experience. A lot of Hebrew text everywhere. A lot of dark humor in my mind - it's how I deal with it. Shit like: "Should I pack some food or is there an Auschwitz snack shop?" and "Should I take some ashes from Birkenau and put it in an urn in the living room? Technically, it's family ashes."
Perhaps the most surprising thing to me about that visit was the number of Steemians from all over the world who attended this trip. To me, living in Israel, the Holocaust is the horrible thing that happened to our ancestors. One to remember and never relive. Seeing other people from all over the world take it in, cry, remember with us is... awe-inspiring. I was pretty sure Barak and I would be the only ones taking time off partying to visit Auschwitz, but when I read @roelandp organized buses and a tour, I was speechless and grateful. The universe decided for me I needed to be there with Barak, to learn more about his family history.
Well said, @techslut. Including the bit about the Auschwitz snack shop. Yes, they had several. Human need doesn't go away just because we face things that are difficult, right? We still need to eat, pee, scratch an itch. But yes, it's jarring and incongruous to see folks standing around waiting their turn to tour the grounds of Auschwitz, eating a hot dog. One has to find a way to parse it all, even if through humor.
I'm glad to hear the experience was somehow fortifying for you and Barak. I can only imagine what it must be like to piece together bits of this horrid past from your own ancestry. The fact that his grandfather really did not want to tell his story, that he preferred to lock it down and push it away is both understandable and devastating. What details might you know if he had told them instead, or written them down? But everyone deals with their life's woes in different ways. I've spent time wondering what I would have done in his place. It is unimaginable. But that rich past, that story, is an incredible piece of personal history.
I didn't mention it in the post, but this short story was directly inspired by what I learned from you and Barak. While "enjoy" is probably not the right word, I did enjoy hearing you two talk about it.
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I wandered Auschwitz in a daze
Mind flayed by the cattle stalls
Muscles tight, tears held in stasis,
dead chambers now collapsed.
Cold, stacked shelves line walls
where women were left to die.
I ate a Twix surreptitiously,
while the starving eyes of dead
watched sun-baked tourists pass.
Ovens should only bake bread.
I've been unable to write about my experience at Auschwitz & Birkenau... until now. I honestly found the whole thing too much at the time and ended up retreating inside my mind - there wasn't much going on up there intellectually - as a defense mechanism. That verse above is the start (and first draft) of a poem I'm going to write about that place. When I think about it my last post on steem was a little bit influenced by the trip to Auschwitz, but in the strangest possible way.
Your 50 word story is fantastic @jayna. It is tragic, with an impact that really hits home. You manage to subtly show one of the many sick and twisted processes the Nazis had in there genocide. It's details like the prosthetics that slap you in the face when you visit Auschwitz. The many pointless exiengencies they had for killing. The inhuman bureaucracy.
Posted using Partiko Android
Great poem, @raj808. I can only imagine what it must be like to visit a place where so much cruelty was committed.
It is sad that despite all the effort that has been done to not let time make people forget about this atrocity, similar crimes have been committed since and everything suggests that more are still to happen.
Different actors, same play.
I remember this poem by Carl Samburg
Hopefully, we won't get to that point of forgetfulness.
Yes, all true, @hlezama. Thank you for those poetry references!
Thank you so much for sharing that, @raj808. I was pretty certain I wasn’t the only one struggling with how to talk about this piece of our incredible experiences at SteemFest. Or how to deal with it at all, emotionally. Your poem is stunning. Please keep on it.
As writers, we do have an outlet for creating context around and expressing the most difficult ideas. It’s not easy, though, is it? Particularly with things our minds can’t even fully grasp, or that are profoundly devastating. How does one talk about massive human suffering and death and do it it justice? We can only try.
I will find your other post. It’s good to be back home and catching up.
nicely put together :) won't ever forget our trip there, not in another 70 years.
Thank you, @vladivostok. Me either. And I'm glad they maintain Auschwitz as an historical site, and do the tours. We must never forget or let it happen again.
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Wonderful! Thank you!
Oh man, I'm glad I went on the river boat. I remember sitting through Schindlers list at the movie theater at age 10 with my grandparents in highly Jewish populated Ft Lauderdale FL. That was intense. But much respect for you and all those went to pay their respect.
Was so good meeting you in person Janya. We'll certainly keep in touch.
Yes, it was a really horrible time in world history. Literature and movies give us a sense of what happened, and what people dealt with, and the incredible tragedy of it. My book clubs seem to keep circling back to books set in that time period. In the past year I've read several WWII era books
I've heard great things about the river boat ride. I would have loved to do both. But there was of course only so much time and plenty to do. Thanks for connecting, @world-travel-pro. Yes, we must definitely stay in touch.
Sharing my story with you at the end of the trip helped me cope. It reminded me that after all, my grandfather DID survive. Thank you for being there and for asking the questions, for wanting to hear, to know, to understand.
I am fascinated by that time in history, and the stories. I've been digesting it through some very good books, like Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly and We Were the Lucky Ones, by Georgia Hunter. I think those authors are brave to do the extensive research required to write those novels, which has to be a difficult and deeply disturbing task. It's so hard to believe that so many people suffered so greatly. And so very many died.
I'm really glad that talking about your grandfather helped you. It seems like you had an excellent conversation with the guide too. She was a fountain of knowledge. I learned so much from her. And from you.
Thank you for sharing Jayna. It's very moving.
Thank you very much, @nobyeni. I always appreciate your comments on my writing.
Democide. We worry more about plane crashes and terrorists, when the odds tell a different story.
Have you seen the movie 'the boy in the striped pajamas'? If not, I recommend it. Looking forward to some brighter moods in your steemfest post...
Thanks for reading and commenting, @intothewild. No, I have not seen that movie. Thank you very much for the recommendation. Yes, a brighter mood will definitely prevail in my following posts.
Great post, @jayna.
The story and all the background make a terrific and terrifying pair.
So much in those 50-words. Great use of the elements, symbolic and otherwise. The two great wars connected by a prosthetic leg that maybe holds the answer not only to a character’s question, but to all our questions.
I've always wondered, with the Nazi holocaust being the most documented one, what goes into the minds of those who deny it and what do we make of those who support the deniers?
Thank you so much for the very nice compliment, @hlezama. Yes, I wonder that too. How do some people come to their belief that the holocaust never happened? All the evidence is there. It is absolute, indisputable fact. But people sometimes can't handle the truth. It took decades for many devotees to acknowledge that Elvis was dead, for example. And we will have our coastlines sink into the ocean before some people will admit that they should have been listening to what scientists have been saying about global warming for a very long time.
Oh, yes, that's one of those pathetic denials (in the name of progress and free enterprise).
Gun control or the lack of it is my other favorite.
No matter how many tragedies, nothing will be done. It's beyond me