by Gustavo Hecker
As I walked into Auschwitz, I felt a strong sense and emotion of the people that walked here before me. I checked my surroundings looking at being caged in and having no where to go. I try to get into the emotion of what it would have been like to be their during the holocaust. I understand that I will never come to understand the feeling that the Jews at the concentration camps had to go through. As I walk around I look at the buildings and it feels odd to me because I have been at a summer camp with buildings that look like the ones at Auschwitz. When people are talking about camps it is odd because when I think of camps I think of happy and fun things but this is the camp that no ones gets to leave. I found that the weather was appropriate for being at Auschwitz The weather was cloudy and it started to rain and I think it made being at Auschwitz even more powerful because when I think of the horrible things that happened their that’s the way I think of it. Seeing physical things of Auschwitz made me feel the importance and how emotional this trip was. When I saw the piles of shoes I was taken back because when people are just saying a number, like 6 million Jews people do not actually understand how big of a number that is. So when I saw the huge pile of shoes and just understanding that that wasn’t even close to the number of shoes that people had come to the concentration camp. I started looking at just one pair of shoes and thinking that those pairs of shoes belonged to someone and that even killing one person is still super morally wrong. After Auschwitz we went to Birkneau and we went to the gas chambers. As I was walking I was looking down at my feet and I was trying to imagine what it would be like if I was walking to the gas chambers. I was looking around seeing if there was any way that I could escape and I couldn’t fine one. As I continue to walk I think about how I am walking to my death and there is nothing I can do about it. I wonder so much about how these people felt and even if I met them right before what they where thinking about it. It really hit me hard and I am so thankful for being on this trip.
1 comment:
I had visited Bergen-Belsen many years ago. No buildings were left standing as they had to destroy them upon liberating the camp because of disease. What stunned me the most was that there was complete silence there. There were no birds and no sound of leaves rusting in the wind. It seemed to me that this is what was represented in nature as complete sadness.
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