We walked through a familiar gate.We had seen many pictures of what "the gates of Hell" looked like. This gate was the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau. We walked down the haunting tracks to the place where people got picked- for life or death, unsure of what was worst. We went to the very back of the camp to the remains of gas chambers, that were gone and blown up in an attempted to destroy the evidence of what evil can do. We then went to a place called the Sauna, where if you were selected to life you would go. You would lose your clothes, "shower" in water that was boiling or freezing with out any cleanser, lose your name and get a number, and lose your hair. Most importantly they wanted to remove the identity of these people. We saw the place where a few items survived from the Canada, a place where the Nazis kept the personal belongings of the prisoners for a profit. What item seen left from the explosion shocked you the most?
We then had a chilling ceremony and got to leave what seemed like a quiet hell on earth. What isnt told about this spot is in reality how large it is, and how pretty the trees are in the fall, or what is really there.After lunch we went to Auschwitz 1, and this place was different. Auschwitz 1 is not that big, along with everything was in buildings, and was set up much more like a museum than Birkenau. We walked the gates that say "work will set you free", which was a lie. Here prisoners would work in tight spaces and struggle for another day for survival.
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| Pots and pans from the prisoners |
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| Prosthetic legs, crutches, and more for the handicapped |
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| A small fraction of the shoes |
We went into an building that had Jewish life in Poland before and after the war. One of the main items is a book of names of all the people who died from the Nazis. Was there any name that was important to you or stood out?
We finished our day at a surviving synagogue while singing and dancing in the place that thrived in the past.
What part of our day was most meaningful to you? What do you plan on doing after seeing Auschwitz, how do you plan to use the artifacts you saw?
In the large book of names at Auschwitz, I fond two names of men with the same last name as me, and it was spelled the same way. They were both from the Ukraine and that is where my family is from. I hope to find out if I have any relation to them or if my family lived in the same towns as them. Finding this and also earlier, walking in the Jews who were put in Auschwitz's footsteps were the two most meaningful parts of the day for me. When I get home I hope to be able to spread awareness of what went on during the holocaust an decrease people's ignorance on the matter.
ReplyDeleteThere's a famous photograph of the inside of the gas chamber at Auschwitz I where you can see the individual scratch marks made by suffocating people in the chamber against hard concrete. I was surprised when I went there to find that the picture seemed to lie--there were thousands more scratches than I had previously thought. That wall alone validated our entire Mas'a.
ReplyDeleteIn the book at Auschwitz I I found three names of people in my family, all coming from Sokoli, near Bialystok. We have a picture of them in our house. It's strange to put a name to faces that you know you are the direct descendant of. Afterwards when I looked through the Yad Vashem, I found more names that must have been added after the book was printed, meaning that there is someone out there related to me that I had no idea existed. The Shoah has affected us in more ways than we think.
-Noah Arnold
The item that affected me most, like evan, was the wine bottle opener. Wine is such a symbol of happiness and celebration in judaism and it was heartbreaking that it was within all of this rubble.
ReplyDeleteA name that stood out to me was a family with the last name of my grandfather. Although my family does not know of any immediate relatives that perished in the holocaust, my grandfather passed away several years ago and it is incredibly possible that he knew something about one or more of the names I saw, because we have never heard of anyone with the same last name.
The part of the day that affected me most was when we went downstairs in the prison tenant into the torture cells. I looked into one of the peepholes into the room and a gust of wind rushed through the hole and sent shivers down my spine. I had to look away. Then I looked again and could picture a suffering human being locked up in these cells and it was horrifying.
I think all i can do after seeing a horrible place like this is to share my experience. We all know how much i wrote throughout that trip because that is the only way i could think of to share my experience accurately.
The most shocking part of the exhibit of the surviving materials was the tinfoil, this is because it was new. It is just so disrespectful to have added something like tinfoil to an exhibit. The name that stood out to me was the name of my great aunt and second cousin. While I knew they were in the records, it was still a shock to see it on paper. The most memorable part of that day was either seeing the metal sign above the gates of Auschwitz, or of looking into the bone pits and finding fragments of bone in Birkenau.
ReplyDeleteNothing really stood out to me from the Canada place. I found the room with pictures the most meaningful. There were pictures of two kids named Renia and Dawid Kohn. All the pictures reminded me of my and my older brother. There were so many pictures of them just like there are of me and my brother because my mom loves to take pictures. I established a connection with these pictures and that is something I will take with me.
ReplyDeleteThe item leftover from the Canada compound that stood out most to me was a letter opener. Such a simple item, but it means so much. To have taken a letter opener with you meant that you were expecting to send and receive mail from family, from friends, from anyone in the outside world. It just speaks volumes for the fact that the people who were taken to Auschwitz were completely unaware of what was in store for them. It was impossible that they could have expected the inhuman atrocities that awaited them. When we went to Auschwitz I, what shocked me most in the book of names, was my family name, on both sides of my family, listed exactly once. I'm not sure if it was really my relatives who met their deaths in the Shoah, but the fact that they, or someone who shares my name were among the six million will stay with me forever.
ReplyDeleteAll of the items we looked at that were left from the explosion took a toll on me, but especially a hair comb. I have one that looks just like it and that hair comb could have belonged to a girl just like me, and that made it so hard to think about. When I looked at all the names, it always seemed to effect me deeply whenever I saw a 'Sarah'. I don't know what it is but I can't think about people sharing a name with me experiencing something more horrible than I can ever even imagine. With all of this, everything we saw at Auschwitz effected me deeply.
ReplyDeleteWhat stood out to me in the large book of names was seeing how many people were listed who share surnames with either people I know or my own family. It's just shocking to see the quantity displayed there. From the items we say, I think what got to me the most were just the items of daily household use that people brought there unknowing of what was going to happen to them. I think the most meaningful part was taking the same path as the Jews before us but this time making it out both alive, and together.
ReplyDeleteI found it incredible that there was a pot in the display case that was still a vibrant blue. I was shocked to see that even though everything around it was grey and destroyed, this blue pot kept most of its color and stood out. When we saw the book of names, I immediately looked for my last name, my mother’s maiden name, and my grandmother’s maiden name. There were almost 6 full pages of people with my mother’s maiden name. There were 8 people with my grandmother’s maiden name, and one single person with my last name. I don’t know if I’m related to any of those people, but it was still shocking to see. I found the hair to be the most impactful part of the day. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but I saw a braid the color of my hair. I was just numb with the fact that these were people... my people. I want to be able to advocate for non-Jews to see all perspectives of the Shoah. It’s important for all people to see all perspectives of the Shoah, but I think as Jews we don’t always see other people paying attention to our perspective on the horrid event, and I want to make sure all people have access to all perspectives to be as knowledgable as possible.
ReplyDelete-Rachael Coleman
Names that stood out for me were the hundreds of Manheims in the the book of names. Manheim is the name of my family who perished, and it was very meaningful for me to see all of the Manheims there, in print. It made the loss feel very tangible.
ReplyDeleteA meaningful part of the day for me was seeing the room full of prosthetics and other items for assisting people with disabilities. As a person with a close family member who is physically disabled, it was difficult to imagine what would have happened to her and others like her in the Holocaust. It was painful to see such a visceral reminder of the fact that disabled people were targeted by the Nazi regime. That exhibit especially made me want to strive to see the value in all people, no matter what our preconceived notions of them are.
I didn't find a specific item in the explosion of the Canada that impacted me the most but it was very surprising to see what people thought they would need after being forced out of their homes and showed that the Jews had absolutely no idea about what was going to happen to them. I don't really know of any family members that were in the Holocaust but I did look up my grandmother's maiden name and found the many pages of people that were killed which was very moving for me. To me, the most meaningful part of the day was when we saw the pits with bone fragments at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the huge display of hair at Auschwitz I. The only thing that I can think of doing with my experience is sharing what I saw to keep history from repeating itself.
ReplyDeleteWhile looking at the remanents from the Candada building where belongings of Jewish people were sorted and then used for the Germans purposes, I noticed a red dish. Unlike all the other scraps of metal or silverware the color of this dish was so real. You could see that someone had once used it to put their families dinner in it just as we all use dishes today. Seeing a splash of color in such a barren pile of remanents was very hard for me to see. When looking in the name book I found names of family members whose lives had been taken from them. It was so surreal to me and that I wasn't just reading about the Shoa in a book rather I was walking in the footprints of the hell that the Jewish people suffered.
ReplyDeleteThe room of names was really meaningful. To see the millions of names of people who died before their time was shocking. One problem the people have is comprehending the amount of people that died in the holocaust and by seeing all those names we could have a small grip of how many died. I begun looking for Walton never expected to find a Walton but Sarah told me to look. I ended up not finding any but what I did find was tons of silvers( my mothers maiden name). When I did my heart sank like a rock. The most meaningful part was the room of happy times with the Jews it was great to see there was also good times for the jews
ReplyDeleteIt was torture looking at the remains of the Canada buildings at the camp. Nothing stood out because they all stood out. Every little piece of silverware or pots, etc. stood out, because they were all that was left of hundreds of years of thousands of families' history.
ReplyDeleteSo many names and not enough to learn the stories of them all. Some pages were just family trees of people wiped off the face of the of the earth. Reading all those names was like hell because no matter how hard I tried, I could not bring them all back. But at the same time, it was like heaven because when I read their names, I knew that they would never be forgotten.
When we were at Auschwitz and we were in the exhibit with the big name of books, there were a couple that did stand out to me. I know that I didn't have any relatives that my family knows of that were in Auschwitz but I still saw my last name. Seeing my last name and my moms maiden name just makes me think about all the "Whats ifs." What if I did have family that was in Auschwitz. The part of the day that was most meaningful for me was when we were walking though all the the blocks and we went through the exhibit that had the hair. I started to cry when I saw the braided hair. For me thinking about the fact that there were little girls and girls my age that were impacted in this horrible way is a shame. I plan on using the knowledge I gained to teach people the tragedies and help it from happening again. And I think thats all we can do.
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