Auschwitz-Birkenau

The following was written and distributed by Terence Cuff.  It is far better than what I wrote:

              Monday is just another day for most of us.

Prior to and during the Second World War, the government of Germany adopted a policy of isolating in camps various groups, including Jews, Poles, Russian prisoners of war, the Roma, some criminals, and various other groups.

Any description of the camps is much too gentle. Most of us are too delicate to know the full truths about these camps.

Prisoners were isolated in large camps built to maximize security and administrative convenience and to minimize the comfort of those confined. Camps were surrounded with electrified fences and barbed wire. The perimeters and grounds were well patrolled by troops of the Schutzstaffel. Prisoners were crowded into barracks, where they slept on incredibly crowded bunks that provided little comfort and little warmth. The barracks were overcrowded practically beyond comprehension. Prisoners were provided with inadequate clothing, particularly for the cold of winter. Food rations were unappealing and had sufficiently low caloric content that prisoners usually would starve after weeks or after a few months. The prisoners were on the road to death by starvation, if something else did not kill them quicker. Sanitation was poor. Medical care was minimal. The poor living conditions resulted in a variety of illnesses – often fatal illnesses – associated with confined populations, poor nutrition, overwork, starvation, and poor sanitation. Most of the prisoners were subjected to heavy manual labor under close supervision of guards, who treated the prisoners with harsh brutality. Without going into more detail, treatment at these camps was about as harsh and miserable and cruel as the creators of the camps could conceive.

Many deaths were daily events at the camps. That is how the camps were designed. That was their purpose.

One of these camps was located in a town in southern Poland by the name of Oświęcim. The location was chosen on account of the available land, its isolation, and also its proximity to excellent rail transportation. The complex of camps that were built at Oświęcim were known as Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Men and women were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau – murder on the broadest scale. Murder was the daily fare. It was not the murder of one or two. It was not the murder of a family. It was not even the murder of a small village. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, perhaps 1,100,000 men, women and children were murdered.  The number is staggering beyond anyone’s comprehension. I cannot visualize or comprehend 1,100,000 deaths.

We could debate the numbers. Some deny the murders or the extent of the murders. Perhaps it was only a million. After a million or so, the precise number makes little difference to me at least.

The prisoners came from Hungary, Poland, France, Greece and a variety of other countries.

Most were Jews.

Many were non-Jewish Poles.

Roughly 21,000 were Roma.

Roughly 15,000 were Soviet prisoners of war.

Some were homosexuals.

Some were mentally ill.

Some were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Some belonged to other groups.

There were many ways to die at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Some were executed – shot or hanged.

Many died naked in gas chambers, where the prisoners were gassed with Zyclon B, a pesticide based on hydrogen cyanide. 

Many were worked to death.

Many perished of diseases associated with the poor living conditions and the close confinement.

Many starved on account of the inadequate rations and hard forced labor. A typical day’s rations were some thin soup and a small potato – not much of a ration for people doing hard labor in the cold.

Some prisoners were beaten to death by guards.

Some were shot by guards.

Many were whipped or beaten.

Some were attacked by guard dogs.

Some were killed in medical experimentation.

Some will deny that any of this occurred, but I suppose that one can deny the sun, the moon, and the stars if he has a mind to do so.

The complex of camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau were liberated on January 27, 1945, by advancing Soviet troops. Monday is the seventy-fifth anniversary of that liberation. As the end of the camp approached, thousands of prisoners were forced into long marches evacuating the camps. Thousands died on those marches. At the end of the marches, survivors were shipped by rail to other camps farther away from advancing Allied troops. 

About 9,000 prisoners remained behind at Auschwitz-Birkenau and were liberated by Soviet troops. These survivors were in appalling shape for the most part. Many did not survive for long. The human body does not handle prolonged starvation well.

For many of my generation, Edward R. Murrow represented the pinnacle of news reporting. He gave one particularly notable account of the liberation of another camp. They called it Buchenwald. This account may give you just a little bit of a taste of one of the camps, an admittedly sanitized taste, since I imagine that no one would have been permitted to report on the full shock and horror of what camps like Buchenwald and Auschwitz-Birkenau were like.

This is a link to the Murrow broadcast in 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8ffpIHnuaw. It is about ten minutes long. If you have not heard the broadcast, listening to the recording of the broadcast would be time well spent. If you do not have time to listen, that is your choice. If your children or grandchildren have not heard the broadcast, perhaps they also should, but listen to the recording yourself first and make sure to wait until they are old enough.

Some of us would prefer to forget Auschwitz-Birkenau and the other camps. Many Americans alive today have never learned very much about the camps in the first place. Seventy-five years away is a distant memory. The memory of the camps will make many of us uncomfortable. They should.

We may well forget Auschwitz-Birkenau, but I hope that we do not. Auschwitz-Birkenau provides us important lessons. I would like to imagine that some of us still care.

The Germans who were responsible for the camps were people unfortunately all too much like us all.

Auschwitz-Birkenau teaches us that we all can hate.

Auschwitz-Birkenau teaches us that we all have the capacity to abuse and to kill those over whom we have the power to abuse and to kill. 

Auschwitz-Birkenau teaches us that we can be brutal and inhuman – inhumanity seems all too human.

Auschwitz-Birkenau should remind use of these passions in each of us, and should teach us that we must control these passions

Germans of the era of the Second World War were not a uniquely immoral people. They were people just like us. 

Prejudices against Jews and other groups at the time of the 1930’s and 1940’s were intense in Germany, elsewhere in Europe, and in the United States. 

One of the dirty little secrets is how strong anti-Jewish sentiment has been in the United States in the past – a sentiment that can continue today. 

We Americans have the capacity to hate as well as any others. We have a history of hating just about anyone who was a little different from us in any way and available to hate. 

Many of us work for firms that would not employ Jews – or advance Jews – even into the 1960’s.

If you work for a large law firm, look back in the files for the letterhead your firm used in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In all probability, the letterhead of the time listed all partners and associates. Why did the firms drop the names? In many cases, it was because those firms were soliciting Arab business, and they did not want to disclose that they employed Jewish attorneys. You will be hard pressed to find anyone who will admit that that is why your firm changed its style of letterhead.

Some recall Auschwitz-Birkenau and read the message of never again. For me, the message is that this is behavior of which we are all capable. 

For me, the lesson of Auschwitz-Birkenau is its example of what we all can do if we allow our passions, our fears, and our prejudices to run wild and to take control of us. 

If we are not careful and if we are not willing to stand up for our values, Auschwitz-Birkenau will happen again – if perhaps in a different form. 

Auschwitz-Birkenau is important not because it is extraordinary, but because it is so easy to repeat.

We need to defend our values, even when inconvenient and unpopular, or Auschwitz-Birkenau will merely become a model to be repeated again and again – perhaps in altered form, but with the same purpose.