A week ago, I had the chance to visit Auschwitz-Birkeanau, Poland. I thought that I had read enough about the Holocaust, watched enough videos, that the horror of being there wouldn't affect me as much as it would to others. I was wrong. Being at Auschwitz filled me with emotions that I had never felt before, with anger and pain that still hasn't worn off. It was a defining moment, one of the defining moments of my trip.
Below is what I wrote in my journal that day, while at the camp.
There are days when I hate humanity. Not Germans, Russians, Poles, but humans. Walking through the gas chambers made me sich to the stomach, to believe my species did this to itself.
1.5 million dead, but it was the end of a letter written bu one that brought me to tears. A letter that was found in one of the prison cells from a Polish man about to be executed, ending "please send this to my wife, the address is on the letter - it is my last with and it means a lot to me".
Maybe because I write things like that, as a joke, but to him. His last wish, before death. I can't even imagine...
I had my epiphany when on the top of the tower, looking down at the whole Birkenau complex, I looked at the photo of the people all going to their death. And the holocaust hit me like never before - in the books, it was nothing more than a story, horrid, but never truly real. This was different, I felt pain inside. I wished that this had never happened, that all those people had not died. It wasn't a brain wish, it was my heart aching with pain, wanting things to be okay - a geniunem true wish, yes selfish, but real.
Today changed my outlook on life, and this trip.
Sometimes we need to remember the horrors and why we want to make this a peaceful world. Everyone should be forced to visit Auschwitz, and the other horrors of humanity. But I don't believe that it is human nature to treat ourselves this like this. It is unnatural, yet we continue to kill ourselves, day after day. How and when will we stop?