October, 2016
I went to Poland for one reason…Auschwitz.
My first experience of the camps was when I was 19 and living in Paris. I had gone to Germany to visit with some friends and, while there, I knew that I needed to go to Dachau. On a clear January morning with the sky a bright blue and the air almost frigid with cold, I walked on those wretched grounds and I felt fear. You see, there was no one there except for the guard in the photographic museum and he stayed indoors while I walked alone on the hard earth. Anyone who has ever been to a concentration camp can understand the horror that envelops you; for me, it was as if past history had become present and I had to force myself to move as I imagined the sounds of barking dogs and saw the soldiers with their high black boots shouting at the prisoners. It was as if time had stopped and evil was trying to embrace me, but it was when I arrived at the gas chamber that the fear made me almost catatonic. I saw the marks on the walls and the spigots and I shook. Next was the crematorium with its big ovens and chimneys that had carried the smoke and ashes of millions who, like me, were blessed to have been Jews, but cursed all the same. When I found the exit door locked, all I knew was panic in the irrational thought of feeling trapped. And yes, I can see it all like yesterday…
Throughout the years, when traveling, I have visited other camps and done extensive reading/studying about the Holocaust; that is my duty as a human being; that is my duty as a Jew. There is a part of me that feels guilty that I can celebrate my being Jewish when six million paid for my blessing. It is a feeling that is usually dormant, but, when awakened, leaves me feeling naked like the women dying in the chambers. And when Abraham Secemski, a Holocaust survivor who lost well over 90 members of his family and witnessed the executions of his father and brother, became an important part of my life, I was humbled. How could he have lived through all the horror? Even today, when I meet survivors (and there aren’t many left), I have the same question. How?
Abraham and I had many talks about his family before the war and then about his life in forced labor camps, detention camps, Auschwitz II, a death march, more camps, and a final liberation from Teresienstadt. I would look at this man who had become my “Poppa” with his bright blue eyes and wonderful smile who was loved by everyone who met him and I knew that I had found my hero in life. And so a few years after his death, I went to Auschwitz to honor his memory…to walk on that ground and try to feel something. Like at Dachau, I was almost frigid with cold, but at least I had a coat, a scarf, and gloves, unlike the many who had perished there during the war. So what right did I have to complain? And as I walked and walked, almost in a fog with the realization of where I was, I kept looking for “Poppa” and asking him, “Where were you?” “How did you find the courage that kept you going so that you were able to survive?” And then I thought about a shared moment between us a few years ago when I had bought him some blue shirts-one was solid, one was checked, and one had stripes. When he looked at the striped shirt, his face went blank and he told me to get rid of it. It was only then that I remembered his prison uniform.
...And then I cried for my hero and for all the others...
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