by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
You think, before you go, that you are prepared.
But you are not prepared.
You think you understand what happened at this place and why it happened.
But you do not understand.
You think you can visit the museum and its artifacts as you would visit any other museum.
But you cannot so visit.
This is Auschwitz and it changes your life, starkly, profoundly, forever.
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It forces you to think... to dig deep in your soul... it demands your attention... your reverence...
You came to see for yourself... and it demands that you see it all and clearly. It is almost unbearably painful... and the tears come involuntarily, providing release. You begin to fathom the unfathomable.
This is Auschwitz and it compels, as if by right, your complete concentration, that you see it all, confront it all, avoiding nothing.
Here a great evil was perpetrated.
Here people just like you and me, people who once laughed, studied, married, worshipped found an untimely end they could not comprehend even at the moment of death.
What had they done to bring them to this place of dedicated evil and inexplicable horrors?
This is Auschwitz where human minds were put to the business of destroying humans, systematically, categorically, efficiently, proudly.
From the moment you arrive at the entrance dubbed the "Gate of Hell", you sense an atmosphere compounded of fear, terror, anger, confusion. Upon arrival, people just like you walked through this gate, little comprehending that their fate was about to be sealed at the hands of guards who, with a nod or flick of a swagger stick, directed you to immediate perdition... or to a more lingering death as a laboring slave. "The angel of death" himself, Josef Mengele, immaculate in shiny boots, gloves, and a whip was often seen... evaluating,calculating, deciding fates without compunction, a man of destiny, ensuring the desirable exterminations demanded from Berlin.
The world, burdened with many problems in May, 1940 when Auschwitz was created, took little note of this one... until Soviet troops liberated it January 27, 1945, exposing step by horrifying step the true dimensions of human cruelty one object, one item, one artifact at a time.
155 buildings 300 ruins 4 gas chambers and crematoria 27 guard towers 460 artificial limbs 80,000 pairs of shoes 40,000 pairs of spectacles 260 prayer garments 3,800 suitcases.
Now these and all the other remnants of systematic horror are threatened by aging, the elements, neglect, lack of funds, and by the steady increase in visitors who come to learn... and to ponder. In 2010, 1.4 million of these pilgrims came... and thought deeply of what they saw. Each was touched in his own way, and so remembers.
To preserve all this so we never forget what is so painful to remember, $200 million is now required. Germany, to date, has pledged $60 million; the USA $15 million, other governments, like Austria, less.
But what of the British government...and the French, two of the great allies of the World War that gave the Nazis their cover for the "Final Solution"? Ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, having visited Auschwitz, pledged funds, but no amount. And, so far, the succeeding Cameron government has been silent on the matter, facing as it does riots for budget cuts that touch his fellow citizens more urgently. The French are even less committed than the British... the needs of their own war memorials and the crosses of Flanders fields call for upkeep and restoration, too.
And yet this matter presses... as the artifacts of horror crumble, disintegrate, decay. Each one gone aids oblivion, out of sight, out of mind, which after all would suit some people who deny the importance or even the existence of the Holocaust.
The job that has to be done is immense... and time is pressing as the last of the Holocaust survivors passes into eternity, anxious that the unspeakable reality they knew remain vivid, a necessary reminder to generations yet to come of what we humans are capable of doing to each other. The people of Armenia, Cambodia, and Rwanda , to name but a few, already know. Holocaust, you see, is not merely history; it is present day reality, lethal, savage, always near at hand.
This is why Auschwitz must continue to exist, not merely as a museum but as a living example of the dark side of our species. For we are now what the masters of Auschwitz were then... beings capable of the unspeakable, not just in those damp and pestilential Polish fields and forests where the death camp grew... but everywhere on this seething planet that knows all the varieties of hatred so well.
To find out how you can help preserve and restore Auschwitz and related projects, contact:
Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston
126 High St.
Boston, MA 02110
At: 617.457.8600 | f: 617.988.6255
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also a historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com.
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