The Warsaw Ghetto

Our agenda for today was to see what little there was left of the Warsaw Ghetto.  By the way – the Nazi’s never called them “ghettos,” they were called Jewish Settlement Districts (much nicer to the average citizen who doesn’t know exactly what’s going on). 

We first went to see remnants of the Ghetto wall.  There are no signs, no markings, nothing to lead you to the site.  You have to weave throughout apartment buildings to get to the area.  When we arrived we could see part of an old building who’s rear wall was one boundary of the ghetto and then portions of bricks running at a 90 degree angle from that wall. 

There is a 90 year old man who lives right by the wall who has done some extensive research into the history of the wall.  He even created a map that has been put on a metal plate and affixed to the wall so you can see exactly where the original ghetto was inside Warsaw. 

He brought out a few books that he had put together – scrapbooks, mostly – with certificates from Yad Vashem and other Holocaust organizations who honored his work.  He also told us that he chose that apartment on purpose when he moved to Warsaw after the war because he wanted to see for himself where all this had happened.  He said he was sympathetic to the Jews (not being one himself) because of the 3 years he spent in a gulag (prison camp) in the Soviet Union.  He said the conditions in the two (gulag and ghetto) were pretty much the same. 

After kissing a couple of the young ladies in our group on their cheeks (one called him a “sniper” because of his speed in going in for the kiss) he asked us for donations in keeping his history going (we happily obliged with a few Zlotys) and then went back in the house. 

The "Sniper" :)

Jews made up 33% of the population of Warsaw – the ghetto began with less than 10% of the territory of the city.  And, it was reduced in size periodically from there.  There are only a couple of buildings in the entire ghetto that were not totally destroyed when the German army came in to stop the Jewish uprising.  But, most of the ghetto was burned and then razed. 

Next, we went to the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw to see a couple of things.  First, we saw the graves of prominent Jews who contributed significantly to Jewish and Polish culture.  Playwrights, authors, doctors, etc.  Our second purpose was to see the graves (or memorial stones if their bodies were not recovered) of some of the Warsaw uprising fighters. 

I was really intrigued by this cemetery.  During its 200 year use, in a few areas (very prestigious areas) they had put more earth on top of the existing graves in order to bury even more people – on top of them!  Then they built a retaining wall and used the headstone fragments of broken and deteriorating headstones to create the outer coating of the wall – no disrespect at all. 

We saw the memorial stones for Vladka Meed’s family (read her book “Both Sides of the Wall”).  They perished in Treblinka so no bodies are there.  We saw memorials to other fighters in the uprising of 1943 as well. 

My favorite memorial was to Janus Korsach (I’m sure I’ve spelled it completely wrong).  He was a child psychologist and educator who advocated that parents treat their children more kindly and more as individuals rather than little kids who need to be told what to do and not heard from otherwise.  It was very revolutionary at the time.  He wrote several books and even had a regular radio broadcast in Warsaw.  He also started a couple of different orphanages where his theories were put into practice. 

Once the ghetto was established, he organized an orphanage.  He did all he could to make sure the children were protected and had enough food.  Friends repeatedly tried to get him to leave with them (as such a prominent individual he had a good chance of getting out of the ghetto, out of Poland, and away from Nazi controlled territory), but he refused each time. 

Eventually, the children of his orphanage were chosen for “deportation.”  Rather than let them go alone, he told them to put on their best clothes, walked with them hand-in-hand toward the Umschlagplatz (gathering place) where they were put on train cars and sent to their deaths in Treblinka.  He refused to leave those children even though he knew exactly what would happen.  Word of the death camps had been brought back to the ghetto by an escapee, so there were no real secrets – only unbelief that this kind of thing was possible.

We also went to the portion of the cemetery that was used as a mass grave.  As people began dying of the horrible conditions and of starvation in the ghetto, their bodies were brought to the cemetery and placed in huge mass graves.  Thousands  were brought there.  Approx. 5,000 were dying each month so they were placed in a large pit and then covered with a little paper or earth, maybe some lime (as in pulverized limestone – to absorb odor) and then another layer of bodies were placed in the grave. 

Photo showing how deep the mass grave was when first dug

After the grave was closed and the war ended, the bodies decomposed so the grave began to sink into the earth.  Today there is a large depression where the mass grave is located and white markers are placed around the perimeter of the grave.

Our final stop of the afternoon was a Jewish museum next to what used to be the most ornate Synagogue in all of Warsaw.  The Synagogue was destroyed during the war and an now there is a large office building standing on the site. 

After the museum, we went to the only Synagogue from before the war that is still standing.  The Germans used it as a stable and a storehouse so it was spared total destruction (yet another way to degrade and humiliate the Jews – using their Synagogue in this way). 

Today (Sunday) my thoughts have often turned to my church duties as a Bishop.  I feel bad leaving my counselors to do all my work for such a long time, but I’ve also thought about the religious leaders of the Jews and what they went through at the time of the Holocaust.

Many of them were killed quickly by the Nazi’s, but they were also often used in the Judenrat (Jewish Council) and they had to make “unmakeable” decisions.  They were the ones who had to decide who was next for deportation, they were the ones who distributed the ration cards entitling Jews in the ghetto to 184 calories per day (pick up a candy bar and compare).  They were the ones who had to implement the decisions of the Nazi’s.  How do you make those decisions?  How do you do that to your own, the people you love? 

The first Judenrat leader in Warsaw did all he could to help his people (I believe his last name was Czerniakow), but in July of 1942, the deportations began and he was ordered to select the first several thousand.  The next day he wrote, “They want me to kill the children of my people with my own hands.  There is nothing left for me but to die.” With that, he committed suicide. 

I cannot seem to get this out of my head.  How do you make those decisions?  How do you escape those decisions?  How do you protect your own family while looking out for a congregation of 400 (the size of my ward)?  I don’t know how any of these men could do it.  These situations seem to be nothing but a series of “unmakeable” decisions.

After the cemetery we drove back to the hotel for a little rest and some time to freshen up for our Chopin concert this evening.  Chopin was Polish and it will be nice on a Sunday evening to sit in a church and listen to an accomplished pianist play selections from Chopin.  Two years ago in Germany we went to the Berlin Philharmonic play Beethoven and I just kept thinking, “I can’t believe I’m in Germany listening to a symphony play Beethoven!”  I’m sure tonight’s experience will be similar. 

Tomorrow we leave Warsaw for a few days to go and visit more concentration camps.  I’m going to need some rest and preparation. 

Till then. . . . .    J

Two Concentration Camps and Two Museums in One Day!

Our first camp of the trip was Ravensbrueck.  What a beautiful setting – it’s on a beautiful little lake with an idyllic little German village across the water.  What a bizarre site for such a horrible place. 

Ravensbruck

This camp was primarily for women.  The prisoners worked for various German corporations like Siemens. 

Our first stop inside the camp was the crematoria.  It was built right by the lake so that the ashes could simply be thrown in the water.  This camp was not a killing center, so there were no gas chambers – the women were there as slave laborers and to be removed from German society.  The crematoria were used when women would die of malnutrition, exhaustion, etc. 

There were three ovens – not original to this camp, but brought in to complete the reconstruction of the site.  We had a fascinating discussion about the German engineers who would have received the request to build these ovens.  What kind of questions would they have asked?  They must have known what they were to be used for – what kind of engineer builds something without knowing it’s function, it’s purpose? 

Crematoria

After a few minutes, Elaine asked us – no, told us – to get out of there.  She was clearly unnerved.  If I haven’t mentioned this before, Elaine Culbertson is one of our tour directors.  She has been one of the leaders of this trip for years and years.  She is also the daughter of two Holocaust survivors (Jewish).  Her mother was sent to Auschwitz and then went on the Death March when the camp was evacuated as the Soviets approached from the east.  Somehow this 17 year old girl (weighing about 60 pounds) survived the march and made it to Ravensbruek.  It was there that she was liberated. 

Elaine had never been to this particular camp before and she was really struggling (I can’t even imagine what she was feeling).  I think many in our group were glad for the excuse to get out of that building. . . . 

Inside the camp itself there is little to see.  The only original structures are the workshops where the women worked.  However, one of the instruments of punishment remained.  There is a large concrete wheel – like the front of a steamroller – sitting in  a corner of the courtyard.  There is a handle attached to the front.  Women were forced to pull this around camp as a punishment for some kind of infraction. 

After walking around the camp for a few minutes we went into a little information room.  Here we saw hundreds of pictures of the women who were imprisoned here.  All kinds of different expressions stared back at me – proud, fearful, timid, pained.  It was difficult to look into their eyes. 

On a table in the room was a large book with hundreds of pages.  On each page were the names of all the women who died in this camp, their approximate age and their nationality.  We flipped through the pages for a while. . . . . and then it was time to move on.

Our last point on this visit was the main gate – it seems that we went through the camp backwards, having started at the crematoria.  I felt the gate was pretty unassuming – no large building, no “Arbeit Macht Frei” on a gate, no train tracks.  But still, the result was the same.

Main Gate

The strangest thing about both camps that I visited today is the fact that they are right on the outskirts of a town or city.  No one could have been fooled as to what was happening here.  No one could have missed the stench, the sound, the sights of the camp.  But, in Nazi Germany – not knowing things could often keep you out of trouble.  I think people chose not to “know” – even though they had to know.

After a lengthy bus ride – somehow we our bus got stuck behind a tractor pulling some kind of farm implement – we made it to Sachenhausen.  I’ve been to this camp before so I knew what to expect.  However, this visit focused on things that I didn’t notice on my first trip to this camp. 

We spent some time looking around and going through the barracks.  We also went to the cell block (a prison within a prison) where “special” prisoners were housed.  Josef Stalin’s son was imprisoned here, as well as Martin Neimoller (sp?).

However, what I really didn’t know from my first trip to the camp were the medical experiments conducted on the prisoners in the camp.  I don’t know how I missed it the first time, but there is a building in one corner of the camp where experiments were done, bodies were autopsied – complete with a morgue in the basement. 

The rooms are all tiled in white and we all filed into the room with two tables with drains in the center.  I can’t even imagine what kind of pain – physically and emotionally – was caused in this building, but it seriously creeped me out.  The morgue rooms downstairs were pretty unnerving as well.  I was all too happy to get back outside where I could breathe normally again. (I decided against including the picture of this one)

Another new bit of information that I discovered were the semi-circular paths around the camp that had different kinds of surfaces.  Some were sharp stone, some smooth, some smooth stones.  We were told these were to test shoes for the German Army.  Inmates were forced to march for approx. 40 kilometers (around 26 miles) each day on different terrain to test how that terrain affected the wear on different types of shoes.  Inmates would occasionally collapse and die as a result of these “tests.”

terrain "track" for testing shoes

Other than the bookstore, that was the last stop on our trip to Sachenhausen.  We skipped “Station Z” where the gas chamber, the killing room (rifle shots to the base of the neck), and the crematorium were.  I’d been there before, and at that point, I didn’t feel any particular need to see them again. 

Now it was time to head back to Berlin.  We have an early train to Warsaw in the morning and we need to get things packed and ready to go.  But before dinner, Jason and I have a little excursion to complete.

Jason mentioned that he would like to find the memorial to Col. Stauffenberg (sp?).  He’s the guy portrayed in the movie Valkrye (Tom Cruise).  He played an integral part in the July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler and take over the German government.  Unfortunately, the plot did not succeed and he, along with many of his co-conspirators were executed.  The memorial to those victims of the Nazis is at the site of their execution.  I thought it was a great idea to go find the memorial, so off we went.

We found it on the street that bears Stauffenberg’s name (now).  In a courtyard there is a memorial as well as the entrance to the museum for German resistance to the Nazi government.  It didn’t close for about 20 minutes so we went in. 

Courtyard where Stauffenberg was executed

The whole exhibit was in German – no English – so about all we could do was to look at the photos.  They were powerful, and even with our very limited understanding of German (we should have asked Shauna if she wanted to come with us) we were able to get the general idea of what the exhibits were all about. 

On our way out of the museum at closing time, we were walking down the stairs and notice another little exhibit.  It was just a little room with photos and the stories of siblings caught up in the Holocaust.  Entitled “My brother, my sister” it sounded kind of interesting (and it had translations in English), so we went in. 

I was fascinated to see one quote from a young teen-age girl who (now as an adult) explained that she no longer believed in God – though she did believe in good and evil in people.  She described being on the train car being transported to Auschwitz with her mother.  They had been without water for days and were in bad shape.  At the next stop the door was opened and a bucket of water was put in the car.  A massive commotion – fight, really – broke out among the women to get at the water.  When the German soldier saw that this girl and her mother didn’t get any of the water, he forced the others back so they could drink.  This man – working in the middle of this evil campaign to kill the Jews – showed her kindness. 

I was touched by the quote and noticed a picture of the girl from 1960.  She had survived and had grown into a beautiful woman.  Jason, beside me, noticed her name and we were stunned.  She was Hannah Kent – the wife of Roman Kent.  We had met them in Washington DC as we began the trip!!!! We couldn’t believe that we had made such a fascinating connection on our little side-trip in Berlin. 

Hannah’s brother also survived and now lives in Chicago.  She wrote, “My brother and me – we talk a lot on the telephone.”  What an amazing find.

Authentic Holocaust Sites in and around Berlin

Today was a day for authentic sites – where stuff actually happened, not just a museum about something that happened somewhere else.

First we went to the Olympic Stadium where Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics.  This was the new Germany’s “coming out party.”  It was quite the festival, as it is in all cities and nations that host the Olympics. 

But, the Nazi’s had a lot of cleaning up to do before they were ready for the world stage.  All anti-Semitic posters and signs had to be taken out and many of the concentration camp inmates (mostly political prisoners at this point) were released.  But, as soon as the Olympics were over – everything changed back.

Unfortunately, the stadium itself was closed today so we were only able to go into the outer courtyard and go up the rebuilt bell tower (the British blew it up at the end of WWII) to look around. 

1936 Olympic Stadium

There was a great video in the visitor’s center on the power of Nazi propaganda – especially the idea of self-sacrifice to the nation’s youth.  There is even a shrine at the stadium to those German soldiers who died in WWI – with earth from one military cemetery.  Nobody knew about the shrine at the time, but Hitler and a special detachment of SS went there and had a little ceremony before the opening of the Olympic games.

And, of course you all know about Jesse Owens, the African-American athlete who won 4 gold medals at the Olympics.  There is even a street near the stadium named after him today (it was changed after WWII – certainly not while Hitler was around!)

Our next stop was the Wannsee Villa.  This is where the decision to murder all the Jews of Europe – “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question” – was organized and began to be implemented.  There had already been mass murders of Jews (approx. 1 million) but now things were going to speed up significantly. 

Wannsee Villa

They were originally scheduled to meet on Dec. 8, 1941, but with the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, they decided to postpone until January 20, 1942.  The meeting was organized by Reinhard Heydrich and attended by 14 others.  The meeting was simple and direct.  They met for 2 hours and basically did math.  They figured out how many Jews were still living in Europe (their figures added up to 11 million) and then began to figure out the logistics of murdering them.  Adolf Eichmann figured out how many trains would be needed, etc. 

Fascinating Fact: I learned today that the transport of Jews (the Holocaust) and other victims of Nazi brutality by train accounted for less than 1/1000^th of the train traffic in occupied Europe.  Hard to believe – I had always assumed that massive quantities of resources were used to murder the victims.  I guess the Nazi’s were even more efficient than I had thought.

It was a short meeting, but so important in history.  Here we see “middle managers” completely buy in to the awful goals of their superiors and cheerfully go about carrying it out. 

Today’s lunch was pretty fun.  I ate a “Donor Kabob.”  It sounds really gross because it doesn’t translate well, but it’s a Turkish sandwich with shaved lamb (roasted on a large vertical rotisserie), onions, cabbage, lettuce, and hot sauce – all in pita bread.  It was quite good. 

Donor Kabob - got this one off the internet.  I forgot to get a pic of my sandwich!

I think my favorite site of the day was Platform 17.  This is the railroad platform near the outskirts of Berlin where some 50,000 Jews were “deported” to Theresienstadt.  It’s a great memorial with one large metal platform that represents each known deportation from Berlin from this station.  There are even three blank ones to represent any that may not be known.  It is a very powerful memorial.

Platform 17

Metal plate commemorating this transport of 1002 Jews who were sent to the Lodz ghetto in Poland

We then went on a little walking tour of “Jewish Berlin” to see major sites connected to the Jewish history of the city.  We went to the first place the Jews were allowed to build a synagogue in the city.  The synagogue was torn down during the Communist days of the ‘60’s because there were only 300 Jews left in East Berlin, but there is a nice memorial there now. 

Jewish memorial at the site of the first synagogue in Berlin

Part of the memorial deals with the demonstrations of Christian wives and mothers.  What happened was Jewish men who had married Christian women before Hitler came to power were not treated as harshly as other Jews.  However, many of them were eventually arrested.  When this happened, their wives went down to police headquarters and protested for three weeks!  Then their husbands and sons were released.  Later, it was learned that they were not going to be deported anyway, but still the bravery of these women is amazing.  This is one of the few open demonstrations by German civilians during the war. 

A few years ago I attended a conference at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.  I met a survivor who was in that group of men arrested.  His father was Jewish and his mother was Christian.  He and his father were picked up and put into jail and his mother joined the other women on the street protesting.  It was special for me to hear more specific information about that event and to stand where it happened to build a stronger “link” to that survivor’s experience.

We also saw some brass "cobblestones" in the streets in Berlin.  These are placed in the street to commemorate a specific Berlin Jew who was deported and murdered.  over 27,000 have been placed in Berlin.

Our last site visited was the one with the greatest story of the day.  We visited the brush-making shop of Otto Weidt.  He was a blind man who employed mostly other blind people in making brushes (shoe brushes, brushes to polish metal, etc.) to the German army.  He also  employed several Jews in his shop. When times became difficult he hid the Jews he employed in a secret room in his shop.

Otto

However, the Jewish employees were doing such a good job making brushes that there were too many piling up in his shop.  If the German Army found out, they would revoke the special permits his Jewish employees had and they would be deported and murdered.  So, one of his employees, Alice Licht, came up with a brilliant idea – they would take the extra brushes and sell them on the black market.  It worked great and Otto became very wealthy as a result. 

Alice

Then, disaster.  Alice was arrested and scheduled for deportation to a concentration camp.  Otto used some of the fortune he had amassed to bribe an SS man to make sure she was sent to Theresienstadt camp.  This camp was supposed to be the best in terms of living conditions.  He even sent over 200 food packages to her in the camp while she was there.  This was very dangerous because he had to buy food on the black market and ship it there.  Others had to be involved not to be suspicious. 

Then, unexpectedly Alice was sent to Auschwitz.  She was able to get ahold of a postcard and wrote what was happening to her and threw the card out the small window of the train car as it was moving.  She had also written a little note asking whoever found the card to please mail it to Otto Weidt and he would pay the postage.

Unbelievably, someone found the postcard and mailed it.  When Otto learned of Alice’s transfer, he traveled to Auschwitz under the guise of selling brushes to the guards there and checked on Alice.  She was still alive and had been sent to the part of the camp that sorts through the belongings of murdered Jews and sends the items back to Germany. 

Otto uses more of his fortune to bribe officials to get her out of the camp and he brings her back to Berlin where he hides her with his family for the remainder of the war.  She survived the war.  Amazing. . . . .

It just goes to show you how much good one person can do in the life of another.  Wow.

Well, that’s about it for today.  Tomorrow will be another amazing day of authentic sites.  We visit two concentration camps – Ravensbruck and Sachenhausen.  I’m sure I’ll have much to write about tomorrow.

Till then.  J

Touring Berlin

Today we began by visiting the memorial for the victims of the T-4 program (#4 Tiergartenstrasse).  The building is now gone, and the Berlin Philharmonic is built on the site, but there is a couple of displays there to remember the victims of this program.  I was shocked to learn that there were approx. 250,000 victims.  I knew about the program, just not the extent of the murders. 

This program murdered mentally and physically handicapped Aryans – mostly children.  The Nazi’s wanted to improve their so-called Aryan “race” by this method.  In these institutions there were the first gassing (using carbon-monoxide) and the first crematorium to dispose of the bodies.  These doctors (crazy, but true) were later sent to Poland to recreate what they had done on a much larger scale. . . . .

Memorial to the victims of the T-4 Program

We also visited a museum called “Topography of Terror.”  This museum deals with the SS and the men and decisions that led to the persecution of Jews and others.  It was very interesting.  Unfortunately, like everything else, there wasn’t time to see everything, so I bought a massive (I just may have to jettison several items of clothing to get it into the suitcase for the flight back home) book that has everything that each one of the displays contains.  I feel my knowledge is particularly “light” in this area so I thought it would be good to pick up that resource. 

Jason and I also went outside to look at remnants of the Berlin Wall.  Almost at the base of the wall was another exhibit by the “Topography of Terror” museum.  They had excavated down and found some of the basement rooms, tiled in yellow tile, that were used by the Gestapo to interrogate (torture) individuals during the Nazi regime.  Evidently the building was originally a hotel and the Gestapo moved in in 1934.  The building was razed after the war – partly due to the Allied bombing, and partly due to the fact that it was the headquarters of the SS.  This basement is all that is left.

One of the cells from the Gestapo Headquarters

We also went across the street to see the former Luftwaffe building.  It is one of the few buildings that the Nazi’s used that is still standing.  Our tour guide said it is because the Soviets began using it at the end of the war for their governance (occupation) of East Berlin so it was never destroyed.  Today it is the German Finance Ministry building.

We looked at the front of the building – typical Nazi architecture with massive doors to make any individual feel small (everything was about the State, the German People – not about the individual) and showed us a frieze (is that the right word?) on the exterior wall.  It is all about happy Socialist German people.  Well, that was put there by the DDR (Communist East German Government) and actually covers up the Nazi frieze that is behind it.  We saw photos of what the original looked like.    

Former Luftwaffe (German Airforce) Headquarters

Panorama of the Pro-Communist Mural - put up after WWII in a divided Berlin

Our next stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which sits near the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag.  It was nice to revisit the site (I’ve been there before) and walk through the blocks.  It was a bit different than the first time I’d been there, though.  There were a lot of kids there and it was too busy for us to get into the information center beneath the memorial at that time.  Some people were running and being disrespectful (in my opinion) so it was difficult to get a better sense of the spirit of the place.  My visit in 2009 was much more impressive.

View of the Memorial

View of the Reichstag (where the German Parliament meets) past the Memorial

Me at the Memorial

We left the memorial and went to the German-Jewish museum.  It was very interesting.  Later we went back to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and went down to the information center.  It was exception – one of the best, concise timelines/definitions of the Holocaust I’ve ever seen.  However, they never use the words Holocaust or Shoah.  

Now we are having another group meeting.  I really like these, other than they are usually after a very long day, because we discuss pedagogy (how to teach the Holocaust) and specific things that we’ve learned.  I’m making quite a list of things to do and things not to do in the classroom.

Oh yeah.  I had bought a ticket to the new Harry Potter movie, but it starts at 11 and we would have to walk several blocks (Berlin blocks, not regular blocks!) there and back, so I’ve sold my ticket to the female Kerry (we have two Kerry’s on this trip – one male and one female, so that’s what we call them to keep it all straight!) so I can stay in, work on my journaling (and blogging before my 24 hour, 10 Euro internet connection is severed) and get some much needed sleep.

Bye for now, from Berlin. . . . . .

Helloooooooo Germany!

Well, I finally made it through Israeli security (almost 3 hours) and flew to Germany.  Then after a long bus ride to Hannover we got some sleep. 

This morning we were able to visit our first concentration camp: Bergen-Belsen.  It was incredible.  First we met with the directors of the museum and memorial.  They let us in at 9am (one full hour before it opens to the public) and gave us some orientation.  Then they split us into 4 groups and each group had a guide that took us through some history of the camp, through the museum, then through the monuments on the grounds of the camp itself. 

Marker just inside the original camp

The focus of the museum and memorial is to give a name to each individual imprisoned (as best as they can – they don’t show any photograph unless then can document who that person is and give some background on him/her) and to give a voice to them as well.  Each video has a survivor speaking in their own voice, their own language.  They do not dub a translator’s voice over the top.  They provide subtitles in a couple of languages instead.  They are very sensitive to the idea of allowing the survivors to retain their own “voice.”

The camp actually began as a Prisoner of War camp run by the German Army (it’s located in Germany itself).  Then later, a Concentration Camp was added.  This camp was no extermination camp – the purpose of the camp was not to kill people in large numbers – but it was an exchange camp.  The Nazi government needed money by 1943 so they decided to “ransom” Jews to outside organizations and foreign nations.  They would be held here before being transferred out of Germany once the “ransom” was paid.  However, the system didn’t work very well and only about 2,500 people were exchanged in this fashion. 

The large number of deaths (over 70,000 total including 20,000 Soviet POW’s, 30,000 Jews, and various others including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, and Homosexuals) were the result of overcrowding, little food, and abysmal living conditions.  18,000 died in the last month the camp was in use alone.  Approximately 15,000 died after the British liberated the camp due to their poor physical condition. 

Video exists of the British bulldozing the bodies into mass graves to clean the camp perimeter.  When they arrived the camp was littered with corpses – completely believable when you consider 18,000 had died in the last month.

After going through the museum and learning about the chronology we went out into the camp itself.  Very little remains of the camp because the British bulldozed the buildings and set fire to the wooden structures.  The conditions were so bad and the inmates were dying at such a rate that they wanted to decrease the likelihood of anything spreading. 

Foundation stones of barracks

The camp itself is strikingly small.  At its height it held 38,000 with even more in a hastily built women’s “tent camp” and I can’t imagine how crowded it must have been.  We walked through the grounds past the several mass graves that are distinguished by large mounds of earth (now with grasses and bushes growing) and marveled at the numbers of people buried in each one.  In the early 1960’s groups came in and lined each mass grave with stone and built a marker in the front which lists approximately how many people are buried there.  It hurts your soul to do the math. . . .

Mass grave of over 5,000 victims

We also noticed that there were several individual gravestones scattered around the camp.  These do not mark any individual’s grave, but were place here in remembrance of specific people who died in this camp.  The most visited marker is that of Anne Frank and her sister Margot.  They died in this camp after being transferred here from Auschwitz. 

While reflexcting at the mass graves we could hear gunfire in the distance.  There is a NATO military base just up the road where the German Army had a base during WWII.  They were out on maneuvers and you could hear them as they fired their weapons.  It was an eerie feeling to be standing there hearing gunfire in the distance – all too real

a couple of the mass graves in the foreground, the memorial to the murdered in the background

We have a Jewish teacher (born in South Africa, lived in Israel, now lives in the US) in our group and he wore his kippa the entire time at the site.  I have never seen him wear it before – not in Israel or in the United States – not even in Yad Vashem.  But here, at an authentic site, he wore the kippa out of respect.  Very touching.

After meeting up again, our entire group went out to the House of Silence where a member of our group lit a candle and another Jewish teacher read Kaddish (a prayer for the dead).  I have a copy in English and I find it interesting that it never mentions death.  It only exalts, praises, and glorifies God.  It was beautiful.

My final impression of the site is that it is beautiful.  You can’t see much impact of man – a few foundation stones and bricks, a few ceramic shards from water pipes, an old pool of water constructed to fight fires – but mostly it is a series of beautiful areas of wild flowers, grasses, and trees.  You can hear birds singing in the trees – what a perfect spot for a cabin. . . . . .except for the fact that tens of thousands of people were murdered here a few decades ago.

Why can the site of such barbarism be so beautiful?  Why aren’t their permanent scars on the land when something so horrific happens?  I think it’s because if that’s the way it was, it would be too easy to remember – and anything worth having is worth working for.  God wants us to work at remembering, not have it easy.  That way it’s internalized and maybe, just maybe we’ve truly leaned something so we’ll not act as others have acted before us. 

Oh yeah – the ironic item of the day:  We were shown a large concrete lined pool about the size of your average home swimming pool.  This pool was constructed where the camp kitchen was located.  It was built there as a source of water if a fire broke out in the kitchen.  Evidently the insurance company required this for the building to be insured.  Can you imagine insuring your concentration camp kitchen?????  Can you imagine your company insuring a concentration camp kitchen??????  Crazy – but that’s redundant compared to what I’ve already seen today.  Much to ponder. . . . . .

Now we are on the long bus ride to Berlin.  Everyone is quiet now.  I think it’s a combination of being tired and reflecting on today’s experiences. 

Wow. . . . .