Hatred at its worst: Holocaust horror brought to life
THE visual horrors of the crimes committed by the Nazis in Poland are on stark display at the Durban Holocaust and Genocide Centre (DHGC) for the next two months.
This week an international exhibition entitled Seeing Auschwitz, originally developed for the United Nations’ observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and exhibited at UN Headquarters, New York, opened to the public in Durban.
The travelling exhibition was created by Spanish company Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and has been on display at various locations around the world.
At least one million people, mainly Jews, were murdered in Auschwitz in the 1940s. Some were gassed, some starved to death, some tormented by other savage means.
All of them were tortured physically, mentally and emotionally.
For the opening of the Durban exhibition, the press officer of the Auschwitz Memorial in Poland, Lukasz Lipinski, was the main guest.
Not only is he intimately familiar with the “real” Auschwitz because of his job, but Lipinski’s great-grandfather was imprisoned at Auschwitz for seven months, then moved to another concentration camp before he was freed.
Lipinski believes he has the responsibility to tell the world that Auschwitz is a warning of what can happen if hate speech, hatred and segregation are allowed to go unchecked.
“We all need to realise that Auschwitz didn’t happen in 1940, it started many years before that,” he said.
The exhibition consists of more than 100 images of victims and perpetrators, audiovisual testimonies of survivors, as well as snapshots of the systematic extermination process and scenes of everyday life in Auschwitz. It documents the deportation process of prisoners and gives a glimpse into life before the camps.
Organisers say many of the pictures were immortalised by the SS perpetrators themselves.
The SS or “Schutzstaffel”, German for “Protective Echelon”, initially served as personal security for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and then morphed into an elite unit which was responsible for the atrocities during the Holocaust.
There is a South African connection – many of the aerial photographs were taken by the South African Air Force’s 60 Squadron, one of the leading aerial photographic units in Europe during the war.
Lipinski said the Auschwitz Memorial (museum) in Poland was developed in 1947, two years after the end of the war, in which Jews, Poles and
Romany were rounded up by the Nazis to be killed.
Concentration camp survivors asked that the sites be preserved as a reminder to humanity of what had happened – and what could happen again.
Auschwitz has an age restriction of 14 years.
Lipinski said visitors can see the prison living quarters at the concentration camp, the gas chambers where prisoners were murdered, as well as drawings and photographs taken at the time.
“There are also two tons of human hair taken from the prisoners and used to produce textiles and fabrics,” said Lipinski. Prisoners’ hair was also used in uniforms of the German officers who tortured them.
DHGC director Mary Kluk has been to Auschwitz several times and said it was an honour and privilege to have the travelling exhibition in Durban.
Kluk said the exhibition featured juxtaposing views of the camp, from the side of the prisoners and the perpetrators. It provided insight into what people endured and what really
happened in the concentration camps.
She said it was important to remember that Auschwitz was not just something that happened in the past, but could recur if we did not learn from history.
“This was the culmination of years of hatred and a sinister ideology of hate. The essence of the work we (DHGC) do is to sensitise young people to what can happen when hate and prejudice are left unchecked. The possibilities are that you can end up at Auschwitz, or with an Auschwitz as an end result.”
Kluk said since the establishment of the DHGC, thousands of schoolchildren had visited every week, and the beauty was that these young people actually “get it”.
“They understand. They make the connection with history and the world that we live in today,” said Kluk.
She warned that if South Africans wanted to build the country its people dream of, it was crucial to start with the youth. “The idea is to help people understand that every day we are confronted with choices; how do we make positive choices about how we treat one another?
“I think that’s the essence of learning that there is only one race, the human race. It might sound simplistic and it’s easy to roll off the tongue, but one needs to immerse oneself in an exhibition such as this one to understand the real, possible consequences when we let hatred go unchecked.”
Kluk said the DHGC was a place of memory and also education, and they looked forward to welcoming people to the exhibition.
Seeing Auschwitz will run until August 20. Hours: Sunday to Thursday, from 9am-4pm. Fridays from 9am-2pm. Closed on Saturdays.