‘It is good to be together’
Remembering Auschwitz and the horrors of racism
In December 1994, I attended the Convocation at Auschwitz, a week-long gathering of Jews, Christians and Buddhists to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the camp. What spurred me to attend was the planned celebration of the last night of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights under the main gate of Auschwitz, inscribed with the infamous mocking slogan, “Arbeit Macht Frei” – Work Makes You Free.
I had recently introduced a Holocaust unit to my fifth-graders at my elementary school in western Massachusetts. They were reading the kid-lit classic, “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry, which relates how the Danish people rescued their Jewish population from under the noses of their Nazi occupiers. During group readings, however, the students expressed that they had no idea why the Jews in Denmark were disappearing. Where did they go and why?
I wanted to educate them but in a way that still respected the fact that they were children. I find it counter-productive to bludgeon young people with all the horrors of humanity without giving them hope. To offer my students ownership of the unit, I asked them to write letters and poems to the many children who died in the Holocaust. They all agreed. One was entitled “For All the Children who were Thrown Away” by Katie, aged 10. Their writings were eventually placed in exhibit at the Auschwitz State Museum.
As I began the unit, I attended a Bar Mitzvah ceremony at my local synagogue in nearby Greenfield, the county seat. As I walked up to the entrance that morning, I was assaulted by swastikas and “White Power” graffiti sprayed across the outside wall. Struck dumb, I entered the shul, found a private room and began to shake. The tremors lasted for several minutes as I struggled to breathe, my first ever panic attack as a Jew.
As my time for departure to Poland approached, my body broke out into unexplained aches and pains. For the first time in my life, I wrote out a will. When I packed my suitcase, I included several box drinks and little bags of snacks so I wouldn’t starve to death during my week there. I knew this was illogical – after all, the Holocaust had ended 50 years before – but a deeper voice admonished me, “You’re a Jew and you’re going to Auschwitz.” I brought along the drinks and the snacks.
Auschwitz is the most notorious of the hundreds of concentration camps that the German Nazis dotted across Europe. Unlike the memorials at other camp sites, which might contain a statue or several commemorative plaques, Auschwitz is preserved the way it was in 1945 right down to the original barracks, guard towers and barbed wire fencing (no longer electrified.) The sheer enormity is mind-boggling. Two million men, women and children perished here and, as we in the Convocation soon discovered, the spirits at Auschwitz were quite lively.
To prepare for the Chanukah celebration, participants created dozens of Menorahs from brass fittings glued to tongue depressors. Some brought those that had been in their families for generations. During the war, inmates created them from their wooden clogs. Candles were made by string from their striped uniforms with shoe polish for oil. We created a replica to use as our centerpiece.
I and others lit our candles under a dark, gloomy sky. We were led in prayer by Brother Sasamori, a Japanese monk of the Nipponzon Myohoji Buddhist order which builds Peace Pagodas around the world. On this night he was joined by a Jewish woman rabbi and a Catholic priest whose father had served in Hitler’s army. Encircling them were Vietnam War veterans, veterans of the Waffen SS, Native and African-American activists, children of Holocaust survivors, children of Nazis and those who had endured the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The impact of rekindling the Light to chase away the darkest of the Dark caused many to kneel by their little Menorahs to pray and weep. Several chanted the Hebrew hymn, “Henay Matov,” with its translation of “It is good to be together with your brothers and sisters.” A light drizzle began to fall as we marched in a quiet procession back to our base at the German-Polish Reconciliation Center. Behind us, the security guard locked up for the night.
Auschwitz continues to be a sacred site for Jews and non-Jews alike, a place of pilgrimage for those who value peace, but who recognize the consequences of racist hatred.