01/27/2025
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the N**i concentration camp Auschwitz, which is now recognized as Holocaust Remembrance Day. This period in history left a permanent scar on the world as millions of Jews from all over Europe, as well as many others such as Poles, Roma and political prisoners, were brutally oppressed and murdered. At the time of Hitler’s invasion, Warsaw’s population was nearly 30% Jewish and served as an integral part of the city’s history and culture. It was largely wiped out, transported to various camps throughout N**i-controlled Europe, primarily Auschwitz.
On a recent visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Chicago area Polish-American high school student, Stefan N., submitted an essay on his experience and subsequent reflection. As we commemorate the memory of those who were lost, we share this young person‘s critical and heart-wrenching observations.
Never Forget.
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Being a high school senior, I find myself at a strange place in life. On the one hand, I feel optimism, energy and excitement about college, my goals and the whole world ahead of me. But at the same time, I am also at an age where I am beginning to understand some of the harshness of the world around me such as war, intolerance, and poverty. It is in this state that I found myself walking through the gates below the horribly infamous arch that reads “Arbeit Macht Frei.” The place is Auschwitz-Birkenau, and my father, younger brother and I were here to learn about one of the horrors of history while on winter break in Poland.
My father is Polish-American, and we had relatives in both Warsaw and in nearby Krakow. I had grown up hearing stories about my grandfather fighting and eluding the N**is, my grandmother and great-grandmother doing the same, and their internment close to the end of the war. They were never in a place like this, but I heard firsthand of how many of their friends and colleagues were taken away never to be heard from again.
Walking through the camp on the rough, uneven rocky paths served as a reminder that in this place not even something as simple as a mere step was easy. Then, inside the converted buildings, the exhibits. The stacks of victim’s luggage. Eyeglasses. Children’s shoes. Emptied cans of Zyklon B, the poison used to gas countless innocent men, women and children.
A short bus ride away, we then entered Birkenau and stood in the exact spot near the train tracks where the “selections” would take place. If directed to go in one direction, you would be chosen for work. If you went in the other, you unknowingly walked to your immediate death in the gas chambers. I imagined for a moment being separated from my father and brother. It was the last place many family members saw each other.
As we finished our visit, our guide from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation told us that in just a few weeks (January 27), it would be the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. It seems like such a long time ago, but something my 11 year old brother said really struck me. When we later looked at photos and saw many of the N**i soldiers or officers that were there, he said “it’s weird, many don’t look evil, they look like regular people from today.” And in many of the photos that didn’t show them in the camp doing horrible things, he was right. Nothing in their features, expressions, or official portraits suggested that. And unlike a mugshot of a single murderer, there were hundreds of them here, and hundreds more in other camps, and thousands upon thousands more elsewhere. This is what hatred can do, and this was the scariest thing to me. Transform people into monsters.
As we approach the anniversary of the camp’s liberation, I feel as if every young person, especially in the United States, needs to deeply study this and other similar periods throughout history. I say especially here because we are so blessed as Americans to have so much safety, protection, laws and a military that can protect us from any foe. It is easy to forget how lucky we are, especially if we are spending so much time on social media happily watching the next social trend. As the next generation, we have a responsibility to identify and fight evil and hatred, wherever in the world it may be. Let us welcome that responsibility as early in our lives as possible and keep it close to our hearts.
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Polish Consulate in Chicago,Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington, D.C.,U.S. Embassy Warsaw, Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center,United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dziennik Związkowy, WPNA FM, Auschwitz Memorial / Muzeum Auschwitz,
