Hi everyone,
Today
I want to share with you something really important for me. Last
Tuesday, I went with the PRJ (Parlement Régional de la Jeunesse) to
Krakow, in Poland to visit Auschwitz II Birkenau and Auschwitz I. It has
been a very intense day and I have to admit that it is difficult to
talk about it. If I decided to write an article it is not to describe
you the organization of this camp but to insist on our relation to
history and memory, as students. I want to share with you what I felt
more than what I saw.
We
first visited Auschwitz II Birkenau. We entered into the camp by
following the rails which go straight into it. It was snowing and there
was no noise at all. I was surprised to discover a « peaceful » place
surrounded by nature which is so paradoxical given that atrocities were
committed in this camp. To give you an idea of the complete silence of
this place : I even saw does running around the camp.
However,
it wasn’t that peaceful in my mind. What really struck me was the fact
that I didn’t expect the camp to be so close to a village and to any possible human life. I couldn’t stop myself thinking about the
inhabitants of these villages. Were they witnesses of these horrible
crimes? I don’t know.
We
then visited Auschwitz I and I didn’t take any photos because I wasn’t
feeling at ease with this idea. This part of the camp is presented as a
museum, each block containing personal objects which belonged to the
victims. Facing all this cruelty and monstrosity is difficult and, I
think, very personal. Each person has a different relation towards
memory. This visit also made me think about a lot of things. Is it a
good thing to visit Auschwitz? Should we impose it to students? How are
teachers supposed to present to students such an horrible period of
history? These questions are actually really difficult to answer. I really would like to know what you think about it, teachers and students.
Here are some pictures that I took of Auschwitz II Birkenau. As I said earlier, I don't have any of Auschwitz I.
Esther
It seems totally traumatizing... But it is a part of our history, even though it is awful, so it makes sense that students and people in general visit that place. Of course it is not for pleasure but to learn and realize what happened I guess..?
ReplyDeleteI think this is important to know about it in order not to forget what happened and not to do the same mistakes again, even though we are still doing them.
ReplyDeleteThe place looks quite beautiful, which is as you said extremely paradoxical and... just weird I think. But thank you for the article, it was very interesting and I find your questions really thought-provoking. Overall I think it is indeed a good thing to remember these dark parts in history, even though we would like to forget them.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that it must feel quite weird to tell yourself that you're in a place where thousands of people died just because they were born. I always wanted to go to Auschwitz because I think you can understand even more what happened and feel closer to the victims. However, in my opinion to answer one of your questions I don't think we should force students to go see it because it can be very traumatizing for some of them.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been quite a powerful moment. As you said, I think we must talk and learn about it, but then, I think it has to become personal, a choice, to go and discover more about it or not.
ReplyDelete(Your pictures are extremely sad and really touching)
Thanks for your article and you ask some really difficult questions ! I think we have to address the questions again and again. On the 1ères' trip to London we saw the Holocaust exhibition in the Imperial War Museum and the testimony and documents were incredibly moving, even more than I thought possible at my age. I just hope Holocaust-deniers and other anti-semites see documents like this.Some of the questions that you ask are addressed in an excellent German film called "Et puis les touristes"
ReplyDeletei feel that every person should visits Auschwitz because talking about the horrible massacre that happened there is not enough! Yeah it can be hard to go there bus it is very important to go there so we can have a better understanding of how important is the subject. Yes we study it in 3eme but only by going there you can transform the numbers in a real touchable subject
ReplyDelete