The United Nations has designated January 27 as international Holocaust Remembrance Day. Many stories come to mind, but some remain while others need to be stirred into remembrance again.
Many years after the war was over, a man who was a practising Catholic visited Auschwitz for the first time. He knew enough about the infamous gas chambers. On his tour of the death camp, he decided to enter the gas chambers and get a good look at the place where innumerable Jews were murdered. As he entered and stood inside, the man felt an overwhelming desire to pray for the souls of the people who had died there. He closed his eyes and began to pray. As soon as he started praying, he felt movement all around him. He sensed that a group of people had entered the room and were congregating around him. Eyes still shut, he continued to pray for each and every soul whose life had ended in that room. When he finished praying, he opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by a big group of people. They appeared to be members of a conference as they were all dressed in the same kind of uniform. It was a motley group, an assembly of old and young, men, women, children. He apologised if he had intruded into their time. There was no response from them. Even as he stood there, finding their silence very odd, a most strange thing happened. Slowly, the figures began to disappear, one by one. It was then he realised they were all wearing the Auschwitz prison uniform. A second later, it dawned on him that the members of the group were the spirits of the people who had died there. Perhaps it was the first time anyone had prayed for their souls. The man left Auschwitz visibly moved and unable to forget his experience.
Another story is that of Pilecki. Witold Pilecki is a name you can google and get more information on his life. Witold was a Polish operative, who allowed himself to be taken prisoner by the Germans and was taken to Auschwitz. On the fateful day that he was taken, the concierge had run to him and said, ‘Mr Witold, the Germans are taking men from their houses – we have a good hiding spot in the cellar.’ Witold replied, ‘Mr Jan, this time I won’t be needing it.’ He submitted himself to be picked up and imprisoned at Auschwitz so he could observe all that was going on from inside. On day one, he was beaten on the mouth with a bat and all his teeth were smashed. In the days that followed, he was beaten, tortured and starved along with all the other inmates. But he endured it all. While in Auschwitz, he created networks in his goal to find out ‘the scale of the operation, the numbers being brought and the transportation bringing them’ (One for Israel report).
Witold was working tirelessly for close to three years to get the message out to the outside world about what was happening. Auschwitz was seen as a prisoner of war camp for the Polish but the truth was that it was being used as ‘an industrial killing plant for the mass extermination’ of Jews. Witold’s urgings to the Polish and their allies to attack the camp went unheeded. It ended in the Holocaust of six million Jews.
The Jewish Virtual Library tells of some of Witold’s endeavours and heroism:
“He began sending information about what was going on inside the camp and confirming that the Nazis were seeking the extermination of the Jews to Britain and the United States as early as 1941. Pilecki used a courier system that the Polish Resistance operated throughout occupied Europe to channel the reports to the Allies.’
This question will always hang in the air, why did Churchill not do anything about Auschwitz of which his government was warned about as early as 1941? Why did the Allies not act on it?
There are Holocaust deniers in many countries, especially in Europe. The Holocaust was real, painfully real. Auschwitz and Birkenau, Dachau, and many other death camps are still to be found standing as grim witnesses to the barbarity of man’s soul. One can only say, May it never happen again.
