Today I did something I never believed I would do in life. I toured the Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland.
I don’t profess to be much of an historian, nor am I a WWII trivia buff but today’s experience moved me beyond what I can truly capture in words. Having visited the memorial sites, I am flabbergasted that anyone could deny what happened.
There was a point not long after being at the Auschwitz site, where we were shuffling along a narrow hallway. I couldn’t help but believe the scene was the same some 65 years ago, only the stakes were much different. I walked in freedom because of the sacrifice of a large number of brave men, brave soldiers and also walk in spiritual freedom because of my relationship in Christ. They walked to their grave. Step by step to their last breath.
I stood in a window looking out at the killing wall, the place where innocent men and women were gunned down. Where I stood was in the footsteps where some unknown man/men stood and watched the atrocity 65 years ago.
My heart broke when I saw the piles of luggage with names still on them, the mound of eyeglasses, prosthetics, thousands of pounds of hair from their shaved heads. My eyes welled up with tears when I saw the thousands of pairs of shoes. What devastated my heart was the knowledge that those cracked, weathered and battered shoes made the many, many steps to the camps giving their owners hope that better times were ahead. They were deceived...there was no better life ahead, only death.
I am thankful that I have freedom to live, freedom to believe. I truly hope and pray that nothing in our world in this generation, or any other, would compare to the horrid atrocities that occurred at Auschwitz and Birkenau.
May God's peace be with you and with all your family and ancestors.
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