Remembrance
Today is International Holocaust
Remembrance Day. Today also marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the
Auschwitz concentration camp.
People were sent to Auschwitz, and its
sister camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, beginning in 1942, from almost every corner of Europe.
People were forcibly removed from their
homes and transported in cattle cars to the camp. During the transportation to
the camps, which could take days, people in the cattle cars often stood in place.
There was very little water or food, and no bathroom facilities.
Upon their arrival, people exited the
cattle cars and lined up to begin the selection process. German officers and
doctors decided who lived and who died.
Most of the people that entered Auschwitz
were put to death in the gas chambers an hour after their arrival.
Those who were not put to death lived in
inhumane conditions, living in barracks open to the elements.
People in the camp were put to work in
several functions. The "Sonderkommando", or Special Works Unit, worked in the
crematorium in the camp. The "Kanada Kommando" workers sorted through all of the
belongings of all the people and shipped them to Germany.
There were also those who were chosen as
subjects for medical experimentation.
The camp was liberated by Russian forces,
the 5th camp to be liberated. I cannot imagine what they encountered
on their arrival-emaciated survivors, mass slaughter and carnage.
It is reported that 1.5 million people
were put to death at Auschwtiz and Auschwtiz-Birkenau. This system of
annihilation was perpetrated at more than 25 camps across Europe.
13 million Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Homosexuals, Freemasons, political prisoners, critics of Nazi
propaganda, people with mental and physical disabilities, and other
“undesirables”, as the Nazis referred to them, were put to death in Germany’s “Final
Solution.”
Upon the liberation of the concentration
camps, the world swore “never again.” The world swore to never let such
genocide happen ever again.
But it has happened again.
In Rwanda….
In Rwanda….
In former Yugoslavia…
In Cambodia…
And most recently in Darfur in the
Sudan….
The holocaust was the darkest chapter in
human history. On this day of remembrance, let us take a moment and pray for
those 13 million who lost their lives. Let us learn from the past and take up
the charge to never let such acts happen again.
© Esperanza Habla All Rights Reserved
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