Today was a day that challenged me to push my boundaries. I had to choose between entering the building with the gas chambers or not. There was absolutely no pressure to do so, but as a historian, as a teacher who wants to be authentic, and as a person who wants to understand as much as possible about any given topic, I decided to enter. Reaching the point of the showers and imaging hundreds of people shoved in there feeling everything from modesty to shame to fear. Moving forward to the gas chambers, there were no words then and even now to truly describe how it was to see where so many perished. So many vibrant lives were stolen. Blue has always been a favorite color of mine, but seeing the blue stains on the wall-remnants of the gas used to murder so many innocent victims just took my breath away. The end of our tour was the Dome of Ashes, the sadness that washes over you as you look upon the mix of ashes, on one day alone 18,000 were killed and their ashes are part of the mound. It just is so much to take in – where was the humanity? How can people hate so much? That is the one question I have never been able to answer for my students, and even after touring these sights, I still don’t have a good answer. I only have an overwhelming sense of grief for all who were lost.
Majdanek- Poetry: The Crows
The Crows
As we pulled into the parking area for Majdanek, I saw a black crow. Throughout the day, that crow and others made an appearance and I started thinking about how crows refer to death, the afterlife, transformation, and the future which all seemed relevant given 360,000 died and many of those few who lived sought to teach about the past to protect the future.
As we entered Majdanek, a single black crow sat on a fence post watching,
As we walked the path of the camp, crows flew over head,
As we walked the path to the Dome of Ashes a single crow again sat on a fence post watching
As we offered our ceremony of remembrance, a murder of crows flew overhead cawing
A murder of crows, so appropriate in the home of death and of the dead
But the sing song calling of the crows seemed to express their accepting
Of the ceremony to remember and honor those murdered without reason -only hate, fear, and indifference ruled
It seems the crows are watching, protecting those in death,
those who were not protected in life.