{"id":3616,"date":"2020-06-04T18:57:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T08:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=3616"},"modified":"2020-06-10T18:55:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T08:25:07","slug":"stephen-orr-auschwitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2020\/06\/stephen-orr-auschwitz\/","title":{"rendered":"GUEST POST: Stephen Orr on Auschwitz, guilt, and responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stephen<\/a><\/h1>\n

What right do I have to talk about this place? What do I know about it? How much can I feel, can I see and smell and hear the suffering?<\/h1>\n

These are the questions author and teacher Stephen Orr asked himself after visiting the remains of the Auschwitz prison camp. In this guest post, Stephen writes of the importance of feeling pain that is not necessarily yours, and of remembering what has happened in the past as a way of improving the future.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stephen Orr<\/strong>\u00a0is an Adelaide born and based school teacher moonlighting as an author (or vice versa, depending on the day). Stephen has\u00a0published seven novels, a volume of short stories, and two books of non-fiction.<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

What right do I have to talk about this place? What do I know about it? How much can I feel, can I see and smell and hear the suffering?<\/h1>\n

The questions I\u2019d been asking myself as I and my wife and sons travelled through the Czech Republic on a Flix bus, the petrol station food stops, the highways and hotels, a winter world of neon signs and warehouses, power stations and the skies of middle Europe. Auschwitz: this place that lives in our consciousness, sticks there; these images of trains and ramps and dynamited crematoria. The guards and dogs and tragedy of lives, millions, destroyed. When the late Eva Mozes Kor (who, along with her twin sister, Miriam, survived Josef Mengele\u2019s medical experiments) first returned to Auschwitz in 1984, she walked into Birkenau (Auschwitz II) holding a tape recorder, fighting back tears: \u2018I see them taking mother and father directly, and she held her arms stretched out and \u2026 where did she vanish?\u2019<\/p>\n

\n

I have no right<\/em>, but as I grow older, as I see the power of populist politics, I think, perhaps, I have some responsibility<\/em>.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not in the same sense as Eva, Primo Levi, Eli Wiesel or the hundreds of survivors who have spoken and written about Ha-Shoah<\/em>, but nonetheless, in some small way. In uncertain times \u2013 immigration, globalisation, jobs \u2013 people return to the familiar. How it used to be<\/em>. Recent elections in Europe have seen the rise of a nationalist parties such as Hungary\u2019s Fidesz, Austria\u2019s Freedom Party, Danish People\u2019s Party, Spain\u2019s Vox and Germany\u2019s Alternative for Deutschland (AfD). A year after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris I witnessed a demonstration by Germany\u2019s far-right Pegida in Munich. The blaring PA, the lights, the singing, the salutes. And to suggest history doesn\u2019t repeat.<\/p>\n

Krak\u00f3w. Probably the most beautiful city in Europe. St Mary\u2019s Basilica, Christmas markets in the old square, horse-drawn carriages full of rugged-up tourists, Wawel Castle and Cathedral. But history hangs heavily over the city. The capital of Nazi Germany\u2019s General Government under Hans Frank. Stalin shutting down printing presses, building steel mills, smothering religion and free speech. These layers, dating back to Krak\u00f3w\u2019s Stone Age origins. Hints of this now, although I have the feeling (as with so many places in Europe) that people just want to get on with their lives. That history persists, and never really bridges the gap between the living and dead. Here is a city aware of its past, and future. Even buying a train ticket, discounts for Teacher (33%), Big Family (37%), Anti-Communistic Opposition Activists\/Victimised (100%) and Combatant (51%).<\/p>\n

The next morning, Krak\u00f3w (G\u0142\u00f3wny) Station, an amalgam of platforms, shopping mall (Galeria Krakowska), car park, tram line, Starbucks (of course), food hall and three levels of American Dreams. A shiny, new vote of confidence in the future of this reawakening city. To the bus station, and two dozen people waiting for the shuttle to Auschwitz, rugged up against the cold we\u2019ve been warned about. And even now, a strange feeling.<\/p>\n

\n

Not that we expect to enjoy<\/em> the day; or become more enlightened, better, wiser people. No. That we might grasp<\/em> what happened between 1941\u20131945. That we might, somehow, understand the capacity of our species to hate, and love. To destroy and, as with Eva, forgive.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No fighting for a seat this time. We all sit, quietly \u2013 American retirees, Chinese twenty-somethings, Australians, a sprinkling of European accents. Looking out the window, wondering what our day will bring. The first time (I guess) for all of us. The Orrs have been to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg (outside Berlin), Dachau (Munich), but somehow, this feels different. The bus pulling out, no words, no explanations, as we drive through the city, the suburbs, the Soviet-era apartment blocks, glimpses of nineteenth century gentility. A grey, drizzly day; a few kids on skateboards, an old woman heading for her local Lidl; a small park with birch trees, and see-saw. Ordinary. A highway heading west, the usual doof-doof from headphones, diesel vapours (it\u2019s an old bus) and my sons, searching for missing Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just thinking about Auschwitz. Having taught (six, seven times) John Boyne\u2019s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas <\/em>(and having felt something wasn\u2019t quite right). Eli Wiesel\u2019s Night<\/em>. Even Peter Padfield\u2019s biography of Himmler, thinking, perhaps, it might give me some idea how these things start. Although it didn\u2019t. Just the voice of Eva on a scratchy tape, standing on the ramp at Auschwitz in 1984: \u2018Mum, I will tell our story. I will tell our story because the world must know.\u2019<\/p>\n

A road running beside and through small towns, carefully-manicured gardens, a hardware shop, a bakery, the locals watching this daily stream of interlopers. A turn into a small carpark, the reception block for new prisoners, rows of buses, hundreds, a thousand or more people, tour guides with little flags raised in mute tribute, as groups tussle for a spot in the long lines.<\/p>\n

\n

As we get off, as I think, It wasn\u2019t meant to be like this. I\u2019d imagined Auschwitz in the middle of the country, not in a town. I thought it had been a secret.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then it dawned on me: this place has become a tourist destination<\/em>. The taxis and cars, the souvenir shop, the struggle to find the right line, another wait for the toilets (everyone running from the unequipped buses), and the woman at the door with coin tray, EFTPOS machine. Was this<\/em> what I imagined? So I pay, we regroup, present our bags, get our tickets and headphones and wait. Looking for clues in the terrazzo floor, the walls, glimpses of the red brick buildings outside. Watching a guard get angry with an Italian nonna.<\/p>\n

All the history seems superfluous. Heinrich Himmler telling camp commandant Rudolf H\u00f6ss: \u2018It is a hard, tough task which demands the commitment of the whole person without regard to any difficulties \u2026 If we do not succeed in destroying the biological basis of Jewry, some day the Jews will annihilate the German Volk<\/em>.\u2019 The SS converting a Polish army barracks at O\u015bwi\u0229cim (Auschwitz) into a camp for political prisoners. The first gassing of Polish and Soviet prisoners in August 1941. Weeks later, construction starts on the nearby Auschwitz II (Birkenau). Killing on an industrial scale. Freight trains bringing Jews from all over German-occupied Europe. The horror of the numbers (1.1 million dead) masking the horror of each death. Each<\/em> man, woman and child. Eva\u2019s mother and father and two older sisters killed in the gas chamber at Birkenau. \u2018But here the stink was over-powering \u2026 It was everywhere and inescapable. I did not find out right away what the smell really was.\u2019<\/p>\n

Eventually our group gathers in the yard between the reception centre and camp. We stand, looking over at the sign on the gate: \u2018Arbeit Macht Frei\u2019 (\u2018Work Sets You free\u2019). We\u2019ve all seen it before, but now the words have new meaning. A few people take photos, but I can\u2019t. Not from any moral high ground, but just how it feels<\/em>. As we\u2019re given the introduction. Like thousands, every day. Facts, stand here, don\u2019t do this, can everyone hear me?<\/p>\n

History stripped back to its basics. A sense of disorientation, of not believing I\u2019m here, of the ghosts, waiting, like us, under very different circumstances. We cross to the gate, beside the SS guard house (and office of camp supervisor). I\u2019m not sure I hear the guide. She keeps fading in and out.<\/h1>\n

We continue. Again, it all makes sense. This isn\u2019t the Auschwitz I know from documentaries. That\u2019s Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a mile and a half away. Then there was Auschwitz III-Monowitz (now gone), a labour camp for prisoners working in the IG-Farben factory. And dozens of smaller sub-camps. Auschwitz I was a dry-run, a trial, a collection of two-storey, red-brick blocks lined up with regimental efficiency. Connective tissues of dirt roads, and beyond the fence \u2013 trees, the Sola River, factories and train lines.<\/p>\n

Our group moves slowly. We patiently wait for each other as a tourist gridlock forms. All the time, faces searching for clues. Block 5: Material Evidence of Crimes.<\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019re warned. But this is what we\u2019ve come for. What is necessary. After all, nothing could approach what happened here seventy years before.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As Eva explains: \u2018After we found out that the Nazis had made soap out of Jewish fat, I dreamed that soap bars spoke to me in the voices of my parents and sisters, asking me, \u201cWhy are you washing with us?\u201d\u2019 Cabinets full of hair, glasses, shoes. I try to read the names on the cases: \u2018L. Bermann 26.12.1886 Hamburg\u2019. People stripped of identity in a killing machine that ran efficiently, day in, day out, for years. Block 6: Everyday Life of the Prisoners. Rough mattresses laid on the floor, the image of hundreds of prisoners crammed into each small area. Block 11: the \u2018death block\u2019. A room where some semblance of a trial (with its inevitable outcome) took place, then the to the basement, the small cells, as prisoners sat (or stood in the standing cells \u2013 Stehzellen<\/em> \u2013 no light, cooling or heating) listening to the executions, waiting their turn. Back upstairs, and out into a courtyard, and the executioner\u2019s \u2018Death Wall\u2019, the windows of Block 10 (medical experiments) boarded over so no one could see what was happening.<\/p>\n

Continuing around this honeycomb of buildings: a storeroom for poison gas (Zyklon B) and prisoners\u2019 stolen property; an assembly square and gallows; political section (Gestapo Camp) and, in the distance, the commandant\u2019s house. No Bruno and Gretel here. No chats through the wire (\u2018Vorsicht Hochspannung Lebensgefahr\u2019<\/em>). And between H\u00f6ss\u2019s house and the original gas chamber and crematorium, the gallows where the commandant was hanged in April 1947. Some sense of justice, but not enough, considering how few staff ever stood trial.<\/p>\n

\n

Either way, we are led into the gas chamber. Small, cold, dark. We look up at the vents. But there is no way to imagine, to understand. Surely this is what Eva meant when she promised her mother: \u2018I will tell our story because the world must know.\u2019 When she described the daily hell: \u2018At Auschwitz dying is so easy.\u2019 Past the crematoria. Outside into the light.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Because we have the choice.<\/h1>\n

Auschwitz I. The feeling these words are inadequate, as I feared. We return our headphones, exit the camp, the reception building, and wait for the shuttle bus to take us to Birkenau. I notice a few people from this morning. No one says much. Just long, vacant stares out of the window. Something perfunctory, perhaps. Lunch. The sun coming out. What\u2019s for dinner? The bus pulls out, past more factories and warehouses, neat homes, people out gardening. And soon we arrive, the unmistakable arch, the entrance to some greater hell.<\/p>\n

We walk through the main gate. The railway tracks intact, the selection platform extending into the distance, nearby forests, homes. German efficiency: 744 people per building, each structure colonising the grey landscape in Schindler-like rows and columns. The maths: 174 barracks (35 x 11 metres), 62 bays (or \u2018roosts\u2019) holding four inmates. An exercise in numbers, dreamt up at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, designed by SS architect Karl Bischoff, logistics courtesy of Adolf Eichmann. Birkenau had a capacity of 125,000 prisoners, and it felt like this. A city of death. And that morning, a freezing, horizontal gale as we walk the length of the platform, past one of the \u2018cattle cars\u2019 used to transport prisoners from all over Europe, as far as the gas chambers and crematoria II and III, hastily destroyed in the last weeks of war, before prisoners were returned to Germany in \u2018death marches\u2019.<\/p>\n

\n

It occurs to me that the end came in many forms \u2013 if not the gas chamber, worked to death (prisoners building their own barracks), starvation, disease, or hypothermia.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Our tour group just stands, listening, huddling into each other, grasping umbrellas that do nothing to stop the rain. Eventually we arrive at the women\u2019s camp, find shelter inside a single barracks, contemplate the days, weeks, perhaps, someone could survive without adequate clothing, food. Eva explaining \u2018\u2026 the bread we ate each evening \u2026 contained not only sawdust but a powder called bromide that made us forget memories of home.\u2019 The bunks, still waiting for the women who were due to be sent to the gas chamber. The ammonia-clouded windows with a view of more barracks, guard towers, wire. \u2018People were yelling. There were screams. Confusion. Desperation. Barking Orders.\u2019<\/p>\n

Later, we return to Auschwitz I. By now, the crowds are thinning out, and it\u2019s growing dark. We cross the road and eat cheap hamburgers in an empty caf\u00e9. An empty mall, too, built, I guess, in anticipation of tourists. A sad, lonely place with tables and chairs lined up like huts. Postcards. As I watch the shop assistants waiting.<\/p>\n

So what do we owe the past? What can we learn?<\/h1>\n

For a start: human life, human dignity, should be above laws, rules, the whims of leaders. The way German soldiers, today, need not<\/em> follow orders (\u2018According to German law an order is not binding if \u2026 it violates the human dignity of the third party concerned\u2019: Practice Relating to Rule 154: Obedience to Superior Orders<\/em>). Second, that history keeps changing clothes, pretending it\u2019s something else. This is what I saw in Munich in 2016. The sounds, the colour and movement, the visceral attraction of Pegida. The museum director at Buchenwald Concentration camp recently explained: \u2018[Guestbook] messages glorifying Nazism or demanding the camps be re-opened for foreigners have become more common.\u2019 Smiling selfies in front of gas chambers, provoking arguments with tour guides. All becoming somehow okay. As the AfD keep chanting: \u2018Wir sind das Volk!\u2019 (\u2018We are the people!\u2019) Thirdly, that we are obliged to speak (however imperfectly) on behalf of those who can\u2019t. A strange idea in a country that has little history, few reference points, an ethos of unfettered progress, individual prosperity.<\/p>\n

\n

Finally, that we make some attempt to forgive. As Eva Kor points out: \u2018Getting even has never healed a single person.\u2019<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We return to the camp, miss a bus, and by now it\u2019s dark. The car park empties and my family and another dozen people wait in the cold, and misty rain. The camp is locked up. The lights off. I wonder about the hundreds of thousands. This place where they last saw sky, smelt grass, perhaps. I still don\u2019t know any more than I did eight hours ago. I don\u2019t understand. How this place was built, staffed, people brought in, slaughtered. I just don\u2019t get it. And when the bus finally arrives, and we climb aboard, I feel like I\u2019ve left something unfinished.<\/p>\n

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What right do I have to talk about this place? What do I know about it? How much can I feel, can I see and smell and hear the suffering? These are the questions author and teacher Stephen Orr asked … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[868,894,757,112],"tags":[899,884,16,663,334],"class_list":["post-3616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-feature","category-guest-post","category-history","category-politics","tag-anti-racism","tag-buy-books","tag-history","tag-politics","tag-stephen-orr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-Wk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3616"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3620,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions\/3620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}