There is a tenseness I feel beneath my sternum, a pressure who’s causation can not be precisely pinpointed. Beforehand, I wonder how I should feel, worry about how I will feel. What if I feel too little or too much?
As our small group emptied our van at Auschwitz, gray clouds littering the sky, errant raindrops falling, there was a mood of earnestness, a recognition of the gravity of the site we were visiting. This was a site we studied all semester. We knew all about the atrocities committed there. Yet even though we had learned about the worst of humanity, we had never seen it up close. And if I am being honest, I was scared—scared that this small part of our journey would be the gloomy lense with which I viewed the whole trip, scared that there was no way in which I could understand or support the reactions of my Jewish peers.
Upon arrival, I was nervous to find a sea of tourists in bulky ponchos with umbrellas. When walking around the grounds, I was struck by how much this place seemed like a museum. The scariest reminders or remains of its dark past weren’t so much the structures themselves but the belongings left behind…locks of hair, shoes, chinaware. All were dark reminders of life, of what once was. It made me sick to my stomach.
The simple truth is: this pre-trip mental dialogue was unfair and I am still not completely sure how I feel about the visit. It is here, at sites of tragedy that we must come to terms with our own natural reactions. We must be kinder and more patient with ourselves and others. It is completely unfair to relegate our emotional responses to a small, confined box. How we feel before, during, and after a visit to a site of trauma, even if it is not our own, bends and changes as we process what we hear and see. I am not sure if my thoughts from the visit will ever stay fully static. Rather, I believe they will stay fluid with time.
We cannot forget. It is important to know, no matter how painful.
*Please note that I did not take any pictures at Auschwitz or Auschwitz-Birkenau. I felt as though using my phone with be inappropriate at these sites of trauma.*