Travel, Empathy and Humanity

This is my first time in Europe and there are only a few things I cannot leave without seeing: Switzerland, Italy and Auschwitz. Switzerland was unbelievably beautiful, and is absolutely a place I will visit again and again. The mountains carve out the landscape, only to be punctuated by beautiful bridges that connect one cliff to another. Sometimes there would be waterfalls or a church steeple to add to the already breathtaking landscape. I repeatedly held my phone up to take a picture of something beautiful, and would just end up setting it in my lap instead. No pictures could do the country justice, so I actually have very few photos from our time there. Instead, I studied as much as I could, soaking up every last drop of the greens, yellows and browns that surrounded me.

Italy was the very first place I ever wanted to see. I remember the day well. I was looking in a school book in middle school, and I saw a picture of Venice. I learned that the city was built on stilts, and you travel the “streets” by boat. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. That photograph couldn’t have been more than a 3x3 picture in a textbook, but I was transported to this place that I vowed to see. We haven’t made it there yet, but I refuse to leave our travels without stepping foot on Italian soil.

I also refused to leave without visiting Auschwitz. There are other concentration camps I could have visited, but this one felt impactful. It was the largest of camps established by Nazis, encompassing two separate camps connected by a shuttle bus to take you from one to the other. It felt like a human responsibility to visit such a place. To stand exactly where hundreds of thousands of people were executed. Visiting feels like attending the funeral they never had.

Much of the European leg of our trip was spent in a camper. We flew from Scotland to Frankfurt, drove five hours to France and stayed in a house-sit for a week. Then lived in the camper for about two weeks after that. We drove through Switzerland, staying in wonderful campsites along the way. Then, we made a bee-line for Poland. It was a 12 hour drive, not including stops, so it took a few days. As we approached the town of Oświęcim, where Auschwitz is located, Bert and I both became nauseous. I could feel the tension build up in my chest, intensifying as we drove parallel to an abandoned railroad track. What was that track used for? I’m afraid to know what that track was used for. We pulled into a campsite to park for the night, and as we got cozy on our lawn-chairs outside, we could here the “chug-chug, chug-chug” from a train in the distance. Bert and I looked at each other, and both said, “I don’t like this.” Now, I don’t have to imagine what the imprisoned Jews may have heard as yet another train pulled up from the distance. Being in that place, looking at those trees and those fields acted as my time machine.

We drove to the camp the following morning around 8:30 and since we did not have tickets, we were turned away. We were told to come back earlier the next morning. So, that’s what we did. We woke up around 5:00, drove the camper to the camp entrance where Bert dropped me off and drove away until the parking lot opened at 7:30. I stood in line for 3.5 hours for tickets, worrying the entire time that we would be sent away again. Two million people visited Auschwitz last year, so rolling up without tickets is a risky maneuver. After a long wait, and lovely conversation with a few British and Irish visitors, I got our tickets.

Walking through gates, and seeing the buildings was a surreal experience. We’ve all seen photographs of these places in books or movies, so it felt faintly familiar, but haunting at the same time.

I could see the exact reasons with my own eyes why it was impossible to escape. Between the barbed wires on the first fence, there was typically a second fence that prisoners would have needed to breech. If you got close enough to the fence, it was often flanked by watchtowers housing Nazis who were ready to execute anyone who crept by. It was an impossible situation. We walked through the buildings where the Jewish prisoners were held captive, tortured, and starved. We also walked through the gas chambers. Some people rushed through this part. Others lingered. After visiting the first camp, we were bussed to the nearby second camp, which is where all Jews would have been taken first to be sorted for suitability. If they were deemed unfit for work, they were sent to be executed on the spot. We heard stories of the working camp that housed women and children. Mothers and their children were kept separately until they were executed days, weeks or months later. I thought of my babies, and how I would have likely been led directly to a gas chamber to die with them, assuming we hadn’t died on the journey to the camp first.

One job I didn’t know existed was given to a Jew to facilitate the gas chamber executions. This person was a Jew himself and was responsible for herding his fellow Jews into the chamber. This person was screened to ensure he had the psychological mentality to do this job, and after a few months, he was executed himself. Common knowledge among the imprisoned Jews was that the person in this position would ultimately die, but he didn’t know when. It was this uncertainty, paired with hope that kept him going. We were told that many people in the camp believed there could be a possibility that they survived, or their family members might have survived. This was the thing that allowed them to push onward toward another day. The mental health provider in me knows that hopelessness is the biggest determinant of people completing suicide, so it makes sense that hope led people to life if they were lucky enough to avoid the Nazis.

Bert and I have talked about empathy quite a lot in our marriage. Last year, he made the observation that I may not always be friendly, but I generally always have empathy. Before visiting Auschwitz, I found myself having empathy for the young Nazis who worked in the camp. I wondered if they were being coerced to behave with such brutality, and I wondered how my impression of them would change after leaving the camp. What I know now is that Jews were tortured and murdered for years, while the SS facilitated such an operation with glee. They were not regretful, and it would have been impossible to be at Auschwitz as a part of the SS if you were not completely and totally in the know about what was happening. (All the Nazis can go fuck themselves, in case you were wondering if I still have some empathy left for them.)

Since our trip to Auschwitz, I have continued watching videos and reading about the Holocaust, and one thing I can say about this entire trip is that traveling builds connection to humanity. I feel more compassion, empathy and connection to people after having been to some of the places we have been to, and I feel sad for those who refuse to venture outside their bubble. How can you possibly feel the depth of a tragedy without having stood at the steps of it? I refuse to exist on this planet without making an effort to hear the stories of the human experience. What a shame it would be to only know the parts I want to know…the good parts. Expanding my capacity for empathy, and building my connection to my species means I must become engulfed in what makes us dark and invasive, too.