Remembering the Heat and Oppression of Auschwitz

Like everyone else who read that the former Auschwitz Concentration Camp installed cooling mist "showers" to cool off the summer visitors, I was disgusted and sickened.   I was repulsed not only at the idea; but appalled that someone made this administrative decision at a camp that was left standing to serve as a dedication to those that perished there and as a reminder of the horrors of our recent history.  I can not imagine visiting Auschwitz (as I did two years ago) and being confronted or greeted with anything that even remotely represents showers, steam or mist.  I know that even the suggested image generates a feeling of horror to each and every one of us and I don't need to comment on the atrocity any further.

However, as I started to think, I knew that I needed to write about the feelings that visiting Auschwitz, or any former concentration camp should evoke.  I am sure I can speak for most Jews worldwide when I say that being Jewish presents so many obstacles, concerns and challenges.  I image the range of emotions we are forced to experience is very similar to what African Americans feel.  I am in my early 50's - I have two teenage kids.  My peers all know at least one person who is a Holocaust survivor and most have never experienced significant direct episodes of anti-Semitism.  I NEVER imagined that I would have fear in my life time because I am Jewish.    However, life  in 2015 continues to be uncertain for so many Jews in the world,  I now worry what my kids will experience while on a college campus, and while traveling I feel as if I should keep my religion to myself.  As Jews we experience all types of sentiment every day of our lives.

When visiting a concentration camp, we need to feel the weight of life of our people that were there.  We need to know as best as we can the terror and shock of having our lives taken away from us.  We need to feel as much of what our parent's and grandparent's relatives went through to be able to fully understand our history.  We need to internalize the desolation and anguish.  Certainly any Holocaust Memorial seeks to invoke similar realizations.  We need to feel the heat and oppression of a summer day at Auschwitz.  Having cooling mists not only robs us of our dignity because of what we associate them with, it robs us of the necessary experience we need to encounter. 

We often hear of the fear that there will be no one left to tell the stories directly - no one to make sure that we never forget the atrocities that were brought on to our relatives.  Its so important to make sure we all know our history, but we also need to make sure we can feel our history as well - within our hearts, our souls and throughout our blood, sweat and tears.