March of the Living 1999 Diary

April 13, 7:25 AM

Okay, I lied. I have some time now, on the bus. You'll have to excuse my handwriting; it's a little bumpy. I'll do as much as I can.

As I said last night, wake-up was at 5:30 this morning. I was up at some point before that. I'm not sure when. I didn't check my watch.

It's funny, I thought that after only 4-5 hours of sleep I'd be more tired than I am. I think that tonight I'll be exhausted. We'll see.

Well, we'll be at Auschwitz in a little under an hour. I'm not quite sure how I'm feeling about it. Still a little disbelief, I think. Even though I'm in Poland, I haven't really seen any signs of the great massacres or destruction that took place. The work-camp near Krakow was taken down. All that's in its place now is a green meadow and two monuments. There's no sign that anything happened there. It might be any other park at all.

But now we're going to Auschwitz. I find myself thinking about the Holocaust in general, and I think that's the wrong approach. Six million. It's a big number. It's a huge number. It's so big, I don't think it's possible to understand such a number. It might be better to think of things on a smaller scale. Think of one person or one tiny village. Then think, "they are gone. They will never be back."

Everyone has to die sometime, but why do people like the Nazis insist on speeding up the process?

I also find myself thinking about something our guide Mike said. He was talking to us about the ghettos and the work camp. And then he asked us if to truly understand what happened, we should all take off our jackets (it was fairly cold out) and stand outside for a half hour. It wouldn't be nearly as bad as what the people in the Shoah went through. We didn't. We all went inside and got out of the cold. But I think about what he said. Should we have? Is that what it would take? If we did, would we find ourselves sympathizing with the survivors (and the non-survivors) more? Would we understand? Or would we all complain and then go inside, grateful that it was over, and warm up with a cup of hot chocolate?

Your Wondering,
Julie