#tw:holocaust

[laraimaustria]

Search for Meaning: Krakow day 2

As someone who studies psychology I am often required to theorize about the causes of human behavior and how we react to and deal with challenges in our lives. About a month ago the director of our school recommend we read Man's Search For Meaning by Austrian psychologist Victor Frankl who survived Auschwitz and went on to write about the psychological phases of concentration camp imprisonment and his own theory that man is driven not by primal urges but the search for a meaningful existence. It was an amazing book and a fantastic intro to what we saw today.

Today we started off with a tour of the castle hill here in Krakow, which was nice but I think I'm getting a little castled-out. Our tour guide was very nice though and gave us a lot of good information about the history of Krakow. After the tour we got some surprisingly good pizza for lunch and then got on the bus towards Auschwitz.

I didn't cry today. I thought I would, and I came close, but the experience of Auschwitz can't really be described as simply as "sad". It's a combination of sadness, horror, disgust, and vague feeling of unsettled incomprehension of the massive scale of the atrocities that were committed here. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be poetic about this, because romanticism has no place here. It's just hard to convey such a complicated mix of emotions.

We met our guide at the entrance to the complex. The parking lot has a restaurant attached to it, which seems kind of distasteful if you think about it. But we followed our guide under the Arbeit Macht Frei sign and into Auschwitz I. This wasn't the extermination camp yet but the barracks where prisoners worked and we're forced to live, and that now make up the museum. The day was fittingly grey and gloomy, I think it would have been extremely unsettling to see it on a nice day. We walked through the museum full of pictures of prisoners arriving at the camp, pictures of prisoners in their uniforms, pictures of nearly starved children. The most hard-hitting exhibits were the rooms filled with the possessions that the prisoners brought with them to the camp. Thousands of suitcases, eyeglasses, shoes, bowls, hairbrushes. And an entire room just with hair. The closest I came to crying was in the room filled with children's shoes. We also got to see some of the rooms used for punishment where people were often forced to stand in the dark often four to a room built for one. Another unsettling moment was seeing the death wall where over 7,000 people were executed. The last thing we did before leaving the first camp was to walk through the only remaining gas chamber and crematorium. I don't think there are any words. I didn't linger for long.

Auschwitz-Birkenau is the camp that people probably most often think of, which the large front entrance and railroad tracks. This was the extermination camp, and has been kept as close as possible to what it looked like the day it was liberated. Again, the sheer size is the most unsettling part, that these barracks were filled and filled again. We passed one of the train cars used for deportation, again I didn't linger long. It was beginning to be dusk and we had to hurry before the complex closed for the night, but we saw the inside of the barracks and then walked to the back of the complex to see the remains of the blown up gas chambers and crematorium. All that's left is charred rubble so it's hard to believe that these used to be buildings in which so many were murdered. The last thing we saw was the memorial, with plaques written in all the languages of the prisoners. In the fading light the place felt even more solemn.

People always ask how humans could have done this to each other, and there are plenty of explanations. But there's no justification for what happened to the 6 million people who died in the Holocaust. I'm not going to pretend like I'm having an original thought when I say that the only thing we can do now is honor the dead and prevent such tragedy from happening again. I didn't cry today, but I did learn about what happened in Auschwitz and about the human reaction to tragedy, which, as our guide told us, was the ultimate wish of those who survived that place. That was how they found meaning from the horror.

[the-red-church-receipts-blog]

Records of Apologetics

~To be added~

[niedobitek]

magda's relation to her roma culture post-holocaust.

Meta on: Magda + Roma culture post-1945

Immediately after liberation, it’s safe to presume that Magda would’ve been holding onto the shreds of her culture for dear life. It was all she had left of her parents, this deeply significant and personal attachment to the world in which she’d grown up. And to quantify that a little, up until 1936, her background was incredibly, textbook traditional. Which means for the first eight years of her life, that was the world she knew and obviously it was a very profound and significant facet of her core upbringing. (Her family travelled, they kept horses, she lived in a vardo, there was a huge sense of community etc.)

In a post-war environment however, that community didn’t exist. The close knit community she’d grown up with, had essentially died in the camps for being Romany. Which puts into perspective a huge sense of dichotomy really for how tied to her culture she wanted to be. From 1936 and her deportation to Marzahn, right up until 1944 and the Sonderkommando revolt, Magda had been told day in day out, that she was defective. That she and the other Roma, were vermin. That they weren’t worthy of life, respect, dignity or any of the other basic human rights they should’ve been afforded. She watched her people die, slow, painful deaths, and the SS neither batted an eyelid nor cared.  So for eight years (which is also as long as she’d been in the Roma community) she had it drilled into her, that she was bad.

Which kind of spawns this entire conflicting world view. In one breath she wants to be what she was born to be, and yet in the other, she would rather forsake her cultural identity and blend into the background. She doesn’t want to be the enemy. She doesn’t want to be the ink blot on somebody else’s otherwise pristine canvas - and ultimately being Roma, led to a lot of her own internalised self loathing, because that’s the mentality that had been ingrained into her.

Ultimately, though, her attachment to her parents was far stronger than the chokehold of the Nazi regime. Max taught her that much, when they were trying to build a new life, and slowly but surely, Magda fell back into old habits. She took on board the things that served as a comfort, the routine for preparing food, the very defined gender roles, the spirituality and birth customs etc, especially when she realised she was pregnant with Anya.

I would say the biggest test of faith, came in marrying Max. In marrying a gadjo she severed her cultural ties. She wouldn’t be accepted by the rest of her people (by traditional standards) and honestly, after a good couple of years with him as the best thing to ever happen to her, she was okay with that. If they didn’t want him, then that was their problem - SHE DID. And okay, he went through a bit of a phase of trying to adopt a new identity, to blend in with the Roma, so he could give her back this support network she was so sorely lacking, but she was happier without. She was happier with him and their little girl, and a kind of less traditional approach to what it meant to be Roma.

It’s not as if she completely eradicated her connection to it. She still observed a lot of rules, with regards to dress, and whatnot. She wore a diklo from the day they married and never looked back. She still followed the rules for what was and what wasn’t considered marimé, she still spoke Polska Roma and was sure to teach it to Anya - and I think she was happy with the sacrifice really. It didn’t make her any less tied to her culture to be cut off from the community, it just made her a lot more appreciative of the man she married and the fact he recognised the significance of what she’d done for him.

[niedobitek]

Remember that time when the fandom actually remembered who Anya Lehnsherr was?Remember that time, when they actually realised the significance of two emaciated holocaust survivors, reclaiming their lives, rebuilding what had been lost and ultimately finding ways to live again after so much death? Remember when Anya was the tangible embodiment of recovery? When her very existence was the living proof of just how far they’d come. When she was humanising, energising, the epitome of hope and everything they could achieve again. Remember when people understood how pivotal it was for two people - who were barely adults themselves, to suddenly venture down the rocky road of parenting? Not in their 30′s or 40′s. Not when they’d had a chance to live a little, or to grow into themselves. But when they were thrown headfirst into it, clueless and nervous but above all else - for her, they learnt to thrive.  Remember when Anya Lehnsherr mattered?  Fun fact: She still does. 

[niedobitek]

Seeing as it’s June, that means here in the UK it’s  Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month! (It’s officially titled GRTHM, because apparently here in blighty ethnic slurs mean bugger all, but the overall message of the month is one of inclusion. ) It’s a month to celebrate the history, struggles and culture that is still very much a mystery to the majority of the world - and as part of the celebration last year, HMD ran a series of blogs on life for the Roma during Porajmos which you can find here.  I know it’s a very heavy subject matter, but I think it’s something that’s worth a read, even if only to briefly touch on the sheer scale and impact of the war and the people that suffered under it. 

[niedobitek]

War is very much a large part of Magda’s life.

Like most people that lived through the second world war, she was shaped by it, toughened and weakened simultaneously by the things she saw and experienced. To have seen her father executed, to have been systematically dehumanised and criminalised even as a child is enough to break anyone’s resolve. Even after liberation, the poisonous beliefs of the entire Nazi regime were still ingrained into her, the feelings of inadequacy, of unworthiness to even be alive. It took Max years to build up her self-worth, to convince her that she was allowed to be proud of herself, to look at herself with some measure of joy instead of eternal scorn. 

That’s still an issue even decades later, she always cycles back to the same things drilled into her as a child, to being herded like cattle and treated like rats. She doesn’t share the mentality in the slightest, yet it’s inked into her skin and present in her aching bones. She can’t take it out of her no matter how hard she might try to. That’s part of the war that stayed with her, that left it’s damnable mark and will likely still be there until the day that she dies.

Beyond that there’s the practical side of what she’s left with. The scars, the memories, the things that haunt her in the middle of the night. She’s a grown woman and she can’t tolerate the dark. Outside it’s a little different, there’s solace from the stars, but in a room without a candle, she’s a wreck. The amount of times she’s had to flick on a gas lamp or huddle against Max is ridiculous, yet it’s part and parcel with the PTSD. It’s what she associates with the dark that bothers her, the things people did, the things others didn’t do. It’s a vicious cycle.

Her entire view of human intimacy has been skewed because of the war. In the camps there was camaraderie, there were several people together at a time, huddled for warmth, for solidarity and safety. She misses the presence of other people, misses the cocoon of acknowledgement, yet at the same time, for months after liberation she still flinched at being touched, at being anywhere near anyone because of what happened to her. It’s that horrible juxtaposition between needing something and wanting it. She wants the presence of others, wants the redemption of a gentle touch and yet at the same time she’s terrified of it.

Beyond the negative, the war did at least bring some good with it. Despite being heinously traumatised by working in the infirmary, she learnt to mend wounds that would help in later life. She learnt the importance of compassion, and of resilience in times of hardship. It would be easy to be disheartened by the things she suffered, to fall victim to the belief that mankind is inherently evil, yet it’s only ever strengthened her resolve to the contrary. To be kind, to be gentle, to help those she can help and never turn a blind eye. She wants to be the better person to make sure it doesn’t happen again, she wants to be so far opposed to the ideology that led to the deaths of millions, that it can never again take root.

Yet despite this, old habits still die hard. She can try to be the pillar of morality all she wants, but it’s an almost impossible feat to break years worth of conditioning and psychological damage to the contrary. She wants to say she’s a pacifist in theory, yet at the same time, there’s a part of her that knows it’s not practical. That no battle is won with words alone, that change is something to be fought for and not dismissed. Granted growing up with Max and his political views probably helped to some extent, but it’s an awfully confusing state of mind to be in, caught between a rock and a hard place when trying to preach tolerance while wishing for revolution.

[niedobitek]

magda only survived the liquidation of the roma camp at birkenau because max smuggled her out amongst the dead, as part of his role as a sonderkommando. he put his life on the line to help someone else. without him, she would’ve died in ’44.

[niedobitek]

It’s hard to say you’re recovering, when the sickness of memory is still all too real. You can’t say you’ve beaten it when the flickers of recollection haunt you every time you close your eyes, when words still echo in the back of your mind like a mantra to your own damnation. She doesn’t feel clean a lot of the time, she can still feel the death on her skin, the grime beneath her nails and taste the metallic tang of blood on her lips. Her bones ache with the weight of it, with the burden of inadequacy, of trauma as tangible as the hands that have dealt it.

It’s the reason she cries when she thinks nobody’s listening. It’s the reason she claws and scratches, leaving scarlet trails across the inked insult upon her arm. That’s all that number is. It’s not a mark of survival, but the reminder that she ought to be dead. That she is imperfect; defective, unfit for society by accident of birth. The inadequacy is far reaching, too easily prevalent in a mind that should know better.

She’s supposed to have a life now. She’s supposed to be happy. Supposed to be starting again. Yet still the past tightens it’s grip, demons of yesteryear too real to be silenced, yet not real enough to be killed. It’s a paradox that makes her feel sick, a curse that is all consuming and damning in it’s simplicity. Maybe if she wasn’t branded, she’d feel more like a person. Maybe if that number would just scrub itself away, she might be able to feel whole.

She makes it worse in the long run, when the compulsion won’t cease. When her arm is bloodied and bruised from the simple act of trying to rid herself of her pain. The ink still endures though, like the cold hand of death. The numbers are mocking her. This life, this dangled bit of joy and freedom - all just some twisted joke. She’ll never be free of the things she’s lived through. She’ll never be able to wash off the death, or scrape away the inhumanity.

Sometimes you have to suffer in order to say that you survived.