My first response to leaving Auschwitz / Birkenau has been silence. There is a line in the version of Kaddish that we read every day that is translated as, “Still you remain beyond the reach of our praise, our song, / Beyond the reach of all consolation. Beyond! Beyond! / And say, Yes. Amen.”
Beyond the reach of all consolation.That, I think, is a good place to start.
I went to Amsterdam after Auschwitz / Birkenau with the intent to write about my experience. But when I got here, I found that more than anything I needed to sleep, watch people walk by, eat good food with friends, and wander without an aim in a beautiful city.
“You have arrived here not at a sanatorium, but at a German concentration camp, from which the only exit is through the chimney of its crematorium.” This was the speech given by SS officer Karl Fritzsch to the 20% of the new arrivals who were chosen to work to death and not immediately send to the gas chambers. The Nazis called this, "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" (Destruction through work).
This picture of the exit sign at Auschwitz is in remembrance of all those who could not do as I did, simply open the gate and walk out.
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