We stand at the gates and look up at the sign - Arbeit
macht frei (work sets you free). It is strange to stand in this place of barbarous
cruelty and untold suffering and to cross under that sign into Auschwitz. There
is a sense of impending horror as we enter this camp. Should we be here at all?
Yet the horrors of this place did happen and to come here is to face the
reality of a depravity that could overcome even this most civilized and
Christian of nations. It is freezing cold, about -20C with wind-chill factor.
Ours was the last plane in before they closed the airport. Many of the world
leaders, expected later in the week to celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, will never get here on time. We
have come prepared, wrapped up warm with many layers of clothing. Yet there are
others here, elderly people, who are walking about in flimsy striped costumes.
They are survivors, for whom this bitter cold is nothing to what they
experienced here over sixty years before.
The camp has been preserved with its dormitory
huts. As we wander through them, the faces of those who were sent here gaze at
us from the black and white photographs on the walls. Different huts have different
displays. Here we see a room stacked high with artificial limbs. Can there have
been so many people coming through this place with artificial limbs? But then
we remember that this was designed as a disposal unit for those seen less than
perfect and a huge number of such people were processed through these camps.
The majority were Jewish people, but disabled people, gay people, Romany people
and people who were Jehovah’s Witnesses all perished in this place.
A particularly sombre room was the one which was piled high with suitcases. Many had names on them, sometimes just handwritten in chalk. Each one told a story. A person had once packed this case with their valuables and with something to sustain them on a journey into a place they could not yet imagine. On entering the camp, all their possessions had been removed from them, together with their hair, the gold in their teeth and their very names. Most had perished in this place. Deprived of everything that made them seem human, their captives could dispose of them as just so much garbage.
We entered the gas chamber. The fleeing Nazis had attempted the blow it up, but the roof has been put back on. We lit a candle by the adjacent cremators, and we prayed. This is what happens when we start to deny the humanity of others. This is not only what once happened, decades before, it is what has continued to happen at every successive genocide since. It is what could still happen, in our own society, as we demonize those who are different to us and therefore absolve ourselves of the need to relate to them as fellow human beings. It is what we do in our society, as we shout at each other, with hatred in our hearts, over Brexit. It is what we do in the Church, as we live out our faith in tribal units and talk of others as if they were somehow less Christian than ourselves, and therefore less human. The ‘radical inclusion’ promised by our Archbishops is nothing less than the heart of the Gospel message. Jesus came, he lived and he died, for ALL people and the beginnings of living the Christian life must include the ability to see the face of Christ in every person whose life crosses with our own.
Today there is, in the heart of Auschwitz, a huge cross, planted in a soil that is heavy with the ashes of the dead. What does it symbolize? Christ suffering alongside the victims of this hell? Certainly that must be the case. But the ambiguity of it all struck me like a thunderbolt. Could some take it as a sign of Christian culture crushing anything and anyone, who is in any way 'other'? As we fight to keep the purity of Christian doctrine and faith, the purity of being British, or whatever, can we find it in our hearts to live again the Christian message - that we are all children of God and that it is as we see the face of Christ in others, seeking both to respect their humanity and serve their deepest needs, that the Kingdom of God is revealed?
A particularly sombre room was the one which was piled high with suitcases. Many had names on them, sometimes just handwritten in chalk. Each one told a story. A person had once packed this case with their valuables and with something to sustain them on a journey into a place they could not yet imagine. On entering the camp, all their possessions had been removed from them, together with their hair, the gold in their teeth and their very names. Most had perished in this place. Deprived of everything that made them seem human, their captives could dispose of them as just so much garbage.
We entered the gas chamber. The fleeing Nazis had attempted the blow it up, but the roof has been put back on. We lit a candle by the adjacent cremators, and we prayed. This is what happens when we start to deny the humanity of others. This is not only what once happened, decades before, it is what has continued to happen at every successive genocide since. It is what could still happen, in our own society, as we demonize those who are different to us and therefore absolve ourselves of the need to relate to them as fellow human beings. It is what we do in our society, as we shout at each other, with hatred in our hearts, over Brexit. It is what we do in the Church, as we live out our faith in tribal units and talk of others as if they were somehow less Christian than ourselves, and therefore less human. The ‘radical inclusion’ promised by our Archbishops is nothing less than the heart of the Gospel message. Jesus came, he lived and he died, for ALL people and the beginnings of living the Christian life must include the ability to see the face of Christ in every person whose life crosses with our own.
Today there is, in the heart of Auschwitz, a huge cross, planted in a soil that is heavy with the ashes of the dead. What does it symbolize? Christ suffering alongside the victims of this hell? Certainly that must be the case. But the ambiguity of it all struck me like a thunderbolt. Could some take it as a sign of Christian culture crushing anything and anyone, who is in any way 'other'? As we fight to keep the purity of Christian doctrine and faith, the purity of being British, or whatever, can we find it in our hearts to live again the Christian message - that we are all children of God and that it is as we see the face of Christ in others, seeking both to respect their humanity and serve their deepest needs, that the Kingdom of God is revealed?
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