April 29, 2014: Day 5

Majdanek Memorial

The soft crunch of the grass beneath our feet made for a single sound to break the engulfing silence that characterized our approach to the Majdanek camp gate. The soil upon which we stepped was stained with the blood and tears of hundreds upon thousands of our human brethren. Built on it was what remained as evidence of our own species' capacity for evil. The barracks; whose living conditions caused 60% of inmates to die of disease. The gas chambers; whose purpose was to choke the life out of women, children, the elderly and the sick in an efficient time. The crematorium, where the physical remains of those murdered were made to be all but dispersed as dust in the wind. The ditches where, on a chilly November day, eighteen-thousand individuals had their unique memories, characteristics and personalities stripped from them under the cover of music and the beat of gunshots.

Majdanek Barracks

Despite all of this, much of what had been was now gone. Several rows of barracks that had been were either burned or deconstructed and gone. The personal items that had once filled the warehouses to bursting level, were gone. The sickly, emaciated figures who once aimlessly roamed the once-muddy and desolate fields were too gone. The soldiers, who stood guard and would beat a man for something as simple as waving hello were also, as one could guess, gone. The life, once lived was now an empty meadow, void of any of these old inhabitants, save for a few survivors who like those before, wander aimlessly about the camp trying to understand WHY. 

Crematorium ovens

To the immediate left of the crematorium and the direct back of the ditches stands a monument. As our group approached this monument, which had the shape of a cylinder and the roof of a dome supported by granite columns stood a sight that will not EVER leave mine eyes. At first it appeared to be a big grey pile of dirt,but as we got closer the reality of what stood before us began to sink in. The darkly colored grey mass that stood before us in a pile was ash. Human ash. There it stood, still and unmoving, save for the birds that wandered about it. It was in an area whose diameter was approximately two school buses in length. The height, was about that of your average ranch home.

Madjanek Memorial

The closer our slow steps took us to the mass the more our feet wished to stop. There was something  in the pile. Bones. Thousands of them, a broken femur here, a bit of ribcage there, bones, bones everywhere. I immediately took out my camera and began to snap photos. We were told this mountain of remains was found in a local compost pile and there was no way to be certain as to whether or not they belonged to humans. 

But I knew. We all supposed, but I knew. For a human jawbone was within my sight lying not ten yards in front of me. I gagged. Tears welled up but only one flew from my eye. I dropped my camera, but quickly raised it back to my head as I snapped a photo. 

I couldn't breathe, the atmosphere was stifling despite how open the area was. There was a silence, a very very loud silence that existed in the air. It was here I realized the human toll of the Shoah, or Holocaust. That jawbone is what did it for me. I finally understood that I will never understand. There are not words to describe the emotion I had in that moment, and that feeling paled in comparison to that of those who bore immediate witness to the events which took place in that horrid, evil, place. 

-Alex Weisser