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August 13, 2020Last summer, Fr. Edward Seton visited Auschwitz, where Maximillian Kolbe would give his life heroically for a Jewish man in the camp. For the feast of St. Maximillian Kolbe on August 14, Fr. Edward reflects on his visit there.
The first photo is the iconic gate that presents you with the lie of Auschwitz--"Work Will Set You Free." There was nothing freeing about the work or anything else here. Was this supposed to make the prisoners feel better as they were forced to march through the gate, never to pass through in the opposite direction? It’s a completely different world than the picturesque city of Krakow that oozes with medieval charm.
The second photo is a reminder of the double row of barbed wire that surrounded the camp, with watch towers all around.
The third photo of from Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a few miles away. This is where the worst atrocities took place. All that’s left today is this infamous rail gateway, recreated in “Schindler’s List.” Nearly all of the vast camp, surrounded by the beautiful Polish countryside, was destroyed by the Nazis prior to their cowardly retreat.
As I stood on these tracks in the intense heat, I was reminded this was for hundreds of thousands the last thing they saw.
As the Jews were forced off the packed boxcars, they were segregated by gender, and their belongings taken from them. The gas chamber and ovens were behind me, almost a mile away. Due to the heat we’re weren’t allowed to walk to the site, where nothing survives.
The fourth photo is of the two ovens at Auschwitz. Initially it was a labor camp at a former military camp.
The fifth photo is of the gallows, where the local Gestapo were based. As the sign indicates, the 1st Commandant, Rudolf Höss was hanged, after his trial.
The 6th photo is between two barracks, depicting the “deaths wall” where numerous inmates were shot. Flowers are regularly left at the base. One cannot help to remember and pray for those who were brutally murdered here! It’s incomprehensible!
In the basement of the barrack to the right (I think) was the cell of Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan who offered his life to spare the life of a young man. The tiny cell where St. Maximilian spent his last moment of life, naked, is pitch black. All you can see is with the installed lights is a large candle in the middle of the cell with the coat of arms of Pope St. John Paul II, who canonized him.
I wondered if I couldn’t have been as courageous as St. Maximilian! It’s not a choice I’ve ever faced! He with other inmates were starved. As his life ebbed away, St. Maximilian offered hope to his fellow inmates with his encouragement and prayers. After the others died of starvation, St. Maximilian continued to live. He was injected with carbolic acid, and his body was (I believe) burned in the crematory. Read more about his life.
It was a surreal day, with a small group that gathered in Krakow. We were strangers, and few of us spoke to one another, especially after the tour. The lament psalm continue to resonate with greater poignance for me, as I imagine Jews, especially, uttering them in anguish to God, holding on to a final ounce of hope that God was listening. I have a greater appreciation for Ps. 22 uttered by Jesus from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
One night at Compline, months ago, we were praying Ps. 137. It speaks of the Babylonian exile: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.” Perhaps the Jews at Auschwitz and other camps resonated with their ancestors taken captive to Babylon.
As we prayed the psalm, my mind returned to the beastly hot day I visited Auschwitz, where I was confronted with the site where the depth of human depravity was unfurled on countless innocent men, women, children. I, too, wept, silently as the brethren prayed Compline.
The summer of 2020 is so unlike the summer of 2019. But it pales compared to what our “elder brothers and sisters” and others, like Ss. Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein endured. Pray for us!