March 13, 2013

The Diary of A Young Woman

If there was a rating system for blog posts, this would have been rated [R] “Restricted: under 17 – requires accompanying parent or adult guardian” for its pervasive strong horror, violence, and gore. If you think i’m exaggerating, i’m not. It took me a while to start writing this and it was quite challenging time wise, as i only dared to edit the pictures during the DAY, surrounded by PEOPLE. The entire duration i experienced strong, thumping heartbeats beating against my chest, resulting in feeling incredibly Heavy. Uneasy. (sometimes even) Nauseous. Therefore you might want to consider reading the rest. i believe it is my responsibility to warn you, in case you don’t have a dreamcatcher hanging by your bed. You see, our brain chooses what to remember, but the subconscious stores the rest.

This is a story about my sixth day in Germany, on the way to Munich. What do we know about concentration camps? The first prisoners camp was set up in 1933 (when Adolf Hitler becomes Reich Chancellor: the founding of the National Socialist dictatorship). 4 to 5 years later, a larger camp was rebuilt to hold 6000 prisoners, which then overfilled with 32,000 (!) of them; where control and terror dominated their everyday life. Before i share with you more about the life of a prisoner / Jew back then with some pretty disturbing visuals, simply imagine yourself:

• standing STILL in the cold winter wearing only rugs during early mornings – for hours – with the rotting and the dead.
• only fed with thin soup and small piece of bread – daily.
• sleeping on wooden bunk beds sans mattresses / blankets / pillows, with absolutely no space nor privacy – even when shitting.
• being locked up in a small room packed with prisoners until not a single person can fit in any more; for 3 days, no food, light, and air.
• lied about a ‘gang shower’ but murdered in a room filled with poisonous gas / shot at the bunker or blood ditch / caned to death.
• your body cremated / burned, your remaining ashes dispersed into the soil of nothingness; grave-less, forever forgotten.
• you existed, but you never exist.

Now for the non-faint hearted, shall we still move on?

{roll call ground: where prisoners had to assemble stand motionless an hour every morning regardless of any weather conditions. even the dead had to be dragged here to be counted and prisoners were not allowed to help the collapsed. if the number of headcount doesn’t match, this torture would last for many hours; resulting in many sick and exhausted that died on this very ground}

{this was how human beings were being labelled by colors and altered shapes. aren’t we glad time has changed?}

{the stick used to cane prisoners}

{a peep into the key hole / 70cm x 70cm standing cells; which prevented prisoners from sitting or lying down as they were imprisoned here for up to 72 hours at a stretch without light, air, and space}

{cells, and more cells that make your heart sinks and goes hollow}

{the end of the bunker, also known as the center of terror; where prisoners were locked in cells for weeks / months in darkness and given even less food than in the rest of the camp – murdered or driven to suicide}

{the view outside from the prisoners’ room (there used to be rows of cells; mostly demolished. only one is preserved for visitors’ viewing purposes)}

{border-less ‘beds’ for squashing bodies / compacting organs}

{skeletal lockers}

{you may take a wild guess at this. hint: China men still use those (and i can never understand why)}

{prisoners were told that it’s ‘shower time’, lured into this dungeon of a room, where poisonous gas was released to completely ‘delete’ them}

{‘shower head’}

{many assumed that the poisonous gas came from the shower heads – that is so untrue. gas was released through these 2 windows}

{dead bodies to be cremated – shown below: }

{the old crematorium; built in summer 1940 operating till 1943. 11,000 prisoners were cremated here}

{‘upgraded’ / large crematorium (as if they had not murdered enough), served both as a killing facility and to remove the dead}

{some died from suicide by running into this electrical fence, some were shot before they could even attempt}

{we decided to take a rainy walk through a forest-y path to visit the dead . . .}

{restating the obvious: PISTOL RANGE FOR EXECUTION}

{blood ditch}

{grave(s) of thousands unknown}

{closing the gate behind, once and for all.}

Food for thought: The word ‘choice’ those days doesn’t exist in the lives of tormented prisoners. Neither life nor death of their own was in their hands, but in the cruel SS soldiers’. Today we are flooded with options. T.I. sings “you can do whatever you like“. We can choose your destiny. But have we really grasped all our chances? Are we making the best out of all our possibilities? What are we doing about this piece of life we are living that each prisoners had dreamt of owning and dominating? i think these questions are worth thinking about, because life is worth living. Won’t you agree?