Auschwitz

I will probably never experience a day like this one again. Friday morning we woke up early to go to Auschwitz, the most famous concentration camp from WWII. (When I say woke up early I mean early. We forgot to change our clock and so Laria and I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and knocked on everyone's doors worried we were going to be late....let's just say they weren't too happy with our mistake.) I have always had a fascination with the Holocaust. WWII has always been one of my favorite subjects. This has led me to read many books written by Holocaust survivors. I've always wanted to go to the Holocaust museum in DC and got to do that last March. I never even imagined it would be possible for me to visit a real concentration camp.

The gates to enter. They read "Work Will Set You Free."

Our tour guide

Used for the gas chambers

The execution wall where many were shot

Entrance to the gas chambers

The inside of the barracks

Remnants of a gas chamber the Nazis tried to blow up before liberation

Auschwitz was a very unique experience. People warned me how awful it would be. When it came down to it, I was actually really scared to go. They were right, it was awful. But the experience I had there was not the one I was expecting. I was expecting only pain, despair, and sorrow. The things that happened there are truly unfathomable. I walked through gas chambers, torture rooms, gallows, starvation rooms, suffocation rooms, walls where people were shot. I saw a fraction of the things Nazi's took away from the Jews. Shoes, glasses, clothes, luggage, dolls, hair brushes, every single thing you can think of. It was there in piles taking up whole rooms, and it was only part of what was left. The most disturbing was probably the room of 2 tons of human hair. It was absolutely awful. And although I did feel so much sorrow for everything that happened to these people, I walked away without despair. I felt peace.

I often question my emotions, wondering if I should be feeling something different than I do. I was asking myself this day why I wasn't more upset or disturbed? Staring at these things was unreal. It did hurt, it made me sick. But I realized why I felt an unquestionable peace. It was because I had asked for it. I had been praying to Heavenly Father asking that I would learn from this experience and take away hope. I asked that I would feel peace and have a better understanding of why He let such awful things happen. While there, I knew it was a part of God’s plan, for whatever reason it needed to be. I didn’t doubt that. I felt peace because all I could think about was the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I saw it in a new light and realized how all encompassing it really is. The Atonement covered the sufferings of every single person in Auschwitz. The Atonement covered every single sin of those inflicting the pain. My testimony of the Atonement was strengthened so much. I have learned throughout my life that Christ has felt my sufferings, and that is an important part of my testimony. But to know my sufferings are so small compared to these, and that Christ suffered for all of that too, because He loves us. It was an incredible experience. I did leave the gates of Auschwitz with peace and more gratitude for Heavenly Father’s plan. I’m so grateful to have the gospel to give us hope. There is so much despair in this world, but we can find hope in everything, even something as awful as Auschwitz.