Auschwitz

[SpiritOne]

I have just come across your post Christine, and i remember of when i visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington some years ago.
The feelings and emotions i felt there were phenomenal, to the point were I had to leave it was as tho I was seeing  something i had experienced.  It knocked me around for a few days after being there. I don't think i could ever go near one of the camps especially Auschwitz.
I would be interested in hearing more of your story if you are able to tell it sometime.

[Christine]

It's been 9 months and it's not easier yet. I will try to do so soon. I had an interesting experience when I went to the Holocaust Museum iin Melbourne, but nothing like this. Thanks Spiritone.

[GaryTheDemon]

I just caught a small piece on TV last night (or maybe the night before) which was essentially about some of the graffiti at Auschwitz.  I saw a scene that I have not seen before ... but one I described in my Pages from the Book of Life and Death story.  The rail track going into Auschwitz.  It was exactly as I had 'imagined' it.  It shook me.

[Simon2]

Very spooky Gary.

[GaryTheDemon]

Channeling.  I don't do it much.  Except when I write.  Then I tend to open myself up. 

[Simon2]

It is very interesting that you talk about channelling now, as I have been thinking of starting to try this aspect as I have not really done its truest form.

Up until now I have tended to channel in my head; I know it sounds strange, but it does work for me, but I think writing it down would be much better and may indeed give me a better result.

[DiamondwithBrats]

Hi Christine!

I enjoyed your story and would love to hear the rest if you are up to it!

As I was reading, I felt such despair (as I do with anything war connected) but could smell the burning hair... aweful

Whenever I go into a cemetery, I can smell the death and feel presence. Its not a nice feeling. Actually, that reminded me of an old children's cemetery with mostly unmarked graves that were 150 odd years old near Castlemaine Victoria. Went there recently and immediately upon entering, I felt sick to my stomach, could smell it and felt surrounded by children and adults. I couldn't linger there too long!

[Christine]

I usually find cemeteries to be peaceful but I always make sure I dial up the protection before entering them.

I never did finish writing of my Auschwitz experience. I should.

[GaryTheDemon]

Cemeteries are largely dead places.  In every sense.  People have no emotional connection to them so they rarely hang out there 'afterwards'.  SOMETIMES it happens (have had a couple of people follow me out) but very rarely.

Auschwitz...  shudder.

[DiamondwithBrats]

Thanks guys! I do protect myself, but this cemetery made me nauseated even as I entered and I felt such sorrow! Took me a good 10 minutes after leaving before I felt better.

[catseyes]

It occurs to me that you might have been picking up on the feelings or emotions of those who came to mourn.

[GaryTheDemon]

That's possible CE. 

[Simon2]

Quite agree Catseyes; a bit like picking up the negative or positive energy in old houses, buildings, etc..

[Christine]

I had to write 500 words on a memorable museum experience for my current uni course. Here you go.
In 2013 I fulfilled a goal of visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland. I grew up on a diet rich with war stories told by my Dutch mother and her family, and the impact they had on me was significant. I wanted to see what my grandfather had risked his life for when he chose to become part of the Dutch Resistance, so I determined at a young age to visit Auschwitz. I travelled with a friend who grandfather also served in the Dutch Resistance. Auschwitz I is the original or the main Auschwitz camp. Auschwitz II or Birkenau was the main killing centre in the area, and is many times larger than Auschwitz. This is not to say people were not murdered at Auschwitz 1, they were. I could see the trains on the railway track I could see the people walking, marching, dragging their bodies, headed in whatever direction they were forced to go. Walking through the gates was sobering knowing so many had walked through them and met their deaths in these walls and in many other camps like this one. A sense of despair and anger followed me throughout the memorial.
   Our guide escorted us throughout the on-site museum. He was Jewish and had lost family to the war. He spoke to us with a level voice, keeping emotion at bay. There was a sense of calm in the way he presented the facts to us. We walked from room to room viewing the artefacts that told the story of the camps, their roles within the mechanism of the Schutzstaffel, also known as SS, camp and SS objects, and additionally proof of the extermination of people.
   As we walked through the museum, we saw dioramas of how people were transported, how they were killed and evidence, in the form of empty Zyclon B canisters, the poison that ended their lives. There were photos of some of the victims on the walls. I saw people taking photographs of the belongings left behind by the people who died there, also known as plundered goods: spectacles, prosthetic limbs, money, razors, hair brushes, suitcases, clothes and religious objects. I could not take photos. These people had been robbed of enough. I did not want to show photos to my friends after my trip and have to try to convey the emotion of the moment. No picture could do that, and this was a personal journey.
   The most memorable moment of the visit to the museum was not necessarily all of the hideous evidence of the atrocities I had seen on display, although it was graphic and terrible, I was not unfamiliar with the narrative told. It was when I stood in front of piles and piles of chipped enamel cooking utensils, and is it that that leaves me in tears as I write this reflective exercise for you. The reason it affects me so is that it symbolised the hope those people had when they were forced to leave their homes. They hoped things would work out for them and those cooking vessels symbolised that sense of hope for a future to me. Seeing them discarded in piles in the museum was symbolic of their hopes destroyed.

[violet]

My respect to your grandfather, Christine.