“We can never forgive or forget, but we must live without hatred”

So since I’ve been here a month, I’ve already been two three concentration camps (Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Terezin). Although the first two are connected and not even a half mile apart and the third was a ghetto and work camp for political prisoners, they are still humbling and powerful to visit. Today we visited Terezin, a camp 30 miles north of Prague. This is where most of the Czech Jews and political prisoners were taken and held before the execution of the final solution, when all of them were sent to death camps like Auschwitz. Somehow walking onto the site, a compound that was built in 1780 to help the defense of Bohemia during the Prussian-Austrian wars. After that it was used by the Hapsburg family to hold prisoners and army offenders. It was also used in WWI to house the men who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand that started WWI. Then the Nazi’s took it over for the use of a ghetto. The buildings are split into two parts, the Main Fortress (Terezin the town) became a ghetto (the holding point for jews) and the Small Fortress, the camp for Political Prisoners (anyone who outright disobeyed the law, they were killed immediately or worked to death). Also this is the camp that the Nazi’s showed to the red cross when they were inquiring about the concentration camps. It was painted nicely and the Nazi’s even complied a band and had artists and authors write plays and operas so that it looked like the Jewish culture was still in tact and that the Nazi’s were giving this town to the Jews as a gift.

Our guide, on this wonderful 60 degree day in late Februrary, was non other than a survivor of Terezin and the Holocaust. He is 84 years old and was 16 when he was sent to Terezin with his entire family of 50 (including extended family) of which only 3 survived, himself, his grandmother and his wife. His story is truly unbelievable. He was taken to the camp in the first batch of prisoners with 15 other men. When they arrived one of the men had written a secret letter to his family and dropped it in the snow hoping someone would pick it up and deliver it. It was picked up, but by a Nazi sympathizer who turned the letter over and all the men were executed except our guide and his friend. He thinks that is because they were carpenters and of use to the Nazi’s.

He was also part of the resistance at the camp. He explained that everyone in the resistance had a specific job and his was to find an escape route because the compound was built so long ago that there were secret passageways. Well, needless to say, he found an escape tunnel. But instead of just leaving once he was out, he went back to tell the others and they got guns so they could protect themselves once they were out of the tunnel because it was heavily guarded. Before they could actually escape, the “final solution” was put into action and he was on a train that was being sent to Auschwitz. But, being the smart man he is, he figured out which car was going to a different camp and he got onto that one instead. This saved his life because he would have been immediately sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz. He was sent to this other camp where one night the soviet soldiers cut the power supply so over 100 people escaped because the search lights and electric fences weren’t working. This was his third escape.

While we were at Terezin, he took us to the execution field. It was literally a field with a tunnel (“the tunnel of death” to the prisoners) through a hill leading to it. As we walked past the gallows, he pointed out that he had built the steps and platform and he was not proud. Because he was a carpenter he built the gallows that killed his fellow prisoners. This man is truly incredible. On the way back through the tunnel he was walking ahead of the group and stood at the entrance to the tunnel with the sunlight shining through and it was a tear jerking site. The survivor walking out of the shadow of the tunnel of death. Breath taking. That is the part of all three camps that really made me emotional. You can walk around and see the baracks and the cells and the SS offices, but somehow that personal touch is missing. Maybe if I had a relative who was effected by it I would feel differently, but this man was the closest I have gotten. Seeing this man, who is full of life, living a “normal” life after this horrible atrocity, something completely unthinkable to our generation, walking away from death time and time again as if it is no great feat. That is truly amazing. And his final words to us on the bus ride home that we can never forgive or forget, but that a heart must be rid of hatred. That someone must still show love and compassion even after everything they have been through. To forgive and forget is something that is irrelevant but to live in love is something vital to human existence.