Block 25 Birkenau

[AntonellaGr]

Call me Lavinia but I have no longer a name, numbers instead. I live, if this can be called life, in block 25 in Birkenau. My block mates are numbers like me... We are going to die, we know. We are packed in this block, waiting, or no longer waiting, resigned, weak. It's dark here, narrow windows, we can hardly breathe but I can still see the moon, a big moon, lightning the dark. There is something comforting in that light.

Now I am beyond the ground I am a tree, I am moon, I keep the distance from all this cruelty and sadness. I am free.

The house is silent. The wind on my branches just seems a breath of clouds on an extinguishing fire. I'm alone again.
A cycle has been completed: my destiny of seed that has sprouted, the design of my ancestors.
Lavinia is now earth and humus. Her  spirit dancing in the evening wind (translated from the Italian version of The Inhabited Woman by Gioconda Belli) 

I did not know how to start a post about Birkenau and I decided to let a woman talk. Why a woman?

 
Ruins of crematory in BirkenauBlock 25

Block 25  was known as "waiting room for the gas" and it was a female block. When visiting Birkenau I gave a quick glance to the block, to be honest I gave a quick glance to everything, I felt a certain burden. The most horrible and incredible feeling was perceiving a rather "normal" aspect of that place when you are outside.

Sunset in BirkenauSunset in Birkenau

There was even a beautiful sunset to highlight the "normal" aspect. And then I took the picture of the ruins of the crematory, If I hadn't written what it was,  nobody would have understood and it would have been "a beautiful landscape with moon".

Auschwitz

 I was hit by my own picture, then the wind came and it reminded me of The Inhabited Woman and the orange tree, 

all of the sudden  the shapeless prisoners acquired Lavinia’s shape and I realized that I was watching the very same moon that women in block 25 saw.

And then I started singing in my mind La vita è bella. If you haven’t seen the movie by Roberto Benigni now it is time to see it.

Here is the song, performed by Noa

[Eire27]

Dear @AntonellaGr What a very interesting way to bring us into the world of the female Jewish prisoner. So humbling to think of what you said about the moon. Thank you for the photos. Also @ErmesT shared a similar photo of the railway tracks and rays of sunlight at the end of them. Maybe a ray of hope for the future 

[AntonellaGr]

Thank you @Eire27. It was hard to write it but it was the only way I had to descibe the feeling that Birkenau can give and gave me. And yes, a ray of hope for the future

[FaridTDF]

Muchas gracias @AntonellaGr, por compartir un post tan difícil y duro. Y el vídeo es hermoso, la película “La vida es bella”. Demoré  mucho tiempo en verla, cuando la vi, descubrí que es un himno a la alegria y al gran amor de un padre por su hijo y su mujer. Esos campos de exterminio son la ignominia peregne que nos muestra y golpea la cara cuando asistimos a el, de la brutalidad sin sentido de las bestias.

Lamentablemente tenemos que seguir asistiendo actualmente a muertes sistemáticas en varios países incluso estamos en presencia de nuevos campos de concentración por varios países de europa con los migrantes que huyen de las guerras importadas y en algunos casos tenemos que asistir al nefasto espectáculo al gran exterminador moderno que es el mar Mediterráneo.

Comparto una imagen de internet de un grafiti del niño que muere en el Mediterraneo y que las olas lo trae a la playa para que un símbolo concientice que una guerra es lo peor que existe para dirimir opiniones, credos y razas. La foto es un golpe bajo. 

Farid 😔

[ErmesT]

Yes I did, @Eire27, in @FaridTDF post: 30,000 Reasons not to forget

the photo was this one

caption: sunset at Birkenau extermination camp.

Is this a message of hope, as @SergeySud said?

How is a sunset in an extermination camp? Can this be the same sun?

 

[Eire27]

@FaridTDF You can not say that there are now concentration camps in Europe and compare this with the gas camps of world war two. That is ridiculous. It is very sad about that little boy and others trying to cross the sea to Europe from Syria. But you must look at the origin of the problem of war in Syria and that is ISIS causing death and not European concentration camps, as you suggest 

[FaridTDF]

Creo que tienes razon @Eire27, estoy exagerando un poco en la comparación y si es real y acuerdo contigo, no son comparables de ningún modo, en este sentido me disculpo por expresarlo de ese modo. 😔. 

De de todas maneras me pone triste 😢 ver algunas veces a la gente migrante se la junte como si fuere ganado peligroso en predios muy parecidos a los de algunas fotos, con alambrados olímpicos con púas para que no salgan.  Como sea son temas muy sensibles y  muy recientes de los cuales quizás no sea tan agradable debatirlos.

me disculpo si de alguna manera te ofendí, a ti u a otro lector.

Farid.

[davidhyno]

Nice post, @AntonellaGr very touching and unfortunately all true ....
Even now my grandfather Bruno  tells me about everything that happened in his prison camp in Buchenwald ... and with stubbornness he still continues today, in the face of his 95 years held very well, to go around the schools or conferences to bring to as many people as possible that these atrocities were all true ....

A punch in the stomach to visit these places .... as well as see all these movies that speak about it ....

Thanks for sharing and not to forget.

David

[ErmesT]

Thank you @davidhyno for sharing about your granfather.

Yes, a punch on the stomach, very needed.

I strongly suggest the visit to everyone

[NatalkaR]

@AntonellaGr thanks for this post!!!! I think about this people and I can't imagine what they felt before death. they did nothing wrong... stupid and cruel time.