If a random stranger came up to me on the street and said, "Have you seen any acts of intolerance in the last few days?", I could say, "Not directly, but yes." I say "not directly" because I did not see individuals being intolerant to one another, but I went to a place that is a pretty obvious sign of intolerance.
On Wednesday my group visited Mauthausen, the main labor camp in Austria where prisoners were worked to death. A common saying that the guards liked to tell prisoners was that "the creametorium is the way out". When we arrived, the first thing we saw was the river were prisoners were forced to push other prisoners in--those prisoners who were pushed in the water ended up drowning. We walked up the "stairway of death" where prisoners were forced to carry 100 kilos of stone on their backs. While I can say for sure that I was winded after climbing up those stairs, I could not experience the climb the way the prisoners did as I was a) not wearing wooden shoes b) not malnourished and c) not carrying 100 kilos of stone on my back. Also, the staircase was not as even then as it was when we were there. When we got to the top, we saw memorials in many different languages to commemorate the prisoners who died in the camp. We took a self guided audio tour where I saw several barracks where the prisoners lived, the gas chamber, and the cremetorium. It seemed so surreal to me that I was seeing with my own eyes something that I had been exposed to in different forms throughout my life.
Now that I have described for you all what I saw, let me share my reflections on what I saw (hence the "witnessing" and "up close and personal" parts of this entry's title). Visiting Mauthausen was quite intense, as I walked along the paths where hundreds of thousands of soldiers were harassed, beaten, and even killed. In addition to taking a theology class about the Holocaust, I have read books and seen movies about this tragic event in history. None of the Holocaust related experiences I have had--taking a class this summer, discussing it briefly in my world religions class in high school, reading Night and Man's Search for Meaning, watching The Pianist and Schindler's List (and other documentaries I have watched for my theology class), and visiting the Holocaust memorial in Paris and the Holocaust museum in London--can do justice to seeing a very sad but real place. I realized how lucky I am to be able to eat balanced meals, sleep in my own bed, not have to do heavy labor in unbearable weather, and most importantly, not worry that I am going to be killed based on my religion, sexual orientation, or social class. After all, the people who were in concentration camps were there simply based on their religion, race or social status--Jewish, Jehovah's witness, homosexual, political prisoners, Slavs, Gypsies, and people who were antisocial. It breaks my heart that people were--and still are, sadly--persecuted and killed because of their differences. Too often, minority groups are persecuted by dominant groups for the fear that the minority will overpower the majority. Perhaps certain races, religions, or social classes have or are considered "the majority", but can't we all learn to be respectful of our differences? We may or may not have control of the identifying factors I mentioned above, but at the very least, we can respect and understand them.
Sorry for the delayed update! I got back from Prague this afternoon and have been crazy busy with reading and papers for my classes. Having said that, I will try post another entry this coming week, and I PROMISE that it will be much more upbeat than this one.
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