Why I Went to Auschwitz

[DemocratSinceBirth]

There was a small hole in the kitchen floor that led to a secret crawl space. That image is burned into my memory. The space was maybe five feet long by five feet wide.

The owner of the house said, “They used to fit six people inside there. When the Nazis would come.”

His name was Tadeusz Skoczylas, and the house we were in had belonged to his family during World War II. It was a small brick house in the town of Ciepielów, Poland. It had a red roof that had seen better days. The front door was just a few steps off the street. In the backyard were a few barns and other small shacks.

I had been in Poland for a few days already, and the horror of the history I had experienced was overwhelming. But this was something different. This was so personal.

...


When the Skoczylas family was risking their own lives to hide people they barely knew, they weren’t doing it because they practiced the same religion or were the same race. They did it because they were decent, courageous human beings. They were the same as those people crouched in a hole. And they knew that those people didn’t deserve what was being done to them.

I asked myself a really tough question: Would I have done the same?

Really, would I have done the same?

When the Skoczylas family was risking their own lives to hide people they barely knew, they weren’t doing it because they practiced the same religion or were the same race. They did it because they were decent, courageous human beings. They were the same as those people crouched in a hole. And they knew that those people didn’t deserve what was being done to them.

I asked myself a really tough question: Would I have done the same?

Really, would I have done the same?

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/ray-allen-why-i-went-to-auschwitz/

WOW

[Heartstrings]

1. Back in the Fall of 1972 I toured Dachau Concentration Camp

It was a very humbling, horrifying experience, to say the least....

[3catwoman3]

2. Wow, indeed.

This should be a must read for everyone who is breathing. Very eloquently written.

How disheartening to hear that anyone dissed him for this.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. The Holocaust...

The destruction of the American Indian
The slave trade
The Holocaust

We should never forget those things because human beings were dehumanized, degraded, and destroyed. Their race is of no moment.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. kick & R

[narnian60]

6. A billion times.

[hamsterjill]

5. Powerful!!

"I think about the Tadeusz family. Who did they define as us?

They saw us as every human being, regardless of what they looked like, or what they believed. They thought everyone was worth protecting. And they were willing to die for it.

That is something worth remembering, always. "



Some have forgotten unfortunately. My mind immediately went to Trump supporters.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. Yes, some have forgotten, but it isn't just the "president's" supporters.

There are Holocaust deniers, those who are minimize it, and those who ignore it and the deeds which lead up to it, including anti-Semitism, which is reemerging in a big way and being overlooked, just like last time.

[Lyricalinklines]

7. Extend beyond the little boxes others create for you:

I didn’t go to Poland as black person, a white person, a Christian person or a Jewish person — I went as a human being.

Thank you for posting this, DemocrateSinceBirth.

[Raine1967]

8. Thank you for sharing this, DSB.

This man seems to understand the Meaning of 'Never Again.'

Again, thank you.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Kick and Rec

Thanks for posting this.

[radicalliberal]

11. I am a nobody, but my late uncle in WW2 commanded the troops who liberated Dachau.

He said his troops understandably had become callous about death since they had seen so much bloodshed. But even that did not prepare them for what they saw at Dachau. Needless to say, it was quite a shock to them.

Ray Allen's message is beautiful and powerful. Words fail me at the moment.

Thank you, DemocratSinceBirth, for calling our attention to this great article.