Journey 2019 engl.
Journey to Auschwitz 2019 Documentation
The 2019 Witnessing in Empathy Retreat was a profound pathway into the experience of what it is to be human in its greatest beauty and its horror.
The retreat was facilitated with just enough structure and deep humanity in a way that allowed the natural leadership of the amazing participants to emerge. I recommend this to any serious human being who is ready to use themselves as the field to research all of what it is to be human.
The retreat was facilitated with just enough structure and deep humanity in a way that allowed the natural leadership of the amazing participants to emerge. I recommend this to any serious human being who is ready to use themselves as the field to research all of what it is to be human.
All that I have to say is highly personal.
And my personal experience is shaped by 19 people co-creating the ideal conditions to become quiet and sensitive, so that we might feel and emote, hear stories, and receive insights that would otherwise be blocked because they are too demanding to attend to, or just too stressful and disturbing to feel in everyday life.
My story is about Hanns and Lulu,
my grandparents, two victims,
arrested, then turned into prisoners,
destined for horrible days,
and finally arriving in Auschwitz
when Nazi Germany was loosing the war.
Prisoners revolting,
Russians advancing,
genocide accelerating.
Hanns and Lulu were hurried along from the Ramp to the gas chambers. For family members that I never knew, I found rooms in my heart that were there all along, but had been shuttered long ago. Scar tissue had grown over my heart, stiffening and tightening the muscle, restricting bloodflow.
In Auschwitz I felt the fullness of a working heart.
To retrieve the soul of my grandfather,
I had to feel his despair.
And I did.
Auschwitz in June 2019
As we enter the camp, everything around me becomes blurry, I move slowly, the air feels very dense. I speak the Lord's Prayer again and again. After a few steps a flood of sadness comes over me. I´m crying vehemently, not knowing what about. Such waves come again and again in the following days, it feels painful and like a blessing at the same time. Throughout the day I mainly perceive my heart, connect with the people in the photos, feel into them.
The camp is on another level of being. Time becomes unimportant, stretches or compresses. People are passing me by, I see them, but I have the feeling that I am somehow standing next to them - as if I had entered a movie into which I don't fit in.
In the exhibition rooms horror and compassion arise: a mountain of glasses! Behind every pair of glasses one human being. How many glasses were there in total? How many wearers of glasses under 6 million? In another room: shoes, shoes, shoes. Then suitcases. In a showcase there are children's clothes, perhaps of a two-years-old child. Tears and heartache come over me. How can life be hurted so much? Then half a room full of hair! A guided group runs past it...
When I have strength, I comfort a fellow traveller who is in need of support. When I cry, someone comforts me. We walk slowly in smaller groups. It feels heavy and carried at the same time. Sad like funerals and like a long contemplation.
In the exhibition rooms horror and compassion arise: a mountain of glasses! Behind every pair of glasses one human being. How many glasses were there in total? How many wearers of glasses under 6 million? In another room: shoes, shoes, shoes. Then suitcases. In a showcase there are children's clothes, perhaps of a two-years-old child. Tears and heartache come over me. How can life be hurted so much? Then half a room full of hair! A guided group runs past it...
When I have strength, I comfort a fellow traveller who is in need of support. When I cry, someone comforts me. We walk slowly in smaller groups. It feels heavy and carried at the same time. Sad like funerals and like a long contemplation.
One of the pictures shows people getting off the train. I look at them and suddenly an infinitely large crowd appears before my eyes. They all just stand still and look, there are a lot of heads, no end to see. So many, so many I think and cry.
Then the gas chamber. A room in which thousands of thousands people were killed. I flee into thinking. Here is the incomprehensible is so close, I cannot feel, I am completely numb and only manage to stand there for a while. Then - walking past the stoves - I think what it must have been like to fire these stoves while people were dying in the room next door.
Birkenau camp. Right at the beginning faces appear to me. Older men whom I can see very clearly. I see you, I say to them, then they disappear. We walk very slowly through the camp to a wagon standing in the middle of the grounds. How must it have been like to get out and to look over this camp? The people were put in rows after their arrival. What must it have been like to be assigned to work and see your own mother and children standing in the other row to be taken straight to the gas chambers? What must it have been like to lead the child by the hand and to know what was about to happen?
In a little grove the people stood between the trees and waited until the gas chambers were empty. Queuing for death. I see pictures and connect with their eyes. They know what is happening here, what is about to happen to them... Fear is wafting between the trees…
We arrive at the destroyed crematorium 4. I bump into an invisible wall. Suddenly my left eyelid closes, I can't open it anymore. My head automatically turns very slowly to the right. I feel sad and tense, it makes me nauseous. But I´m able to bear with that,I learned a lot about myself here. A repetitive reaction mechanism is emerging. I open my heart, breathe through my heart, let go, trust that only what I am allowed to see will appear and finally feelings move through my body, physical reactions come up. After a while then relaxation, grace, gratitude.
We arrive at the destroyed crematorium 4. I bump into an invisible wall. Suddenly my left eyelid closes, I can't open it anymore. My head automatically turns very slowly to the right. I feel sad and tense, it makes me nauseous. But I´m able to bear with that,I learned a lot about myself here. A repetitive reaction mechanism is emerging. I open my heart, breathe through my heart, let go, trust that only what I am allowed to see will appear and finally feelings move through my body, physical reactions come up. After a while then relaxation, grace, gratitude.
At home, in my evening meditation I feel a longing for Auschwitz. I think of the powerful energy I had perceived over the ash field at crematorium 5. Suddenly a sentence comes up in my mind: „on the end of horror love is waiting“. This is what I have experienced there: love embraces all. On such places as Auschwitz we are able to cause a change with our hearts – for ourselves and, if we are allowed, for the world.
Their cry
Here they were
Now we are
Before was now
Now is
Their song echoes
Our song sings
Their cry
Our cry
Birkenau
Teardrops flowers
lays like invisible bodies
Covered in red
Weary eyes rolling over the grass
in fear
The soil
in fierce
The mud
In love
Creating paths
for you to walk
For us
to find
You are my lineage
We are
the water
The essence
of what
was
is
and will be
Nothing more
Nothing less
Teardrops flowers
lays like invisible bodies
Covered in red
Weary eyes rolling over the grass
in fear
The soil
in fierce
The mud
In love
Creating paths
for you to walk
For us
to find
You are my lineage
We are
the water
The essence
of what
was
is
and will be
Nothing more
Nothing less
As a German man,
all railway tracks that I saw in my life led to Auschwitz. I knew at one point I had to go to the former concentration camp and be there, and I knew, I
could not make it alone.
The offering of the W.E. team opened up the possibility for me to stay safe when I would go to this place of utter unsafety.
The W.E. team organized a journey with deep commitment for a group of Jews, Germans, and Israelis to become real together.
We went to Auschwitz in the womb of a felt space, meditating in the mornings and in the evenings. To witness the origin of the terror, we first met in Berlin to visit former headquarters like the "Topographie des Terrors" were the mass murder once was planned by German people of the government.
We then went to the home of the great-uncle of an Israeli woman in the group; her ancestor once had lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg and was deported from there to be murdered in Auschwitz. We lit a candle for him in front of the house to feel our love for him.
could not make it alone.
The offering of the W.E. team opened up the possibility for me to stay safe when I would go to this place of utter unsafety.
The W.E. team organized a journey with deep commitment for a group of Jews, Germans, and Israelis to become real together.
We went to Auschwitz in the womb of a felt space, meditating in the mornings and in the evenings. To witness the origin of the terror, we first met in Berlin to visit former headquarters like the "Topographie des Terrors" were the mass murder once was planned by German people of the government.
We then went to the home of the great-uncle of an Israeli woman in the group; her ancestor once had lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg and was deported from there to be murdered in Auschwitz. We lit a candle for him in front of the house to feel our love for him.
My grandfather Rudolf had lived just some blocks away. He was a teacher of kids with disabilities before he became a member of the Nazi party in 1935. He went to war in 1939 and occupied the city of Krakow near Auschwitz together with his comrades. He was a loving grandfather to me.
It was crucial to me to share about Rudolf in the group before we left by train from Berlin to Auschwitz. To honor both, the victims and the perpetrators, and to stand in the legacy of my German family together with my new friends from the USA, Israel and Sweden, allowed a space of deep healing.
When I stood on the railway track that led into the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I felt a dark relief. Finally, my inner reality matched with the outer reality. The inter-generational fear and panic, the disgust and violence I felt since I was born into my German family in 1967, now landed in their place of reference.
It was crucial to me to share about Rudolf in the group before we left by train from Berlin to Auschwitz. To honor both, the victims and the perpetrators, and to stand in the legacy of my German family together with my new friends from the USA, Israel and Sweden, allowed a space of deep healing.
When I stood on the railway track that led into the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I felt a dark relief. Finally, my inner reality matched with the outer reality. The inter-generational fear and panic, the disgust and violence I felt since I was born into my German family in 1967, now landed in their place of reference.
Grandpa, let us look together here to the place of terror: This is what happened.
The experience in Auschwitz was only possible for me together with my partner Juliana. Her presence on the journey was the biggest gift she could give me. I still feel us standing in our love in the midst of the remnants of the terror of the past. To feel that life and love is stronger is the future to me.
In the group I felt safe to stand in love; as a German man who feels the utter pain and sorrow about the past when my ancestors supported the murder of our neighbors, and as a human being who feels his yearning to co-create a present that goes beyond that.
The team of W.E. organized the trip with deep care. It is palpable how much they give themselves to the journey to pass on their experience. Monika, Stefan and Stefan opened an unique circle in a safe container where we could honor the energies of yesterday that are still alive in the world today. This is peace at work. I am deeply grateful for that.
In the group I felt safe to stand in love; as a German man who feels the utter pain and sorrow about the past when my ancestors supported the murder of our neighbors, and as a human being who feels his yearning to co-create a present that goes beyond that.
The team of W.E. organized the trip with deep care. It is palpable how much they give themselves to the journey to pass on their experience. Monika, Stefan and Stefan opened an unique circle in a safe container where we could honor the energies of yesterday that are still alive in the world today. This is peace at work. I am deeply grateful for that.
The essence of Auschwitz
This
journey is hard to describe for me, hard to explain through letters
only, that can be fixed by this machine I am calling computer. It was a
starting point towards a new history of my life, which seems to be a
contradiction in itself, but hasn´t been. Indeed, it was a start
backwards into my life as it has been in former times, exploring the
darkness in my past and in the past of my family members.
I am very happy that I had such a big help from all the lovely people I was traveling with through the gates of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only now I can bring this gratitude into presence by these small words. Small in relation to the thankfulness that is resting in my heart.
I want to come up from the darkness within me, I want to come up into the light. This wish is being stimulated by our journey, which is also providing the fuel to be able to move upwards. And there´s still a lot of fuel left in Auschwitz, fuel I might want to restore into healing of our past lives.
I am very happy that I had such a big help from all the lovely people I was traveling with through the gates of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only now I can bring this gratitude into presence by these small words. Small in relation to the thankfulness that is resting in my heart.
I want to come up from the darkness within me, I want to come up into the light. This wish is being stimulated by our journey, which is also providing the fuel to be able to move upwards. And there´s still a lot of fuel left in Auschwitz, fuel I might want to restore into healing of our past lives.
Many
lives have been destroyed, but the essence of live has survived,
flowing through us, passed by those, who survived the cruelty of
Auschwitz. Victims and perpetrators. And that was the greatest step of
myself in these days: My remembrance of and reconnection with the
essence of life.
Auschwitz Reflections (Extract)
Here are some of my reflections from my trip to Berlin and Poland including the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial. In addition to the time we spent together as a group of 19, I spend a couple of extra days in Berlin before our time together and 2 days in Poland after.
The purpose for me was to deepen my relationship with the Holocaust to explore collective trauma, and to begin to understand the implications for me and for the world today. While I am Jewish, all of my relatives that I know of, left Poland and Belarus between 1919 and 1923. I likely have more distant relatives who were murdered in the Holocaust but I will need to investigate my family tree to find out.
I also tried to develop a fuller understanding of the historical and situational context. To this end I read a number of books relevant to this topic.
From this effort I began to understand the genesis and evolution of Hitler’s ideology, the despair in Germany after World War I, the psychological and structural mechanisms that make it both easy and alluring for people to dehumanize others, the role of collaborators and bystanders, and the deep connection to God that some of the Jews maintained through the most horrific of circumstances.During the trip I tried to:
Feel deeply from my personal perspective;
Put myself in the shoes of various participants, roles and places of the Holocaust;
Feel the gravity of the whole situation from various vantage points;
Begin to explore the implications for me now in today’s world
To try to put myself of the shoes of those participating in the Holocaust I attuned to places and people that played key roles in the Holocaust drama at a human and individual level. This included tuning into a wide range of Jews and other victims of the Holocaust, Nazi officers, guards, collaborators in countries such as Poland and Hungary, those that assisted the Jews, people that merely stood by and watched.
Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe - I related to and was deeply saddened by the many family stories presented here. Any of these families could (have been)/ (be) mine. Many of the families must have felt safe in Germany. What a change in 40 years.
Berlin Railway Station
– I noticed an older house overlooking the railroad and tried to put myself in the shoes of a bystander that may have lived there and seen hundreds of Jews boarding trains to their deaths. What would it have been like, would they be cheering this on, would they have been frozen, would they have objected? When am I an “innocent” bystander?”
Wannsee Conference –
I tried to relate to the various Nazi Party and Government officials that gathered here in 1942 to discuss and coordinate the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. The depersonalized bureaucratic paperwork was reminiscent of that which is typical in corporations and government. Just part of a day’s work. How disconnected each person must have been from the acts that they were conspiring to commit. When am I a disconnected part of a bureaucratic activity?
Auschwitz Museum/Memorial –
- Guard - he must have needed to view the prisoners as sub-human in order to treat them the way he did. We find the same in our detention centers in the US today where guards refer to children as “bodies.” And such children do not have soap, toothbrushes or beds.
- Mother and child – they were offloaded from the train and walked along a long gravel road to the gas chambers and ovens. Did they know where they were headed? What were they feeling? In the gas chamber it took up to 20 painful minutes to die. What were they thinking and feeling? How horrific.
- Crippled man – There was a large pile of artificial limbs. What about one of owners who would have survived the terrors of the Pogroms in Poland? What was it like for him? Guards would have picked on him. He was unable to work so he faced immediate death. Did he know what was coming? What was he thinking and feeling?
- Owner of suitcase – There were heaps of suitcases. One was owned by Ruth Heumann. From where did she come, what possessions were taken from her, where was her family, what was she going through? Was she selected to be gassed immediately or was she allowed to live for a little while longer? How did she feel; what was she thinking?
- Owner of a Tallit
– There was a large pile of Tallits (prayer shawl). Who was one of the Jews who brought his Tallit to Auschwitz. Did he feel the presence of God? Was he at peace in the midst of madness ?
