Shocking images of suffering remain in memory of people arriving to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau; of crematory ovens which turned into ashes lives of over a million human beings. Staying in this place you cannot avoid asking the question: how is it possible that “people dealt this fate to people?” A testimony of the terrible drama becomes a constant call to the contemporary generations for respect of life and for concern for the dignity of every human being.
No Stigma, But Challenge
Oświęcim is an industrial city which lies in the southern Poland. On its outskirts the Nazis founded in 1940 a concentration camp, which by its German name “Auschwitz”, has become a symbol of the terrible humiliation of man, genocide and the Holocaust. The daily life of the inhabitants of the town is inextricably linked with the proximity of places of extermination. Over one million visitors come to Auschwitz every year. They leave with the hope that it will never happen again in the history of mankind what happened here. Do you only need to have hope? Is it enough? We need also a critical judgment of current events that are taking place in today’s world. The judgment should be followed by the specific action and wise undertakings of educational, informational, religious and political nature. Many of these undertakings originated in the past few years in the shadow of the former concentration camp: the St. Maximilian Center, the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, the Center for Dialogue and Prayer, the Jewish Center, the Academy for Human Rights, and also conferences and exhibitions aimed at deepening awareness of Auschwitz. One should also mention initiatives focused on preventing from using in the media a false term “Polish death camps”. All this activity primarily concerns drawing conclusions from this terrible history lesson and the moral message that should shape the life of the next generations.
To Awaken the Conscience of the World
The inspiration for many of these projects can be traced back to the content of the homily which St. John Paul II gave during a Mass celebrated in the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 7 June 1979. The Holy Father pointed then to the relationship between the extermination camp and the defense of human dignity and concern for the man. From the “Golgotha of the modern world”, which was a concentration camp, you have to “look straight at the human case”, take “reckoning with the conscience of mankind”, testifying about what means the greatness and misery of man in our times. The message of peace and reconciliation should flow from the tragic history of the extermination of people from many nations, especially from the Jewish nation. “When we stand here – the Pope said – we cannot escape the longing to recognize each other as brothers”.
John Paul II also stressed that the cry of the people tortured in the camp would bear fruit if “the Declaration of Human Rights must have all its just consequences drawn from it”, because the Declaration recognizes the dignity of every human being. The universal law of respect for man and life is fullfiled in the commandment of love, and Jesus Christ is the model of this love for the faithul. Father Maximilian Kolbe followed Christ’s footsteps showing that love “enlivens the faith to the extreme point of the final definitive witness”, giving life for a brother. In Auschwitz moral victories were won by people of different faiths and convictions. They were witnesses to the truth of the good, existing in human beings, that cannot be destroyed even by the greatest hatred. “Only love is creative” – once said Father Maximilian Kolbe. This truth shows the importance of universal values inscribed by the Creator in human nature, and also the importance of the values of the Gospel, the implementation of which makes a man ready to carry out noble deeds and the world more human.
The Courage of the Good
On 28 May 2006 also Pope Benedict XVI came to the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. He said then that in a place like this “words fail”. The place speaks to human conscience by its silence that becomes a meaningful “cry for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again”. He also stressed then: “Pope John Paul II came here as a son of the Polish people. I come here today as a son of the German people… Let us cry out to God, that he may draw men and women to conversion and help them to see that violence does not bring peace, but only generates more violence… We make our prayer to God and we appeal to humanity, that this reason, the logic of love and the recognition of the power of reconciliation and peace, may prevail over the threats arising from irrationalism or from a spurious and godless reason”. He also stated that reconcilliation process – starting from this “Golgotha of the modern world” – stood at the beginning of many initiatives which were aimed at awakening of moral awareness. These initiatives are an expression of hope that “will foster resistance to evil and the triumph of love”. The Holy Father also stressed that “the past is never simply the past”, just like places of memory are not only a memory of events preserved in museum exhibits. Remembrance of the victims of Auschwitz “touches our hearts” to awaken in us the courage of the good and resistance against the evil.
On 29 July this year also Pope Francis will visit the death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. His visit will be coupled with the World Youth Day in Krakow and will coincide with the Holy Year of Mercy, therefore its strong symbolic meaning. The mercy is the limit imposed upon evil but man should make the effort of moral development. Auschwitz is not only a mark of evil incumbent on the history of mankind. It is also a warning as well as a challenge to create social welfare and mutual respect and dialogue between people, religions and cultures.
Fr. Andrzej Dobrzyński