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Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat Nov. 03
By Peacemaker Community Colorado Director Fleet Maull, zpo
Dear Friends,
Arrived in Krakow, Poland around midday today after a long overnight flight. It's a delight to be among many close Peacemaker Community friends again who have arrived from Israel, Germany, France, various places in Poland, and the U.S. We had our first round of staff meetings today. Tomorrow, I will lead a facilitators' training for the retreat staff, based on general facilitation skills, deep/compassionate listening, council practice, and the principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).
The retreat starts on Monday with a visit to Kazmierez, the former Jewish Ghetto in Krakow, and then onto to Auschwitz-Birkenau. I love Krakow and feel great being here with good friends, and I am also haunted by the prospect of being at Auschwitz-Birkenau again, descending into that
darkness again, less than two days from now. The retreat ends on Saturday, a week from now. After the retreat I will be leading a training for prison guards and prison volunteers in Warsaw
Much love to you all,
Fleet
Day Two:
Dear Friends,
Day 2 here in Poland. A rainy day here in Krakow, good for being inside and doing the staff training. We have an amazing group staffing the retreat, peacemakers from Poland, Germany, Switzerland, England, and the U.S., many of whom have staffed numerous Bearing Witness retreats here previously. We spent a very rich day with each other in council, working on our facilitation and council skills and practicing Nonviolent Communication. We also introduced Metta practice as a way for us to take care of ourselves, our hearts and others and their hearts during the retreat. I leave for Auschwitz-Birkenau in the morning to get things ready. The rest of the retreat participants will arrive in the afternoon after spending the morning in Kazimeriez (sp?), the former Jewish Ghetto in Krakow. I don't know what to say about what I am feeling in anticipation of being at Auschwitz tomorrow. I just feel flooded with all kind of feelings, and fear is definitely among them. Appreciating and counting on your prayers and blessings,
Fleet
Day Three:
Dear Friends,
I am now writing from the Youth Hostel in Oswiecim, the town where Auschwitz and Birkenau are located. Six of us on the retreat staff drove from Krakow to Oswiecim this morning through beautiful rolling hills with splendid fall colors, arriving early to set-up the various locations and
logistics for the retreat. The retreat participants arrived in the afternoon after visiting the old Jewish Ghetto in Krakow. We had our first council circles, 7 participants and one facilitator in each circle followed by dinner, an orientation and a staff circle meeting. Early today we drove by both Auschwitz I and Birkenau and the visual clearly began the retreat for me. I cannot really express what seeing these places does to me, but it is deep and unsettling. In the morning we will go to Auschwitz I where we will see to films and then tour this camp, concluding at the killing wall where people, many of them in the Polish resistance were executed. After that we will go to Birkenau, the large campy where over 2 million Jews were exterminated in the gas chambers and work camps. Tomorrow will be a hard day. The retreat participants will be in various stages of shock and grief. It is a deep plunge. Tomorrow evening hold a large council in fish bowl/spiral form with all 56 participants in a beautiful square meditation building. It will be a very intimate setting where participants can share their experience of the day or stories of loved ones who died here or who survived. I will go to sleep tonight with a sense of trepidation tempered by exhaustion ... my first good night sleep, I hope since flying overnight to arrive in Poland from the U.S.
Be well,
Fleet
Day Four:
Dear Friends,
For most of us the retreat began at least four days ago with the visit to Kazimierz, the former Jewish ghetto in Krakow, or perhaps when we boarded our flight for Poland, or perhaps when we committed to joining this retreat. The "plunge" began this morning at Auschwitz I, where we began the morning with two films of historic footage from the liberation of Auschwitz and another camp in Germany. To say these films were disturbing says nothing. We all walked out of the small theatre at the Auschwitz museum in deep shock, even though many of us had seen these films before. We stepped into the crisp air, some of us crying, most of us beyond crying,
beyond words, and followed our guides to the entrance of Auschwitz I, passing under the the infamous gate with the wrought iron sign reading, Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes You Free). From their we passed to the "roll call" area where the prisoners were made to stand for hours, 22 hours in one case, in extreme heat and bitter cold being counted again and again or watching punishments and hangings. Our guides sensitively introduced us into the history of Auschwitz I, where first Polish resistance and intelligencia were imprisoned and exterminated during 1940 and 1941, follow by captured Russian soldiers, and eventually Polish Jews in 1942.
Construction of Auschwitz II or Birkenau began in 1942 and continued until the end of the war and the liberation of the camps by the Red Army in 1945. We ended our tour of of Auschwitz I by visiting Block 11 and the death wall or killing wall next door. Block 11 was the building where the gestapo tortured and executed anyone who resisted their power in the camps or in the surrounding towns. It was terror central.
This is one of the hardest places for me to visit in Auschwitz, as it is very similar in appearance to the maximum security prison where I spent 14 years. In the basement there are rows of isolation cells, starvation cells, dark cells, and standing cells, where four prisoners were forced to remain
standing squeezed together into a one square meter cell. Just outside of Block 11 is the killing wall where thousands were shot. Next door is Block 10 where the Nazi doctors experimented on women seeking ways to exterminate mass populations of non germans through various forms of sterilization. We held an interfaith ceremony at the killing wall, offering prayers, silence, and candles. After a lunch of soup and bread, we left for Auschwitz II or Birkenau, a 400 acre prison complex with 300 barracks and five gas chambers and crematoria. This is where the trains of Jews arrived from all over Europe dislodging their human cargo at the selection point, where Dr.Mengele and other Nazi doctors would select those to go to the work camps and those to go immediately to the gas chambers. Over 80% went immediately to the gas chambers, mostly women, children, and the elderly. Men and some women considered strong enough to work, were sent two the work camps where they died of starvation, overwork, exposure, beatings, and hopelessness. The most amazing thing happened about 30 minutes after we arrived at Birkenau.
A full spectrum rainbow appeared against a dark sky of ominous clouds under a light rain, arching over Crematoria IV and V, the aspen groves where women and children huddled awaiting their turn in the gas chambers (thinking they were going to bathe), and the pond where the ashes of hundreds of thousands of exterminated humans were dumped.
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