Who was this little girl with blonde curls and unsuspecting eyes staring back at me?  She could have easily been my own, anxiously waiting in line for one more ride on the carousel.  But not this child.  Instead, she quietly stood and waited her turn in a different sort of line.  It appeared that she held something in her small hands, perhaps a favorite toy. Moments after this haunting photograph was taken, the little girl was ushered quickly, along with hundreds of others that day, into a gas chamber at Auschwitz.

Not even the soft-spoken words of Pastor Suski, “This will be a very hard day for you, so I will pray,” could have adequately prepared me for that afternoon in June, 1990. 

We traveled by car to southern Poland with our good friend Boguslaw, arriving at our destination a short time later.  We approached the entrance of this ominous-looking place by foot.  Miles of barbed wire fencing and towering lookouts betrayed the message on the huge iron gates, Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes Freedom).  Nothing here spoke of freedom.

This was Auschwitz, the largest and most infamous of Nazi concentration and death camps.  It was here that prisoners died from lethal injections, torture, starvation, slave labor, and lack of basic sanitary conditions.  Many were the victims of criminal “medical” experiments at the evil hands of Dr. Josef Mengele.  In all of human history, there has never been a tragedy that has inspired such extensive reflection upon the morality of mankind such as the devastation that occurred at Auschwitz.

Standing at the entrance gates, I wondered what the millions of innocent victims must have felt as they moved through these same gates.  Fear, powerlessness, a spark of hope? 

The first groups of arriving prisoners were assured that Auschwitz was a work camp.  They carried in sewing machines and tools, with the sincere hope that they could work hard in exchange for their eventual freedom.  No one bothered to tell them that the average stay was less than thirty days.  In time, the “welcome committee” would simply point to the crematorium and coldly inform new arrivals, “The only way you will leave Auschwitz is through the chimney.”

We walked through the camp in solemn silence, too numb to show emotion.  Others wept openly.  Perhaps they had lost family members in this horrible place.  A sickening feeling swept over me.  Then anger.  How could this atrocity have taken place?

The huge brick building which we entered next appeared to be a non-threatening structure at first.  We were guided into rooms that contained personal items belonging to the prisoners; clothes, shoes, eyeglasses, hair ribbons, books, suitcases, children’s toys.  However, we would soon discover that here were housed the details of crimes committed that were unprecedented in history.  What we learned, many have tried desperately to forget or pretend did not happen.  I will never forget.  The pleading eyes of the little girl in the photograph will not allow me to do anything but remember.

We were led into cold, damp cells that had once been “home” to many a victim.  We saw the small bunks which had once been lined with tick-infested straw, sleeping two or three prisoners per bed.  Concrete structures which were centered in the barracks had served as toilet facilities.  I couldn’t help but think of the degradation, the humiliation. 

Entering one of the crematoriums where huge black ovens lined the brick walls, I tried in vain to disguise my shock when our guide stated that hundreds of prisoners were executed and cremated daily.  The combined burning capacities of the five operating crematoriums at Auschwitz were 4,756 bodies in a 24-hour time period!

We walked slowly down the dirt path which led us back to the entrance gates once again, overcome with disbelief, yet unable to deny what we had heard and witnessed.  I bent down and picked up two small rocks, placing them in my coat pocket.  I wanted tangible evidence that this indeed was a place, and not just a frightening dream from which I would gratefully awaken.

Then suddenly I saw them.  Hundreds of brightly colored flowers bloomed near one of the brick buildings which contained the gruesome details of an event in our history that some would prefer to eradicate from memory.  Many cannot speak of it, as if silence will erase.  Yet, those beautiful flowers which seemed so terribly out of place were anything but silent.  They nearly shouted it. “Life is precious. Never forget.”