by Barbara Wegmüller

The security checks have intensified over the last few years. The numbers and names of all the international passports were given weeks ago to register the group of retreat participants. The entire entrance area was recently rebuilt. In the first year, the museum recorded 170,000 visitors. Currently, there are more than two million. Although the place is mentioned in the Internet Museum, we avoid calling it that. Because Auschwitz 1 is the concentration camp where people were subjected to unspeakable suffering. It is a place to learn what we humans are capable of doing to “other people. “The retreat group, consisting of 55 people, came from Krakow by bus, and half of the journey took place in holding noble silence.

Twenty-six times I have come to this place to take part in the retreat, and for many years I have been responsible for organizing and holding the retreat. This year I will still support the leadership team, and then I will withdraw. After the first checkpoint, we are led through the newly built, long concrete corridor, where we hear names:

Olszowski Josef

Olszowski Katarzyna

Olszowski Ludwik

Olszowski Maria

Olszowski Marianna……….

Names of the murdered, who were registered.

It occurs to me that in a few years, we will be reading names in the Gaza Strip, in Israel, possibly in Somalia and Yemen, in Sudan and Turkey, in Ukraine, and……
Our steps echo in the tunnel that leads us to the grounds and to the second checkpoint before entering the cinema room, where we watch the documentary informing us about what happened here during the Nazi regime. The faces of the participants are pale and serious as we join the English- and German-speaking guides who will lead us through the square and the various buildings, sharing a lot of information and stories with us. Over the years, I have heard countless different stories. Every year there are new exhibitions, carefully made documentation by the Germans, the Hungarians, the Jews, the Poles…

I hear the voice of Hitler shouting that all the intellectual Jews should be eliminated and see on the screen people throwing piles of books into the fire. The enthusiasm of the people listening to Hitler in the film is immense. Images of the newly elected Donald Trump surrounded by enthusiastic supporters arise in my mind, followed by images of Xi Jinping in front of a huge audience of identical-looking men, dressed in the same clothes, applauding in time. Same pictures from Iran and Turkey, and Nord Korea.

Physically, I am in Auschwitz 1, my mind is occupied with the situation of our world today, 2024. With the climate, right-wingers, and war-mongers in many countries. I feel my feet in the warm shoes, turn to my breath, and look at the pictures of the people who were in the resistance and were killed. Reading their biographies, I feel their gaze encouraging me. They were not bystanders. They paid with their lives because they courageously stood up for the rights of others.

We arrive at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer in Oświęcim in the early afternoon. It feels like coming home to me, we have been guests here for many years. While we gratefully eat the warm soup, I get to know some of the participants at the table. They come from Austria, Canada, Poland, Israel, Palestine, the Netherlands, the United States, and Switzerland. This year, too, the group is international. So many interesting, wonderful people are making this pilgrimage together. I feel so much gratitude for their courage and commitment to come here.

From the second day on, we are in Auschwitz 2 in the Birkenau camp, a huge cemetery. Before I enter the square, I ask the souls for permission and for their guidance. Today, once again, information about what happened here; important buildings are closed due to renovations. New discoveries are constantly being made, buildings need to be restored. We will spend the next few days here. We will sit in silence on the selection ramp, and every day we will read the names of people who were only referred to by a number here before they died, from illness, exhaustion, violence or in the gas chambers.

Five years ago, we, a small group of Bernie’s successors, scattered his ashes on the square with Roshi Eve, Bernie Glassman’s widow. The ashes of Sandra Jishu Angyo Holmes are also here. We have held ceremonies so often by the tree that stands alone in the middle of the large ash field. For years I have been visiting the place to be alone, to express my gratitude in deep connection with my teacher and with all the souls here. This year, this part of the area was fenced off. Because of the war in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, security precautions were increased. Although the whole area is monitored by cameras, the risk seems too big. The path to the ash field, which leads through the forest, is closed. Two deer are behind the fence and look at me as they move towards the forest, I ask them to bring greetings from me.

As we sit in a circle, on the selection side, the wind picks up. It is freezing cold. Between the clouds, the sun comes out from time to time, illuminating the faces of the people sitting opposite, behind them the fences and the watchtowers, the chimneys that remain of the barracks. Some read names aloud: Opara Stanislaw, Opara Genowefa, Opara Jerzy……

Some add the names of relatives who remained here behind. The participant from Palestine who comes from the West Bank, calls out the names of his friends who were recently murdered in Gaza at the end of his given list.

Barbara Wegmüller