"Entirely Unforgettable". Auschwitz 2007: The Lasting Impact

To finish off this series of blogs which have focused on Holocaust Memorial Day and the Liberation of Auschwitz, I want to return to some of the questions I raised in the first blog, when comparing two articles which attempted to address the question of who should visit the camps and if it should be made a compulsory trip in schools. I very clearly asserted my belief that it was a hugely valuable experience for me, both in terms of understanding the history of that period but also in terms of personal growth and development. However it got me thinking and there was one question I kept coming back too- was this a view shared by others who made that same trip to Poland?

Not knowing, I set out to investigate.

Unfortunately the passage of time has severed many of the links I had with those who also visited Poland in 2007. However, through social media I managed to contact some 25 of those 40 class mates who originally attended, explaining why I’d got in touch and asking them if they could spare a few minutes to consider the following four questions:

1.       Should “everyone” go?

2.       Did it aid your understanding of the Holocaust?

3.       Has it shaped your world perspective today?

4.       Do you think the camps that still exist should be destroyed? Or are they important as memorials?

I wasn’t sure what reception this message would get but I am pleased to say that 5 of those contacted did reply, with insightful and well considered responses. I appreciate it is not an easy thing to be asked to remember and  I’m sure there are some haven’t given it a second thought, while for others it will have replayed numerous times. Then of course, being asked to share those thoughts is perhaps a bit exposing, while others might not have wanted too. However, in a sense the ‘why’s’ do not really matter, what does, is the commonalities that appeared in those 5 responses I did receive.

1.       Should “everyone” go?

This first question divided the responders. Generally there was a feeling that if circumstances allowed, people should visit and be exposed to those educational messages. For example:

CL - ‘I definitely agree that everyone should go. When you read about such historical horrors, it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the facts and figures that seem entirely unfathomable and thus forget…. But the feelings you experience when you visit…. Entirely unforgettable’.

However an air of caution was also expressed:

 ZC - ‘I think the trip is very stressful so perhaps not everyone - I still get upset thinking about it now, especially the block they used to torture… ‘.

This response draws parallels with the view of fellow public historian Emma, who was inspired by my first blog to recall her experiences to Auschwitz in 2003 (1). I was struck by her comment about the lack preparation she was exposed too in advance of her school trip, for the arrangements around ours were very different.

Firstly, to be eligible for the trip you had to be studying either history or religious education which would provide you with the necessary background and context for the trip you were about to make. Furthermore, lunchtime sessions were also held in the weeks before where all were gathered to watch Schindler’s List. I think there was also discussion beforehand of what you might expect and how you might react. The staff had really considered what was necessary to prepare a 14/15 year olds for this trip so that it was a beneficial experience and one not purely wrought with emotion. It was a trip they’d run for years before taking us, so they had it pretty honed down by the time our turn came around – but perhaps that was a lesson learnt by experience? Either way the trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau and to the site of Plaszow was grounded in prior knowledge.

A mixed response then to this first question, but one that largely resonates with my own.

2.       Did it aid your understanding of the Holocaust?

This question sparked a more general consensus and that was yes, all responders walked away possessing greater understanding of what they’d been taught – the realisation of the magnitude of it being a particular point all recalled vividly:

SD – ‘it gave me a more realistic understanding, history lessons are on paper and this was startlingly real’.

MC – ‘[It] not only gave me a greater understanding of what happened, it made me aware how many people suffered and lost their lives. From walking around the camp and seeing the suitcases labelled with their return addresses and hair still tied in hairbands, it makes you realise how evil mankind can really be’.

ZC – ‘It definitely aided my understanding and added context to what I had already learnt. It made what I had read and watched “real”, rather than just another lesson in the classroom. It also brings to life the scale of what happened, which despite being told the number, I had never fully realised before visiting’.

Pictures cannot compare to seeing the real thing with your own eyes. It’s this whole argument about the response a ‘sense of place’ evokes – you’re not removed from it, you’re immersed in it and that feeling is not one easily forgotten. It leaves a lasting impression, as MC clearly shows in her recollection of the suitcases and human hair. You could all too easily skim over that when reading a text book, but when you’re confronted with a glass case full of false legs and spectacles and stats that say 1 in 4 men wore glasses – the magnitude of it hits you.

In her blog Emma is sceptical of the potential to learn from such a place and criticises the idea of ‘understanding’ - believing it can only be definitive – complete, job done. I disagree, there are something’s beyond full comprehension, this being one of them, but you can achieve a level of understanding and that is what all responders and myself walked away possessing a greater level of after our visit.

3.       Has it shaped your world perspective today?

This is perhaps the question I was most interested in hearing the responses too, for I was interested to see how the lessons learned by studying the Holocaust and visiting some of the places in which it happened had shaped the world view of the others, if of course at all, and how they may have carried that forward into their current lives.

The first responder’s recollections tie in with one of the lasting impressions I have of the trip in terms of the impact it had on us as a group. Like many school year groups, as a cohort we were divided by ‘factions’ and clashes of personalities did lead to bullying and people reaching judgements about others based on very little more than assumption. But as NM recalls:

‘when at Auschwitz, I don’t know about you, but I felt it bought everyone together. We all had the same feelings that what had happened was just awful…. For me it has taught me not to judge people, everyone is different… we all have our own beliefs and that doesn’t make one person more superior than another…’

And I couldn’t agree more for that is something I also took away, but was somewhat surprised it wasn’t remembered by more people than just us two. I remember us leaving for Poland divided into those factions yet coming back a more united unit which carried on for the rest of the year. I spoke to people on that trip that I’d never spoken too before and even cried with them; our vulnerability forced us to depend on each other in that moment and when we came back we continued to have conservations and exchange civilities. There is a lot to be learnt at Auschwitz alongside the history – lessons in citizenship and humanity are also taught, important steps in preventing such an atrocity occurring again.

A further point was raised by the responders in relation to this questions and that was the impact it has had on their world perspective and heightened engagement with politics and world issues:

ZC – ‘Yes, since the first day there it changed my perspective. I am far less naïve, I certainly think more carefully before I open my mouth, judge a race/religion, it drove me to become more politically aware so I can make informed decisions when voting, considering the Nazis were VOTED into power’.

SD – ‘I think my world perspective growing up was shaped by many things and is continuing to be shaped, but I do often think about this trip and how easy it is to be a bystander on world issues and how important it is to stand against inhumanity’.

4.       Do you think the camps that still exist should be destroyed? Or are they important as memorials?

The final question sparked consensus again:

NM – ‘There is so much history at places like Auschwitz and these need to be kept for generations in the future to see and to gain understanding of what happened’

SD – ‘how they have been left abandoned is important to see the realism of something so unimaginable’

MC – ‘So many innocent people lost their lives; it is there graveyard and should never be forgotten.’

ZC – ‘I think by running trips like the one that I went on, it might change the perspective of those children and who knows what a difference that handful of enlightened minds could do?’

The importance of places like Auschwitz came through in all those responses, both in terms of the educational value but also in the role they play as places of remembrance, memorialisation and of warning.  

Five responses out of forty is a small percentage and on some level I wish I’d had more data on which to base some of these conclusions. I am sure there is more that could have been said and different points that could have been raised, but what I am reassured by is that at least those 5 people took something away from that trip, just as I did and that it did have a lasting impact on those few.

Would I therefore stick by my original conclusion that school children should be encouraged to make a similar trip to ours? Yes I would, even though I wavered when watching Night will Fall. I think there is great need for exposure to such things, the lasting impact far outweighing the initial shock that comes with realising the magnitude of the Holocaust.

(1)    https://yorehistory.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/return-or-single-ticket-the-future-of-auswitz/

(2)    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30996555

HMD 2015 & The 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”

- Elie Wiesel

Holocaust: Night Will Fall

I’ve been trying for the past three days to write something about this documentary which aired on Channel 4 on Saturday night and have really struggled – in many ways I think the documentary speaks for itself and you should just go and watch it. No words can really do it, or the footage it shows justice.  Just watch it.

It’s tough and not pleasant viewing, but it is a wonderful piece of craftsmanship. I’m glad the Imperial War Museum decided to finish the piece Bernstein and his team began all those years ago and that Singer and his team documented that process. Simply put - just watch it.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/holocaust-night-will-fall

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Since watching the documentary I watched the brief clip on the Channel 4 website which sees director, Andre Singer and producer Sally Angel talk about the process of making the documentary and it was an enlightening five minutes. Both spoke openly about the process and made some very thought provoking statements which have added to the impact Night Will Fall has had on me as a viewer.

To begin with, Singer recalls how they’d begun with the intention of making a historian/expert led piece, but quickly realised the need to tell it from the perspective of those who were there and so ditched all the material they had already recorded and began again. He goes on to say that this documentary:

“has a particular resonance, number one, because it is the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of the camps at the end of the war and the generation that participated either as victims, or saw it or were there, sadly of course are dying and this is probably the last chance to look back from living memory”.

 I mean how true – yet it’s probably not something many of us think about, or don’t wish to think about. It is in living memory – most of what we know is told by those who lived through it and who survived, yet at the same time, it’s seems like so long ago because we struggle to comprehend a society in which that could be allowed happen (I know there are recent and on going events that spark comparison but I’m concentrating on this one event for the moment).

 The importance of the documentary is further compounded by a comment by Angel:

“I think it’s a kind of undocumented side of things that people who do bear witness to atrocity, cameramen, journalists and film makers often have to carry quite a lot of stuff with them that they can’t then share with other people, so for me there is an important element that actually we have to look at ways in which we honour people who bear witness to atrocity…”

In the documentary, those cameramen who recorded the footage are overcome with emotion as much as those survivors who recalled their experiences. They’ve been traumatised too, and again that’s not something I’ve often thought about.

Therefore, in finishing the film, the IWM have completed an act of remembrance; a way in which to honour the people who made it and have had to live with those experiences, because they were ordered to go into the camps and film what they saw; just as much as it honours the memory of those who lost their lives there as victims, by recording what happened. It provides context for the material, you’re not just watching archive footage, but are told the story of who was involved and why. As Angel comments, ‘it’s a really important piece of documentary evidence about what happened when the Allies went in and liberated the camps” and having finished that, as the original film makers intended, has meant that that record is now preserved for many years to come.

I’m sure there will be critics of this documentary, those who say it is too macabre and graphic in its imagery, but it appears all these decisions were ones Singer didn’t make lightly:

“We had to make quite severe choices about how much archive to put in and for me the biggest dilemma in the whole making of the film was how far do you got to show really horrific atrocity footage, to a public?…”

The intention originally was to make a film that would show the Germans what the Nazi’s had done in their name, to spread guilt. But the delay in finishing meant it lost its relevance and became politically sensitive so was shelved by the British Government. Times have moved on and it holds different meaning now, but that footage is still as horrific for anyone to view and I am sure, as Singer describes, “you don’t become anaesthetized to seeing the material”. We may be a modern audience with different sensibilities but that degree of human suffering is undoubtedly just as difficult to see today as it once was.

I’m forced to think about the first blog in this series where I discussed the idea that every child should go to Auschwitz, or another camp and I question my decision. The footage I saw when I watched this was very unsettling for me as a 23 year old – I can’t imagine how I’d have responded as a 15 year old. It’s tricky, because I stand by my original argument – I wouldn’t be the person I was today if I hadn’t been, yet to reveal the unedited truth, as the documentary and film footage depict, to a ‘child’… I don’t know. That takes the education to a whole different level and I think, one that is age sensitive.

Singer’s closing remark goes as follows:

“I’ve been quite shocked at how little generations under my generation and certainly under the generation who were there during the war, know really, about what happened, it’s kind of already distant history and it shouldn’t be because it’s our living memory, it’s our living history.”

I really don’t like to think of this as being true. I mean can it be distant history after only 70 years? It still feels very recent to me, I suppose because it is an event in living memory and I have been fortunate to hear people recall their extra ordinary experiences first hand. It’s dominated the school curriculum for so long and there is so much ‘history’ written about that period, can people really know so little about what happened?

Singer goes on to talk about the modern relevance of the documentary and the issues its raises – again issues I’ve thought about and engaged with over recent weeks -:

 “The subject matter I think has become more relevant now because of what we’re seeing across Europe, across the world perhaps, sort of an increase from the right… fundamentalism if you want to call it that, or anti-Semitism and so on, are on the increase rather than decrease and I think it’s a timely reminder of what happened last time, in the 1930s, when that swept across Europe.”

We live in scary times and I hope to god it doesn’t take another dramatic turn of events like this for society to reconfigure our sense of tolerance and accept that we now live in multi-cultural and multi-faith societies. An idealistic view perhaps but I’m sure I’m not alone.

The final words of the short video are given by Angel who recites the last lines of the script - ‘unless the world learns the lesson these pictures teach, night will fall. But by God’s grace we who live will learn.’ She then concludes ‘well the question is, have we really learnt?” and I ask you now the same question.

Link to press release -

http://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/press-release/German%20Concentration%20Camps%20Factual%20Survey%20-%20IWM%20press%20release%20(Final).pdf

Review: Perspectives: Warwick Davies - The Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz

Ever since last week’s blog and having recalled my own visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau back in 2007, I’ve thought a lot more about the Holocaust and my previous interest has resurfaced with a vengeance. As I wrote last time, the 70th anniversary of liberation and Holocaust Memorial Day occur this week and as such there have been a flurry of programmes which I’ve found myself watching or recording. I thought perhaps I could blog about them as one unit but I think actually, I will take them one at a time and if all goes to plan produce series of blogs this week, culminating I hope, with a rather special article that will return to questions I raised in my first blog and address why my trip still resonates so strongly with me, both as a historian and a global citizen.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep2week13/perspectives

So the first programme I viewed this week was Perspectives: Warwick Davies – The Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz. Through hour long programmes, ITV’s ‘Perspectives’ series, sees well known celebrities set off around the world to explore more about a person that has inspired them. In this particular episode Warwick Davies examines the lives of the Ovitz family, born in Romania and of the Jewish faith, who made a living as entertainers. However rather uniquely, the family was composed of 10 siblings, 7 of whom like their father suffered from Dwarfism, while the other three were like their mothers, ‘tall’. In giving his reasons for why he finds this particular family inspiration, Davies explains how he’d always wanted to investigate them, through the eyes of a fellow little person and entertainer and how they ‘didn’t let size get them down’. They were an educated and musically talented family, who, performing under the stage name the Lilliput Troupe, played to large audiences of 800-1000 people a night and were hugely popular at the time.

However when Northern Romania was invaded by the Nazi regime, the Ovitz family’s fate, like many others,  took an unimaginable turn and consequently today, the family are better remembered as the Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz. Throughout the programme Davies retraces the experience of the Ovitz family, visiting the village where they had lived, the ghetto they were moved too and finally Auschwitz, where they were transported in 1944 and lived until liberation.

The Ovitz family
http://themicrogiant.com/warwick-davis-the-seven-dwarfs-of-auschwitz-2013

I first heard of the Ovitz family back in 2007 when I was doing research ahead of our trip to Poland and so when I saw this programme was being re-run this week, having originally aired in March 2013, I was interested to revisit the topic and see how it was approached. I wasn’t disappointed. In fact I was really impressed. Something that has come across though writing many of the blogs I’ve written is that straying from the mainstream narrative and big events in history, is a hugely positive step and this programme firmly places little people into the historical narrative of this period.

The producers drew on experts from Imperial College, the Holocaust Research Centre RHUL, and Auschwitz Museum. You also had the authors of Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz, Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren who offered valuable historical context, as well as survivors and amazingly, footage of an interview conducted with the youngest sibling, Perla Ovitz from 1999, which was interwoven throughout the whole programme. I don’t want to say too much more in case you watch, it I’d like to mention the few things really stuck out for me.

Certainly worth a read I think!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Giants

The first was the contextualisation provided by Koren and Negev. As a viewer we are told that the 1930s “were really they heyday of the interest in dwarfism….” (Negev) and how around the world there were some 75 agents recruiting little people for the entertainment business and who would “mak[e] a living out of exhibiting their deformity” (Koren). What I hadn’t considered as well, was that in 1937, Disney released Snow White which infamously has 7 dwarfs as main characters and it transpires this movie really propelled the craze to its height. I had never even considered the connection between the two, or relatedly, that the Nazi’s would have used the story of Snow White as a piece of propaganda to spread the message of the master race. I think Disney movies are in a sense timeless, and I for one certainly over look how they fit into the time period in which they are made and the impact they might have had.





However to return to point, Koren strongly emphasises that the Ovitz’s tried to avoid this craze; they wanted to be recognised for their abilities and not an act based on gimmicks. The Ovitz’s were performers and entertainers, that’s how they wanted to be known and I think it was really important that this was re-established that at the centre of this programme. The central message being to remind us that they were an ordinary family with aspirations just the same as everyone else and that they shouldn’t be defined by what happened to them during the war. They were individuals and much more than ‘the seven dwarfs of Auschwitz’.  

As the narrative progresses, we reach the part where the train arrived in Auschwitz and are told how the Ovitz family were ‘saved’ because of Dr Mengele’s fascination with physical deformity and desire to conduct experiments on those not seen as belonging to the ‘master race’. He had particular interest in identical twins, people with different coloured eyes and little people – the Ovitz family providing a unique case study - here were 9 siblings and their families (one had escaped round up and was executed once captured), a number of whom who all suffered with the same condition. Dr Mengele arranged for them to be moved into special living quarters, where they were then exposed to horrific human experimentation.

Armand Leroi, Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology at Imperial College, is interviewed for the programme and describes how Mengele was of the generation of scientists who were influenced by comparative biology. Yet Leroi concludes that nothing valuable could be learnt from the experiments Mengele carried out, saying how they were:

“Bizarre, irrelevant, appalling experiments…. it’s a sort of moral vacuum in which scientists had opportunity to do whatever they wanted, no matter what the cost or the consequences. It’s a rite over life and death…”

The experiments the Ovitz’s were inflicted with are beyond comprehension – it was invasive, rigorous and relentless and only liberation brought it to an end. The Ovitz’s all survived the war and lived to grand old ages, having emigrated to Israel in May 1949 and within months, were back on the stage performing as the Lilliput Troupe – an ending at the beginning of the programme you may not have anticipated.

I thought the programme was really well put together, a great balance of archive footage and interviews and poignant remarks by all (then again, how could they not be when talking about the Holocaust). The programme was very much a personal voyage of discovery for Davies and one which focused on the experiences of this one particular family; but what an amazing story, told by amazing people.

As Davies draws the programme to a close he concludes:

“we look at pictures and we read stories and accounts of things… somehow you feel remote from it. It’s when you go to the places that you really start too… and realise, hang on a minute these aren’t tales, this is something that happened and this is where is happened…”

He carried out his investigation and offered a candid and honest description of his experiences.

Perla Ovitz
http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-December-2007

I read somewhere after watching the programme that Perla had a condition that had to be met if
she were to give consent for the interview in 1999. She would not allow the interview to take place within her house where people would be distracted by the interior modifications. It was important for her, that her experiences were what came across and that her words were what are remembered. A wise and insightful lady - for her closing lines are ones I will not forget in a hurry. Firstly she explained how she didn’t feel able to hate Dr Mengele, because if it had not been for his experiments and his fascination with the family, they would unlikely have survived - 'I was saved by the grace of the devil" she said in an interview with Koren and Negev (1).

But then she goes on to say:

‘I put on make-up because I don’t want people to pity me… as the saying goes ’the lips smile, but the heart weeps’…

Pity was not a feeling I felt when I watched this programme and heard her recall her memories – I was purely struck by the unfathomable strength this family displayed throughout their wartime experience and its aftermath.  

(1)    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/23/the-dwarves-of-auschwitz