Buchenwald.08-10-08

If you are expecting any “pretty sugar coated” pictures of Buchenwald go buy a coffee table book!!! You’ll get none from me!!! Even if my camera hadn’t died I vowed to myself I would not cheapen the horror by turning that place into a tourists’ playground. Also, if you think when I arrive home I will stand to be asked questions or have the patience to answer them in regards to that place- You are sadly mistaken. The only account I will ever give on Buchenwald is right here and no more. If you want your questions answered go see it for your self. That trip will silence your curiosity faster than it did mine. This is a highly private, personal, spiritual journey I undertook to honor the dead. If you don’t approve of the way this memory wrote it’s self then don’t read it.

As we were herded on to the bus, our German tour guides did a head count: eins, zwei, drei, veir… They meant nothing by it other than to make sure we were accounted for, but to me and the knowledge that if I had lived in that time I would have been herded onto a transport and given a number and shipped up to Buchenwald not as a student but an inmate weighed/weighs very heavily on me. The closer we got to Buchenwald the silence grew heavier on the bus until only two Russian girls were left talking in the back and even they shut up as we passed the sign saying we were on the main road- “die Blut Strasse” the “blood road” to Buchenwald. The road was built by the blood, sweat, tears, and death of the prisoners of Buchenwald from 1938-1943. The number that died while building it is unknown to me, but it weighed as heavily on my back as though it were a 2 ton brick. Incidentally, the bricks used to pave the road were carried upon the backs of the inmates and they were not light weight bricks either. On this road we passed the tower of Buchenwald which is visible from the autobahn and the infamous railroad tracks. At this moment the ghosts of the people that were herded off the train and into a running of the gauntlet filtered through my brain. They were whipped and beaten not with remorse but with hoots and hollers by the SS.

As we pulled into the parking lot our German tour guides were shouting instructions back to us in German as to where we should go first and told us using military time when we should meet back up. Already my vow of silence had fallen over me even before I knew that’s what I had decided to do. We went to information and our German tour guides checked us in. Some of the students went into the gift shop to escape the congestion and began looking at the coffee table books with all of the pictures and facts. I didn’t buy a thing. I don’t need to know names. I don’t need to know faces, I don’t need to know biographies to know that too many had died there and proper respects need to be paid. At the information desk we were given audio guides. 2 people got a PDA. 1 person got an iPod. I took the iPod. The iPod is a very familiar and comforting thing to me and I was on a private journey of remembrance and reverence for the dead. As I received it I put it around my neck and felt its weight and I flipped it over to look on the back and saw that it had been given a number. I had been given a number.

As I began my walk I didn’t decide, not on a conscious level, but I knew that I would walk long and hard I would not linger on a spot too long nor would I sit down at any point. I would not touch the half liter of water in my right hand pocket nor would I touch the raisins on my left. If I got thirsty or hungry I would do without.

The very first stop for me and for everyone was a simple dirt road with foot prints still embedded on it and a plaque at its edge that states (in a short translation) “here is the road for the running of the gauntlet”. From there I scarcely even looked at another human being. I went straight to the gate with no real conviction of my own, but a conviction none the less. I passed through it with the audio guide in my ears telling me what it the gate was in a tone that rivals most instruments of propaganda. To me it was just a gate a little imposing, not so much intimidating, as a piece of the human made landscape. I passed through it as I would through any door in a strange, new, and fascinating place. As I looked beyond and towards the skyline to admire the rain I noticed that I could see the city of Weimar and I smiled as I thought I just came from there. Then I looked down. I looked down at the ground and heard the crunch of the rock and gravel filled yard as I took each step towards the destitution. On the right is the fence and the guard tower on the left is the fence and the guard tower. At my back is the gate that I had just come through. Ahead- I was about to find out.

I turned the audio guide to the proper chapter as I walked up to the first block to my right out lined in white brick. I don’t know why I did it, but I squatted down and put my hand to the ground. I toyed with the idea of picking up one of the rocks from the ground and taking it home with me to prove I had come, but none appealed to me just then. The audio guide told me that this beginning block was marked so that I would know where the prisoners lined up every morning and every night without fail in an attempt to de-humanize them. I walked away from the gate and the view of the city disappeared behind the tree line. How horrible must that have been to see your former home every morning and every night, but never able to return to it? I wonder if the Nazis planned that as an act of cruelty. I walked the yard without any real direction, other than gravity, other than down the hill, and I crunched and slipped on the wet rock.

After a while I came to the only remaining buildings in the yard. I went in both and they both horrified, and saddened me. The buildings had been turned into museums. Again I don’t need to know names. I don’t need to know faces, I don’t need to know biographies to know that too many had died there and proper respects need to be paid. I’ll give no details of the buildings.

From there I made my way over to three stones that had been laid to on the former spot of prisoner barracks, each having a candle set before it. I stopped at the first one. I couldn’t read it. It was in a Slavic script. I paid it proper respect and moved on to the 2^nd. It was a memorial to the Jehovah’s Witnesses that died there. Again I paid my proper respects. At the 3^rd with the purple triangle, I was pleased to see that a bouquet of yellow roses had been laid to the right of the candle. This one was in memory of the homosexual men that died there. Here I stopped, squatted down and offered up a few prayers. From there I walked to the next desolate block and found that wild flowers had been permitted to grow in that spot with bees buzzing about. I smiled to thank that even after all of this Mother Nature was trying to cleans and reclaim the woods for her own. I felt a strong urge to rip up the flowers and shoo away the bees and scream that the horror should never be cleansed or forgotten.

After this I looked up and saw one of the German tour guides. He’s about my age and good guy, with a good soul, a good head on his shoulders. He was smoking a cigarette and starring at the ground I supposed it was his way of showing his nerves. For this I would break my silence for this I wanted to know what it meant to him. I asked and he replied “It’s al lot to handle, but I grew up with movies and that sort of thing, and I don’t have any direct connection to it.” I told him for me it cuts very deep to know that if I had been around in that time I would have died there. I told him I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue. He said “continue”.

Again without direction or conviction I let gravity lead me to my horror and greatest sadness. The very first thing I came to was the post where the fence used to be. Just beyond that is what got to me. The poles sticking out of the ground! Hundreds of them all metal all about 5.5 feet! It was for the German prisoners of war that died there from 1945-1951 and the plaque stating that this burial ground had all of the graves being five to six men deep! God the Soviets were as heartless and cruel as the Nazis when it came to there prisoners. The soviets only wanted revenge as far as I am concerned.

I walked on and on and on until I reached a path way that, again, I went down without any real drive of my own. At the end of the path was a grove of crosses. Some Germans were already there and I allowed them their moment to honor the dead. I stopped in the middle of the path and squatted down. Again I offered up prayers to the left. I was horrified to notice that the whole grave yard had been fenced in by a black picket fence. How horrid! “Not only did they die with in a fence, but you must disgrace their deaths by keeping them buried within one’s confines!” Again I stood up and turned to the right here I knelt down on the wood that lined that path as though it were the wood of a Catholic Church pew and it was time for the prayers to be said but I also put my hands on the ground and combined it with a Japanese bow. I don’t know why I did this. It just felt right to do so. As a stood back up I brushed the pebbles from my hands and I knew I would take nothing back with me; other than the wounded bleeding memories I hold in my heart. I saw that the Germans were moving on from the crosses with flowers in their hands to place on one of the graves. They moved across the unholy but hollowed ground and actually over top of the graves. To me this seems an act of disrespect. I would not walk on top of your everyday bed. So, why would I walk on top of your eternal bed?

I made my way down to the crosses and saw all of the names written on them. There were more than I wanted to count. I saw a few of the names on them Ludwig, Kuhler, Grosste, etc. All having years of birth very near to each other and all having dates of estimated death on them. The audio guide informed me that the men buried in those graves were not identified and never will be. The families have never and will never receive a notice of death of their loved one. Once more I squatted down and paid my respects. I then began my long trek back to the top. I had seen enough of Buchenwald to be mindful. But as I came again to the middle of the path I felt a weight upon my back pushing me down and that’s when my knees gave out from underneath me of their own accord. It would seem I had more respects to pay more prayers to offer up. I didn’t linger for more than a moment. Before I knew it I was back into the main yard.

I was passing, one more time, the 3 memorial stones, and again I stopped just long enough to offer up one more prayer for the homosexual victims of Buchenwald. Again with the crunch of the wet rock under foot and a conviction to reach the gate that wasn’t mine I was there and crossing the threshold. But this time the conviction was mine to go into the prisoners’ torture/holding cells to the left of the gate. I walked all of the way down the cell block I had intended to stop at #7 and say another prayer only to find that I had passed it by along time before. The block ended with number 13 here I did stop and again squatted down to say a prayer. Before I had realized it I was walking to the end of the block with the thoughts of “so, this is it. So this is my last day.” The straightness of my back and the strength of my legs came from somewhere other than me. I did not stop until I had reached the information desk and turned in the audio guide breaking my silence just long enough to be polite and say “Danke Schon” to the woman of the desk.

On my watch I saw that I had only used up half my time. I still had an hour and a half to go before my own liberation. I waited out that time with my own iPod in my ears and watching the bees and insect life going after the food of my group members. I had no interest in killing the bees; I felt that this ground had seen enough death. My group members did not share my conviction. Finally, as the time drew to a close my iPod found “the Moon Light Sonata” and “Sound of Silence” and Nick sat down next to me. I just let my self fall against him and gave him the other ear-bud so he could also listen. My own silence didn’t leave me until we were well with in the city limits of Weimar.