ARBEIT MACH FREI (Work brings freedom)

These infamous words chilled me to the bone when I saw them for the first time. Rendered in an arch of iron, they span the main gate at Auschwitz, the gate through which prisoners passed daily on their way to labour.

As tourists, we were marching freely through them. I was confounded by the immensity of this concentration camp. Here more than 1.5 million Jews, Poles, Gypsies, gay men and women, handicapped persons, political prisoners and children were murdered.

I was a teenager when I first heard the words “concentration camp”. My friend Wayne and I were attending a dance rehearsal at the studio of renowned Trinidadian dancer Beryl McBernie.

She had invited us inside – two curious high school boys – to see her perform. She had herself just returned from Germany after visiting the small but equally horrific “Death Camp” at Dachau.

Crematorium at Auschwitz

Street scene in Auschwitz

Finding no words to explain or describe mass murder and suffering, Miss McBernie suddenly took to the floor and began an impromptu dance. I shuddered at her danse macabre.

Fifteen years later I visited Dachau as a young priest. Twenty years after that I visited Auschwitz. That dance of death and suffering again filled my imagination.

Unlike Miss McBernie, I am trying to find words. That hot summer day seemed so still – a slight flutter of leaves, the deafening silence of goofy-looking tourists in shorts with digital cameras, these awakened in me a primordial dance of death.

Instead, I stumbled, tiptoeing quietly along the cobbled streets of Auschwitz trying to figure out if there is any redemption. I once heard the tale of the silent Jesus standing in the midst of his abusive enemies and for a moment felt so sickened I couldn’t bear to follow our guide’s tour of this enormous death chamber.

The buildings we saw have been converted into museums depicting the horror for us to witness. Even the stark and meticulously cleaned buildings cannot hide the horror of the Nazi crimes. The first gas chamber, we were told, could process 340 corpses daily. The incredible organisation and efficiency shocked me.

From one horror to the next: we were given a graphic description of the prisoners’ arrival, the “fortunate” ones who survived sealed goods wagons where no food was provided, were crowded like cattle together for seven or 10 days.

We were showed the areas where they were told to undress and herded into the underground chambers of the crematorium. After 15 minutes those who were sent to the crematorium died and their gold teeth fillings were removed, rings, ear-rings and hair as well! Those who were sent to work, starved and died of numerous diseases.

In the midst of this dance of horror, one elderly tourist fainted and a local Polish ambulance rushed to her assistance! Incredible care for one person in our times! One million plus persons were not so fortunate!

One particular building seemed to cry out for redemption in all this ugliness and pain! In starvation cell #18 in the basement of Block 11, we were shown where St Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan friar died. He volunteered for death in order to save another prisoner’s life.

This one person, I would really like to say, answered a prayer of redemption. I wish I could say my agonising over this tour saved me. Agonising does not save anyone. On my part this was all selfishness.

The horror camp is just too gigantic. It is too difficult to measure. I am hoping to live “Never Again” but holocausts have happened again in our times.

This huge monument, not only to poor Jews of Europe and thousands of innocent people, teaches us a great lesson in history. Such suffering is stifling, frightening and does not save anyone but belittles all the good so many have tried to exercise in their lives.

At the end of this 10-hour trip, I was able to return to a comfortable hotel room. Life continues, and so does courage. It is courage that saves the day. The Polish people were brave enough to create this museum in 1947 in memory of the suffering.

It takes courage to live freely in the darkest hours of the world’s tragedies and holocausts be they Jewish, Amerindian, African, Asian or European.

In my opinion, Jesus showed courage by standing innocently before his accusers, he who is master of the universe. It takes courage to survive, to forgive, and to love. It takes courage to dance to the rhythm of peace. And yet without forgiveness, love and peace, we cannot forge ahead.

Like dance steps, these intermingle and swirl into a divine dance of love, perichoresis, the perichoresis, which flows from the Trinity.

Trinidadian priest Ron Yee-Mon, is Spiritual Director at the Lumen Christi Retreat Center, Schriever, Louisiana.