My Visit To Auschwitz-Birkenau and How It Strengthened My Journey Towards Voluntaryism

Between 1939 and 1944, approximately 1.3 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, and the larger camp, Birkenau which was built after Auschwitz (source: Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwit-Birkenau 2016, "Auschwitz-Birkenau: Past and Present")

It was a nice day that day, I remember the sun shining and we had just been traveling the whole day from Warsaw so we got off and stretched our legs. Our local guide was an older woman who spoke the language, but whose family had been not only victims of Nazi aggression but Soviet communism as well. There is a short walk and then some security checkpoints where we are searched before entering the camp, which has now been preserved diligently by the Polish people as a museum and memorial to the horrible atrocities that took place.

As we are walking closer I'm thinking about all of this, how could something so horrible happen? How did it get to the point where people just claimed to be "following orders" to justify the gassing of millions of innocent people? Could this happen again? I remember watching some of the Nurenburg Trials on my own, I don't think it was ever shown in school that I remember:

"It is tragic to have to realize that the best I had to give as a soldier, obedience and loyalty, was exploited for purposes which could not be recognized at the time, and that I did not see that there is a limit set for a soldier's performance of his duty. That is my fate." -Wilhelm Keitel 1946

We follow our guide underneath the gate with the words ARBEIT MACHT FREI, Work Will Set You Free and there's already an eerie feeling beginning to set in, a haunting feeling. I imagine that i'm one of the prisoners, which I probably would have been since my family is from Poland. I'm lining up against the front gate, I can imagine the guards barking orders, I can look down and see that i'm dehumanized because I'm not the "Master Race" as it's described by the majority of National Socialist intellectuals that polluted the minds of the populous with this ideology, and then the election of their great man, Adolf Hitler, who wanted to (among other things) save them and take back Germany from what they believed was an unfair negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/greatwar/g5/cs2/background.htm) at the end of WW1. Either way, Hitler was elected by a majority vote.

We go further into the camp, it's smaller than I would have imagined, but then I learn that Auschwitz was only the beginning. The Nazi's only began with this camp which was repurposed from housing political prisoners, Soviets, and other war prisoners. It was only a few years after, around 1942 when the first operations of mass murder were carried out in morgue one of Crematorium I, which was then retrofitted as a gas chamber.

The guide showed us that just over the ridge line, Germans stayed in nice houses and ate wholesome dinners and spent time with family, while just a few yards away Jews were being gassed. They would coax people into removing all their clothes and valuables into sorted piles and then they would load up hundreds into the shower rooms. The soldiers that were "just following orders" would drop canisters of Zyklon B down the chimneys. When I stood in the chamber, I could imagine this as it happened, and I couldn't help but break down and cry.

Although the Nazi's forced the workers in the camps to destroy and bury most of the evidence before the Red Army liberation on January 27, 1945 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27/what-a-soviet-soldier-saw-when-his-unit-liberated-auschwitz-70-years-ago/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5f8f34a624aa) there was still much evidence that remained left by those that were murdered. We walk into a giant room, almost as big as a warehouse, and there are nothing but thousands of shoes.

In August 1941 Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler visited Auschwitz and as part The Final Solution to the Jewish Question, Himmler commanded the enlargement of the camp into the neighboring Berkenau (https://www.jewishgen.org/forgottencamps/Camps/AuschwitzEng.html).

As we stand in the middle of the railroad tracks, I notice that the tracks lead right up to the camp. The guide tells us that women and children were dropped off right at the doors of the gas chambers since most were "unfit for work" in Hitler's centrally planned economy. If you were marked "fit for work" you were taken to barracks and stacked up like trash where diseases infected the residents and you were ordered to work until you died or were "unfit."

Imagine being a kid and still having innocence, learning first hand that this type of aggression and coercion exists. Imagine being a prisoner and told you are subhuman and unfit and then being systematically murdered with hundreds of others. These types of actions didn't just "happen" they were engrained on a society through indoctrination.

St. Maxamilion Kolbe

In order to discourage escapes, Auschwitz had a rule that if a man escaped, ten men would be killed in retaliation. In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's bunker escaped. The dreadful irony of the story is that the escaped prisoner was later found drowned in a camp latrine, so the terrible reprisals had been exercised without cause. But the remaining men of the bunker were led out.

'The fugitive has not been found!' the commandant Karl Fritsch screamed. 'You will all pay for this. Ten of you will be locked in the starvation bunker without food or water until they die.' The prisoners trembled in terror. A few days in this bunker without food and water, and a man's intestines dried up and his brain turned to fire.

The ten were selected, including Franciszek Gajowniczek, imprisoned for helping the Polish Resistance. He couldn't help a cry of anguish. 'My poor wife!' he sobbed. 'My poor children! What will they do?' When he uttered this cry of dismay, Maximilian stepped silently forward, took off his cap, and stood before the commandant and said, 'I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.'

Astounded, the icy-faced Nazi commandant asked, 'What does this Polish pig want?'

Father kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned Franciszek Gajowniczek and repeated 'I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children.'
(http://auschwitz.dk/kolbe.htm)

As we continue on in the tour and visited the cell where this man sacrificed his life for someone else's, I think how many would lay down their life for a friend? When I witness something wrong going on, would I step in and try to stop it? I don't know if I would have, but this man has given me inspiration. How many of us just walk by and ignore the homeless or think that the government will take care of their problems?

Many of the barracks have been destroyed, but a few have been reconstructed using original wreckage recovered from the rubble (such as the wood). I look out into what looks like a giant field where there millions of people were murdered. How can one not stop and think that all governments are capable of this and have done this and far worse, even in present day. Modern wars are escalated by governments for mass murder, conflicts are escalated and how can you not help but see that for what it really is?

Our tour guide bids us fairwell. She says cherish your freedom. Cherish your liberty. I probably took her by surprise, but I gave her a hug and said I can't thank you enough.

Now, honestly thousands of people visit this camp every year and there can be so many take aways from it. But for me being a libertarian, this not only strengthened my current principles, but the first hand account of these government atrocities helped me on my path to voluntaryism. What does that mean for me? It means adhering to the principal of non-aggression, don't aggress on others unless in self defense. This would include using the coercive and violent power of the government to force others to do things against their will. I know right now, for me, this seems like common sense, but just a year ago it didn't. I am grateful that I somehow was able to pick up and read the philosophies of Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. And, although my journey is not complete, I still have a lot to learn, visiting this horrible place certainly solidified by convictions towards living a principled voluntaryist life. I hope that for anyone reading, that it does the same for you.