March 2020 – Akshaya Hemadri

The Jews, marked down with a yellow star, deprived of their livelihood, brought away like mere cattle and disposed off like vermin. All of that because one man was intolerant and nearly an entire country was gullible enough to be swayed down by him.

Lest you forget-

6 million Jews and a million other minorities (Gypsies, the intellectually disabled, dissidents and homosexuals) were imprisoned first, tortured and then killed because Hitler couldn’t tolerate them. How nearly a whole country followed in his footsteps to massacre an entire race just remains appalling to this day. The thought that someone is lesser than you, the thought that someone needs to be denied the rights to live is horrendous enough, but to carry it out into actions is just beyond words.

Auschwitz Camp.

The Nazis ran many concentration camps, of them, Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp and extermination camp. It was also deemed the most inhumane one. It was in fact three camps in one: a prison camp, an extermination camp, and a slave – labor camp. It also had a railway station attached to it that could help transport Jews from all over Europe. A well-planned torture house.

The prisoners were transported in questionable conditions to the concentration camps where they were separated into separate groups of men, women and children and asked to do away their possessions. The prisoners were then registered with a prisoner number. This number later served as their identity. At many concentration camps these numbers were stitched onto their dress but at Auschwitz it was tattooed on their arm (even a two year old child wasn’t exempt from this). About 95% of the children brought down to the camps were killed, save for all the twins who were then used for their medical research. The more we read into it, the more ghastly it gets. This camp was a place made to strip the people of any remaining dignity they kept close. Their heads shaved and forced to publicly shower before receiving their set of inmate clothes. When they got to their dignity, they did what they could, they slave labored them with paltry amount of food. Overworked, at near starvation conditions, living around the smell of rotting carcasses, anyone could fall ill. If the soldiers found them too weak to continue, they were sent to the gas chambers, where at the pretext of getting a disinfectant shower, they were gassed with poisonous gasses. Confused, tortured and tired, they passed away fighting for fresh air. They bodies were then separated from each other in the gas chambers and burnt in the burning pits. Two out of three European Jew were killed by the end of Second World War.

As a 12 year old with the Diary of Anne Frank, all I could think was how one human could hurt another one like that. Maybe the naïve me didn’t understand it then but I do know that we humans are capable of complete desolation while still holding onto the need for love, affection and appreciation. I believe that we are all jelly on the inside. We are what we give and I hope that you care to give enough.

-Akshaya Hemadri