Auschwitz Jewish Center

American Service Academies Program

The former death camp of Belzec, in Eastern Poland. What you see pictured is pretty much the extent of the "camp." I say camp with quotations because this was one of the camps Nazis used for simply extermination. This was no Auschwitz where at least people had a small chance of survival through working. To me, this camp represents the concept of a genocide.

                                                                                                                                        Midshipman 1/C Keith Hollis

Each year the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, along with USNA Class of 1964, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, and the Auschwitz Jewish Center of Poland, sponsors a team of four midshipmen on a three week trip including stops in Washington D.C., New York, and Poland. They join cadets from the other service academies in an intense and unforgettable study of the Holocaust, and its impact on the Jewish citizens of Poland. The trip includes a trip to the Auschwitz site, talks by survivors, and discussion of the moral lessons these events have for today's military leaders.

From the Auschwitz Jewish Center:

"The American Service Academies Program is a three-week educational initiative created by the Auschwitz Jewish Center (AJC) for a select group of cadets and midshipmen from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the Honors Program at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Focusing on the Holocaust and related contemporary moral and ethical dilemmas, this in situ program provides an authentic learning experience for future military officers that extends beyond what they are taught in their Academy classrooms. The poignancy of the setting not only educates them about the past, but also stimulates dialogue about its relationship to the present and the future. It is within this framework that the Academy students can understand what can happen in the absence of open and democratic governing institutions – when evil is given free reign, when fear overpowers ethics, and when democratic ideals are not defended. The program includes visits to and workshops at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and two weeks of travel in Poland. While in Poland, the group works to gain a better understanding of pre-war Jewish life and its subsequent devastation through studying with historians and dignitaries, visiting sites of Jewish history, and meeting with survivors and a Righteous Gentile.

At the close of the program, the students in the cohort are required to hand in a five to eight page reflection on their experience and the issues it raised for them. The following are excerpts from these papers."
 

Keith Hollis

Class of 2010

Before my journey on the 2009 American Service Academies Program, I had conjured in my thoughts what my experience would be like, what I would learn, and what I would walk away with to tell my friends and family about. In retrospect, it seems obscurely foolish to think about these unlearned ideas, but at the time I was almost positive I knew what experience I would have. I had these ideas as I filled out my application to the program and the months leading up to the program. However, after my time in Washington D.C., New York City, and Poland, those conceptions were all but extinguished…
When we looked at Jewish history and heritage in New York, I was rather indifferent at first and used the time to gather information. But as I began to see important parts of the religion, I began to think back to what I saw at the museum in Washington D.C. For example, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a survivor guided us through the exhibitions and made note of the importance of the Torah. From the pictures and exhibitions in D.C., I specifically remembered Torahs being thrown around, burned, and degraded. The only connection I could make to this was seeing something of utmost importance to me destroyed before my eyes. This provided only a small clip of what it must have felt like to be Jewish in an era of Anti-Semitism, but I still knew that it was impossible to really feel those emotions. I felt that I just needed to get to Poland, see Auschwitz myself, and bring things full circle so that I could finally put a period on my feelings towards the Holocaust…

Seeing the barracks, the tracks, and the dilapidated chimneystacks of Birkenau meant something to me, but I could never imagine what happened there, and I did not want to try to because of the injustice it would probably provide to those that experienced the camp. What was palpable to me, however, was the site where people were left before they were ushered into the gas chambers. Anna, our guide, told us the Nazis would convince them they were going to take a shower, and this provided me with one of the most jumbled thoughts of the trip. My immediate impression was one of happiness for the victims. I was almost relieved to hear her say this, and it provided me, even 65 years after it was said, with a sense of comfort. When we then saw the imploded chamber and the site of the ashes, my inability to comprehend the situation increased. I couldn’t imagine each of the people, I couldn’t imagine their final thoughts, I couldn’t imagine those SS guards that ushered them into the chambers thoughts, I couldn’t imagine a mother’s thoughts as her child screamed as they were separated, and I couldn’t imagine or feel anything. It was as if a cog was thrown into the inner workings of my mind. I am not sure if this is a natural event, but I am convinced that the mind cannot and was not made to comprehend such things. This is when I recognized that there was no discovering an answer for me. This experience was a sentence with no period, it was just not possible to classify the event and move on. I could not apply what I have learned my whole life, “that God has a plan for everyone,” to this event. God could not have planned this for anyone, and in my mind it was decided by a human who was to live or die, not God. This is the concept that kept giving me rounded pieces to my puzzle, and I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to piece them together.
 
With an overall feeling of helplessness and numbness as I left Birkenau, I thought back to the exhibit “From Memory to Action” at the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. Going through each evolution of this program, I always had thoughts such as “well if I was there I would have...” and completed the sentence with some form of action that helped the innocent. However, history is history, and those thoughts are mere dreams that mean nothing to those who died in the Holocaust. More appropriately, those thoughts make me hypocritical, as today genocides are occurring in the world and at the present, I am completing that ambitious statement with “done nothing.” Sixty-five years down the road, when my grandchildren ask me about a genocide they learned about in their history books and ask me what I did to help stop it, it would pain me to have to reply “nothing.” I feel that by becoming active in helping those being persecuted may be one of the best and only ways to fill the voids placed within me by my knowledge and experience of the Holocaust. For with this empiricism, I feel a new sense of accountability for actions, or more befitting, inactions, that I may or may not take. After all, by doing nothing, I am merely a bystander.

This is the actual memorial part of Belzec.  Looking at the memorial you could see symbolic scratch marks in the rock that reached about 8 foot high.  Once down the stairs, if you turned right it would lead you to the entrance.  This is the part of Belzec known as der Schluss, which is German for "the tube."  This is where prisoners were marched to their death.
                                                                                                                                                 Midshipman 1/C Keith Hollis

Roarke Baldwin

Class of 2010

When I first walked into Auschwitz I was struck by the beauty of the area. There was a cool breeze that gently pushed through the long grass surrounding the complex. A few fluffy clouds dotted the otherwise pristine blue sky. The sun felt comforting on my skin and the air was filled with the calls of songbirds. At one point, I sat down on the grass at the base of a weeping willow and thought for a minute that I was home. But my mind kept grasping at the thoughts floating around in my head and I could not quite comprehend why I was so confused…

I guess deep down I must have assumed that Auschwitz was in some alien place. There had to be some reason why this place was the location of the greatest mass murder in history. Something so terrible could never happen at my home. Yet, after traveling thousands of miles to get there, I could have been exactly where I started. That weeping willow and those birds could have been in my back yard. That night I realized that my understanding was not, and could not, be linked to the land. The events that happened there were the result of human hands. And as soon as I grasped that concept, I realized the true danger of this mindset because it allowed me to deny the events of genocide by creating a dichotomy of separation.

The following day our group traveled to Birkenau. If anything, I was even more confused as we wandered around the grounds of this massive killing center. In Auschwitz there were buildings dedicated to the physical evidence of the atrocities. The same intensity was drowned out by the scale of Birkenau. And the wooded areas on the outskirts of the camp provided an almost scenic backdrop that belied the horrors that occurred here all those years ago. But Birkenau meant so much more to me because it was there that I found something I could relate to.

In the “shower room,” I was looking at the pictures that lined the walls. Typically, the displays with photographs have so many pictures the individuality and humanity of the victims is masked by the overwhelming scale. But this one was different. Rather than one picture of hundreds of different people, this display had several pictures of a very few people. And one of those pictures showed a little boy just wearing his diaper clutching a dog. And the thing that struck me about that picture was the fact that my family has a picture exactly like that of me clutching our family dog. Granted there were some small differences between the picture of the little boy and the picture of me, but my first thought when I saw that photograph was that the boy in the picture could easily have been me.

 
Since I came back from Poland, I have often wondered how I would describe the horrors of the Holocaust to my family and friends. Telling the history of an entire people is too overwhelming. Figures and facts are informative, but lack a personal basis that is crucial to developing a connection with the victims. I personally struggled to discover this connection to the history of the Holocaust. I was enraged when I saw an entire room filled with human hair at Auschwitz. I felt a terrible sense of loss when I saw a child’s shoe amongst the vast waves of personal belongings. But I felt like something was missing. I did not feel the same sense of loss that I did when my grandfather passed away. Until I saw that photograph of the little boy.

I do not have a perfect formula for everyone to develop the same sort of connection that I did. But I do know that seeing that photograph in Birkenau changed my life and I will always be able to view the Holocaust from the context of a personal tragedy. This understanding has also allowed me to focus on the education of others and provides me a perfect platform to launch further studies. Because without this personal connection I think I might have always been able to deny the possibility that something this terrible could happen to me and it could happen in my home. Now when people ask me about the trip I can say, “Look at this picture. It could have been me.” I think that is the most potent connection I could ever make with history. And I am anxious to share that lesson.
 

This picture is of Auschwitz I, the original camp that eventually expanded into Auschwitz II-Birkenau. It all started at these barracks. The experience was eerie because the camp has the aesthetics of a college campus, and the day we visited was one of the more beautiful summer days. The barracks seen housed prisoners, which included Jews, POWs, and political opponents.
                                                                                                                                                 Midshipman 1/C Keith Hollis

Russell Adam Dallas

 
Class of 2010

I initially approached the American Service Academies Program as an academic endeavor, a chance to learn about a subject in which I was interested. But in the end, it became a self examination. I ended up learning just as much about myself and the way I think and perceive things as I did about the Holocaust and Jewish history and heritage. There were so many tough questions asked, questions that do not even have answers, they just sit there under your skin, always at the back of your mind. How many hours did we sit around and discuss the culpability of the collaborators, or the blame that should be placed on those who did nothing to stop the atrocities they witnessed? How long did we debate how we should feel about those who lost the will to live? And how hard did we try to find an answer to what our responsibilities are, both as military officers and as human beings, when we are faced with another instance of genocide or mass murder? In the end, all we could do was conclude that the outside factors would play an incalculable role in every decision we would be asked to make, rendering our enterprises to anticipate the situation and define the correct response irrelevant.

Perception dictates everything. During this trip, every perception I had about human beings was challenged. I choose to believe that all humans are good by nature; that they are not born with hate in their hearts. And then I was forced to admit that normal Europeans murdered upwards of six million Jews in a matter of years. These people came from cities, towns, and villages that were the norm for that time. They lived with Jews in varying degrees of integration, and many of them interacted with Jews in matters of business on an almost daily basis. Sure anti-Semitism existed but it wasn’t like it is today in the Middle East, where many Arabs grow up hating Jews almost from birth. But somewhere along the way, something changed. The combination of circumstances, including the virulent propaganda they were subjected to, conspired to bring their deep-rooted underlying anti-Semitism to the surface and allowed them to channel it into acts of mass murder. This is my attempt at a rational explanation, to sooth my own obsessive need for answers. But I sincerely believe the real answer is that there is no way to rationally explain how the Holocaust was allowed to happen. The Nazis attempted to justify their actions, claiming that the Jews were culture destroyers, intent on world domination. They pointed to the Jews’ adoption of capitalism as a means to inspire the communist revolutions, which would enable them to seize control of and dominate the world. They pointed out that National Socialist Germans only wanted to protect their homeland from any threat, and that at this point the threat happened to be the Jews. Thus, they reasoned, Jews and Germans fundamentally could not coexist. By their logic, it was kill or be killed, and they chose to kill. When we visited the site of the World Trade Center and the memorials there, I took several pictures. One of them was a reflection, left by another visitor. The words will forever be ingrained in my mind: “No man’s ideology is worth another man’s life.” That simple sentence is the only rebuttal necessary to the Nazi’s attempts to justify their actions. Human life is worth far more than loyalty to any ideology.

I believe that the fifteen of us who undertook this journey have learned the lessons, have been deeply and personally moved by the lessons, and will forever remember and apply those lessons in our lives. More than ever before, I understand that people are different. That my perception and understanding of an issue is just that, mine. Nothing about me distinguishes my beliefs and perceptions from my neighbors. As an extension of that, I now sincerely believe that the world is big enough to accommodate countless ideas and beliefs, and that it is possible, with a little patience and effort, to live in peace with neighbors who believe differently than you do. True communities then are not a function of the similarities of their members; rather they are a function of the love and acceptance practiced by their members on a daily basis. This is the most important lesson of the Holocaust: no difference is ever irreconcilable.

This picture was taken at Auschwitz II-Birkenau which is about 3 miles down the road from Auschwitz I. The barracks seen are the children's barracks, where often 9 kids would be confined to a small wooden shelf to sleep. The children's part of this camp was maintained mostly for experiments Dr. Josef Mengele did on twins.
                                                                                                                                                 Midshipman 1/C Keith Hollis

Claire Miller

 
Class of 2011

Before we traveled overseas, Mr. Tom Brokaw addressed our group about his past experience at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. I remember many things he said that night, but one portion of the speech stood out and stuck with me for the duration of the trip. He said that our hearts will grow in many different ways but the importance of this journey is that that growth will exist no matter what. This was very poignant to me, because up until this point of the program I had felt a bit lost in the academia side of the experience. I was unable to realize a personal connection with the exhibits we had seen and the raw, emotional testimonies we experienced. This sentiment from Mr. Brokaw signified to me that everyone could bear witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust, regardless of a lack of a direct association with the events. I recognized that all I and anyone else needed was a heart and feeling of compassion for humankind. This realization, along with many other gifts I received from the program, became my most valued.

 
The culmination of all the study and the discussion with my peers finally came to a head when we made our way through Auschwitz II- Birkenau. I found the point behind the trip delved much further than identifying errs in accountability and the Military ethic. This was heavily emphasized, of course, but the greater lesson lay in the humanity component that composed and enabled the Holocaust. Walking through the empty camp, the most striking memories that came to mind were of the survivors’ testimonies, the victims’ thousands upon thousands of confiscated belongings, and the expressions on the faces of the Nazi SS as seen through the lens of the Karl Hoecker Album.

It was then I realized the importance of recalling these memories in the place where they had their most authentic meaning. Here lay the most poignant fact of the Holocaust that I could not have completely grasped unless I had witnessed Auschwitz II first-hand: It was an operation completely carried out by human beings. I could not help holding this thought back as I saw the barracks, the barbed wire, the watchtowers, and the destroyed gas chambers that were all so carefully constructed throughout the camp. Not only did the Nazis create these hellish places, but a large component of Hitler’s agenda was to keep them hidden from the outside world. Even today, his propaganda scheme succeeds as many continue to deny the Holocaust ever occurred in the face of astounding evidence and thousands of personal accounts.

After hearing Mrs. Helen Goldkind’s survivor testimony, the group had the opportunity to discuss and reflect on what we had heard that evening. For many of us, it was our first testimony, and we were uncertain of how to respond. One even said, “Whoa, I will never complain again.” To this, Shiri responded, “No, this is the freedom that she would want you to enjoy, the freedom she lives to see you enjoy.” At the time, I was in doubt as to why many of the survivors often just live for their grandchildren, for the next generation. They love young people, especially interested young people so much because we are the ones who carry her story along, who do not allow it to be forgotten or to become a footnote in a history book.

 
Upon returning to the States, my friends and family were very curious of my experiences during the trip. At first I found it very difficult to convey what I had seen and couldn’t relive the emotion poured out by every member of the group during our visit to Auschwitz II. I felt that I couldn’t honor the places I had seen in the way that I had witnessed them. But I then realized that I carry the same responsibility that scholars spoke of to us. Although I will never be able to take my friends and family on the same journey, I am responsible to Mrs. Goldkind, to every survivor, every countless victim and their families to tell their story as I saw it during those three weeks. Through all of the lectures, testimony, and tours, Mr. Brokaw was indeed correct. Upon entering Auschwitz, there is a definite uncertainty of one’s individual reaction, but I know that I and everyone participating in this program walked away with a bigger heart for humanity.

This is a former gas chamber and crematorium system that the Nazis had destroyed with their defeat imminent. This was located in the far back corner of the camp, and often Jews were forced to wait hours and days to be put through the chamber. The mangled steel structure is the device used for the crematorium. The fact that the Nazis destroyed this on their way out reveals a lot to me about their mentality. They knew what they were doing, and yet they destroyed evidence of it. To me, this tells me they knew the moral implications of their actions, but no one was willing to come forward to take a stand against it.
                                                                                                                                                 Midshipman 1/C Keith Hollis

Angela Roush

Class of 2010

I observed the Holocaust through the eyes of others. Survivors’ testimonies are windows into the weight of the Holocaust. They are a way in which I can make the leap from knowing the statistics to understanding that the numbers are much more horrific than they innocently seem on the pages of a book. While a survivor is telling his or her story, their legacy and that of their father, mother, siblings, relatives, children, and loved ones that died in the past are alive again, if only in memory.

 
Helen Goldkind, a survivor of Auschwitz, is an amazing woman, and I am fortunate to have had the chance to meet with her. Her character is so strong that I almost did not notice her petite and frail frame. She told her life experience and the legacy of her family in such a way that after her introduction I nearly felt as if I had known her and her relatives all my life. They were no longer a part of a book’s statistic, but rather, they were living, breathing, human beings with likes, dislikes, and ambitions. I had, in effect, associated myself with her life. I found myself caring deeply for not only Helen, but also those for whom she had loved… In the end, I had but one emotion left: sorrow. I felt sorrow for Helen’s beautiful family that had committed no crime. Their deaths were without reason, logic, or anything else that could possibly provide justification and therefore comfort. And this was only one of a hundred thousand families.

For the too few minutes we had with Helen, I understood what the Holocaust meant, although such understanding is not something that can be boxed up, tucked away, and recalled on demand. Such understanding only existed within me when I had completely associated myself with Helen’s life, something I cannot fully do now as I type this essay, no matter how hard I try. Thus, it was through Helen’s testimony, and the other incredible testimonies we had the opportunity to hear first-hand, that I was able to understand what the Holocaust had cost humanity.

 
Association is powerful. The tears of a friend weigh a thousand times heavier than the tears of a stranger. Had I not known Helen, then the pain in her eyes over the loss of a loved one would have meant very little to me, but because I knew her, her story, and her relatives, her pain and sorrow became mine as well, and I am very grateful to have shared its weight.

I would like to point out that sometimes I believe survivors fear the power of association when they tell their testimonies. They fear that by doing so, they will pass on their burden, a burden that is too painful to bear. What they do not know is that this is impossible. By sharing their testimonies, survivors allow my generation to understand to the best of our ability what the Holocaust had meant, but that does not mean we have understood fully without walking in the shoes of the survivor herself. Even those who attempt to recreate the experience of being in Auschwitz Birkenau by visiting in the dead of winter, taking off their shoes, and walking around for a brief period of time in the cold cannot possibly understand, because that type of an experience is superficial.

 
I believe that in my own life a common form of disassociation is the use of discriminatory words to invoke laughter in some people and feelings of alienation or persecution in others, present or not. The term ‘gypped’ or the adjective ‘gay’ are but a few examples. I have even overheard on the very rare but disturbing instances in which the term ‘Jew’ was used in a derogatory sense… Somehow, this feeling of disassociation must have allowed for people’s thoughts to change toward a specific group of people, defined by religion, ethnic background, or skin tone. It allowed the men and women who were ordered to send Jews to the gas chambers to do it without the feeling of remorse that we today cannot think about the Holocaust without. The end result was an intimidation of the victims and a reinforcement of the victimizers’ belief in the legitimacy of what they were doing, and the whole while I can only imagine that one person’s disassociation from the Jewish community would feed on another’s feelings of disassociation, thus allowing it to grow.

The feeling of disassociation, it seems, was engrained into every aspect of killing, both inside and outside the camps. When someone is stripped of their clothes and identity, deprived of privacy, and beaten and humiliated, then the rest of society is conditioned to view this person as something less than human.




 

For more information, and for application materials please visit the AJCF website HERE and HERE