Last Saturday at Auschwitz

We all know about the horror of cruelty and death at Auschwitz. There is nothing new I can add that you have not heard before.

Today, the site is green and serene. Strangely, it is not horrible to look at. We saw it on a grey day. But our mood was sombre, for you can’t go there without focusing very acutely on what it represents.

I was especially hit by the fact that so many people could have been so cruel for so long. The one million plus deaths were not the act of one mad dictator. It was not a small group of fanatics. The Nazi SS who managed the camp numbered more than 8000 operatives.

The killings lasted day after day for two years. And it was not just the SS that was involved. It included the engineering companies like the one that manufactured the ovens and confirmed that those ovens could burn some 3500 corpses a day. It was the other companies that supplied gas – refined especially for the purpose. It included the doctors who carried out shocking experiments on young girls. And there were hundreds of other organisations involved to keep the dreadful place going.

The size of the camp site is something no film had ever conveyed to me – 191 hectares (Melbourne Zoo is about 20 hectares and Werribee Zoo about120).
At many points, the double lines of wicked electric fence stretch as far as the eye can see.

It was a major life experience to be there. It will remain vivid. I am sure of that.

More than anything else, this horrible death camp stands today as a reminder for us all to be wary of Nazi-type regimes wherever they may arise.