Wow Rowan.. this is so powerful In so many ways.. I’ve seen quite a few posts about this trip and yours is the first to actually stop me in my tracks. You capture the soul of humanity here in a heartbreaking but important way. Your words and pictures work together to make a huge impact in only a way you could do. Thanks for sharing this. ❤️
Thanks for this awesome feedback Justine. It was such a hard place to visit but so important to make that difficult journey. I feel like the poem and thoughts I express here are a truth that has been expressed before, about re-telling and never forgetting the lessons of this atrocity. But I was trying to tell it in my own way, speak my truth about how it made me feel but also the wider lesson of this history. This is all only my own opinion, but I see the same attitudes of 'turn the other cheek' still perpetuated all around the world, all be it in much less extreme circumstances.
Hopefully, it is just a case of another few hundred years of evolution of thought, of retelling these stories and histories until the human race changes fundamentally to stop visiting violence on ourselves and the planet on which we live.
Ha ha, maybe I'm just a massive hippie and I'm good with that... but the type of hippie to get up and do/say something where I see the opportunity to make a difference.
I couldn't take photos inside the Auschwitz Camp... Just too hard for me... I couldn't imagine (or rather I don't want to imagine) what happened back then... It totally hit me (hard) when I see the baby and toddler and kid clothes and shoes... How could they? HOW? And the hair... The long hair... Just a thumb left or right... That's it... Work or die... Even though @arcange did explain to me in the bus on our way back... But I still can't justify this... Even until now...
There is no justification Eliza. None at all. I guess arcange was maybe trying to explain the psychology behind how people can dehumanise others? But I'm just guessing.
I couldn't imagine (or rather I don't want to imagine) what happened back then... It totally hit me (hard)
I understand how you feel Eliza, I was silent, on my own most of the time as I couldn't cope with speaking to others. I felt sick to my stomach... this was because my brain is set up to be extremely visual so I was constantly seeing images behind my eyes of the various things described. The way I work through such hard things is to write about them. Poetry or fiction, usually decompresses these images that have built up in my mind during a difficult experience like that excursion to Auschwitz.
To be honest, I was not trying to explain anything other than my own condition after this visit.
I went back to the bus, shocked, muted ... wondering how such atrocities were possible, with an organization and an industrialization pushed to its paroxysm.
It took me halfway to be able to talk again. And it's thanks to the kindness and benevolence of @elizacheng that I was able to reconnect to the group step by step. Still today, I have a hard time rethinking this experience without feeling overwhelmed by emotions.
It sounds like you had very similar experience to me arcange. And I guess everyone had the same feeling of devastation to an extent. I was also pretty quiet and withdrawn on the bus home, but had a kind and friendly steemian in @jayna to chat things through with :-)
I didn't dare to think... Visualizing it would be worst than a nightmare... Writing it down in words or poetry may not be what I am good at... 😅 But talking to people makes me feel better. Or maybe just hugs is much greater.
Dude that poem... you take me down an emotional street and then.. the Twix. I'm not sure i remember a poem has made me just sit there and think in the way that just did. Eating a Twix at Aushwitz. As bizarre as that is, it's one of the most thought-provoking images that has entered my brain in recent times.
Thanks Mark. Yes, it is a bit of a literary device in the way it creates 'gut punch' impact but it is honestly also just the truth of the physical action I was taking while walking around Birkenau.
But, having said all that I was aware when I was writing the poem toward the end that it needed something to drive home the level of fundimental inhuman, alien atrocity that Aushwitz is, and the memory of my breakfast Twix came flooding back. The normalness of the Twix just helps to elivate the deeply tragic images in the previous lines. This poem is the first piece of writing in a long time that had me welling up while I was writing it and when reading it back again now. I may perform it at a poetry night here in Liverpool.
incredible post brother, the faces on the wall was what got me too. I can see why you are in a daze writing for 3 hours, I am guessing this took even longer, I know from editing my video I was lost in the emotions I was too numb to really feel while I was there...A lot of what I felt while sitting and going back through my photos and spending time thinking about trying to make some sort of order of my photos to the chaos that took place had a strong impact for me for sure. Its something we will never forget having visited this place and I am glad to have shared this with so many of my fellow steemians and now you. Great job!
Yeah, you're so right about the emotional impact and the picture hallway hits hard as it brings it home that these were, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers... and in fact they could/should be considered our family. This shit could happen again if we're not careful as a species and start to recognize when we are being manipulated by extremist ideology. It's an insanely complicated issue and I guess I'm simplifying things somewhat, but I strongly believe that this global culture of separation through national (tribal) identity is something we're long overdue evolving beyond. Ha ha, but enough of that political stuff.
I wrote 2 more verses to that poem (the first was written a few days ago) but the new verses just weren't good enough. The intensity had gone from the poem compared to the verse I wrote the other day and I was pretty numb after writing the opening part of this post.
Its something we will never forget having visited this place and I am glad to have shared this with so many of my fellow steemians and now you.
I shall go and check out your video Vlad. I agree that the sharing of these 'challenging' experiences is a key part of healing the collective unconscious from such extremes of inhuman humanity.
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.397 which ranks you at #2214 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 40 places in the last three days (old rank 2254).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 213 contributions, your post is ranked at #15.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Some people are already following you, keep going!
This post has been selected for curation by @sunravelme. It has been upvoted and will be featured in this week's Working Title post. It will also be considered for the official @minnowsupport curation post and if selected will be resteemed from the main account. Feel free to join us on Discord!
I recently visit Dachau, the camp on which the rest of them were modeled. The feeling of pain and suffering still lingers in the air. I can't imagine how anyone could go and not feel the atrocities.
One line in your poem struck me in particular:
I ate a Twix surreptitiously,
The adjective surreptitiously says so much here. I watched folks at Dachau smiling and taking selfies, posing for their social media accounts and felt that was incredibly disrespectful. This one line, and that word in particular, does a great job of summarizing the feeling of simply being alive and living in the midst of place where so many were not as fortunate.
I watched folks at Dachau smiling and taking selfies, posing for their social media accounts and felt that was incredibly disrespectful. This one line, and that word in particular, does a great job of summarizing the feeling of simply being alive and living in the midst of place where so many were not as fortunate.
Yeah, I've seen videos of that stuff as well and I am really proud to say, that out of large group from a conference of bloggers/vloggers, I saw no steeemians exhibiting that type of behavior. I'm really glad I didn't, because I would n'y have been able to stop myself pulling them up over it in quite a forthright way.
Thanks for the compliment on the poem, I felt like that line was the strongest part of the poem, and the thing that elevated it to be something a bit different.
This one line, and that word in particular, does a great job of summarizing the feeling of simply being alive and living in the midst of place where so many were not as fortunate.
As you express so well, I thought that the adjective 'surreptitiously' was completely apt. It's how I felt snacking while I was at Birkenau, kind of guilty, but I was super hungry as I'd missed breakfast lol.
Anyway, it was a powerful experience and in some ways not a negative one as I feel I learned a lot and it inspired some decent creative work which tells a story, an important story to keep telling.
Thanks for the support and meaningful feedback @mattifer
I've read about these groups of steemians in a few different blog posts. How did you connect with a whole group of steemians all going to the same place? I'm glad that our group was respectful of their surroundings. :-)
And I felt the same way at Dachau. It wasn't a negative experience. I came away slightly different than I arrived, and I have a deeper understanding of why we can't let hate and authority blind us. It's important to stand up before it's too late.
How did you connect with a whole group of steemians all going to the same place?
I can't say I did connect with everyone in the 100 or more large group. We were split into 4 or 5 septate groups of around 20 but I was deeply inside my mind the whole time. But we kept walking past the other groups and I saw that everyone was acting in accordance with the tour rules. Lots of pictures being taken, some were chatting but everyone was respectful and none of that 'selfie cheesy grin' Instagram style shenanigans.
I felt the same way at Dachau. It wasn't a negative experience. I came away slightly different than I arrived.
Sure, I get that. It changes your outlook somewhat. Awakens you to the importance of embracing compassion as an active mode of behaviour.
I didn't mean connect on a personal level... I meant how did you find that large of a group of steemians to go do something with in the first place? So far, I've not met a single steemian in person, other than the one who turned me on to steemit in the first place.
This is such a powerful post, and beautifully done. Fabulous poem, thanks for sharing. Have always wanted to visit myself, but knew it would be such a hard and emotional thing to do, just looking at those pictures is truly heartbreaking, well done you for being able to do this.
Have always wanted to visit myself, but knew it would be such a hard and emotional thing to do, just looking at those pictures is truly heartbreaking
Thanks you for the compliment on my poem and I completely understand where you're coming from in your comment above. There were many people at steemfest 3 I spoke to said they couldn't go on that trip because they knew they wouldn't be able to cope... and I understand why.
Very difficult but I could just about cope emotionally so I thought it was a worthwhile trip to make. Thanks for the support and meaningful feedback @letsgetquirky
Wow Rowan.. this is so powerful In so many ways.. I’ve seen quite a few posts about this trip and yours is the first to actually stop me in my tracks. You capture the soul of humanity here in a heartbreaking but important way. Your words and pictures work together to make a huge impact in only a way you could do. Thanks for sharing this. ❤️
Thanks for this awesome feedback Justine. It was such a hard place to visit but so important to make that difficult journey. I feel like the poem and thoughts I express here are a truth that has been expressed before, about re-telling and never forgetting the lessons of this atrocity. But I was trying to tell it in my own way, speak my truth about how it made me feel but also the wider lesson of this history. This is all only my own opinion, but I see the same attitudes of 'turn the other cheek' still perpetuated all around the world, all be it in much less extreme circumstances.
Hopefully, it is just a case of another few hundred years of evolution of thought, of retelling these stories and histories until the human race changes fundamentally to stop visiting violence on ourselves and the planet on which we live.
Ha ha, maybe I'm just a massive hippie and I'm good with that... but the type of hippie to get up and do/say something where I see the opportunity to make a difference.
I couldn't take photos inside the Auschwitz Camp... Just too hard for me... I couldn't imagine (or rather I don't want to imagine) what happened back then... It totally hit me (hard) when I see the baby and toddler and kid clothes and shoes... How could they? HOW? And the hair... The long hair... Just a thumb left or right... That's it... Work or die... Even though @arcange did explain to me in the bus on our way back... But I still can't justify this... Even until now...
Posted using Partiko Android
There is no justification Eliza. None at all. I guess arcange was maybe trying to explain the psychology behind how people can dehumanise others? But I'm just guessing.
I understand how you feel Eliza, I was silent, on my own most of the time as I couldn't cope with speaking to others. I felt sick to my stomach... this was because my brain is set up to be extremely visual so I was constantly seeing images behind my eyes of the various things described. The way I work through such hard things is to write about them. Poetry or fiction, usually decompresses these images that have built up in my mind during a difficult experience like that excursion to Auschwitz.
To be honest, I was not trying to explain anything other than my own condition after this visit.
I went back to the bus, shocked, muted ... wondering how such atrocities were possible, with an organization and an industrialization pushed to its paroxysm.
It took me halfway to be able to talk again. And it's thanks to the kindness and benevolence of @elizacheng that I was able to reconnect to the group step by step. Still today, I have a hard time rethinking this experience without feeling overwhelmed by emotions.
Thank you for being there too! ❤️❤️❤️
Posted using Partiko Android
It sounds like you had very similar experience to me arcange. And I guess everyone had the same feeling of devastation to an extent. I was also pretty quiet and withdrawn on the bus home, but had a kind and friendly steemian in @jayna to chat things through with :-)
Ah... @jayna is lovely too... ❤️
Posted using Partiko Android
I didn't dare to think... Visualizing it would be worst than a nightmare... Writing it down in words or poetry may not be what I am good at... 😅 But talking to people makes me feel better. Or maybe just hugs is much greater.
Posted using Partiko Android
Hugs are always good here is a virtual hug from a thousand miles away 🤗
Dude that poem... you take me down an emotional street and then.. the Twix. I'm not sure i remember a poem has made me just sit there and think in the way that just did. Eating a Twix at Aushwitz. As bizarre as that is, it's one of the most thought-provoking images that has entered my brain in recent times.
Bloody well done with that one sir.
Thanks Mark. Yes, it is a bit of a literary device in the way it creates 'gut punch' impact but it is honestly also just the truth of the physical action I was taking while walking around Birkenau.
But, having said all that I was aware when I was writing the poem toward the end that it needed something to drive home the level of fundimental inhuman, alien atrocity that Aushwitz is, and the memory of my breakfast Twix came flooding back. The normalness of the Twix just helps to elivate the deeply tragic images in the previous lines. This poem is the first piece of writing in a long time that had me welling up while I was writing it and when reading it back again now. I may perform it at a poetry night here in Liverpool.
Thanks for the feedback. It means a lot
incredible post brother, the faces on the wall was what got me too. I can see why you are in a daze writing for 3 hours, I am guessing this took even longer, I know from editing my video I was lost in the emotions I was too numb to really feel while I was there...A lot of what I felt while sitting and going back through my photos and spending time thinking about trying to make some sort of order of my photos to the chaos that took place had a strong impact for me for sure. Its something we will never forget having visited this place and I am glad to have shared this with so many of my fellow steemians and now you. Great job!
Yeah, you're so right about the emotional impact and the picture hallway hits hard as it brings it home that these were, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers... and in fact they could/should be considered our family. This shit could happen again if we're not careful as a species and start to recognize when we are being manipulated by extremist ideology. It's an insanely complicated issue and I guess I'm simplifying things somewhat, but I strongly believe that this global culture of separation through national (tribal) identity is something we're long overdue evolving beyond. Ha ha, but enough of that political stuff.
I wrote 2 more verses to that poem (the first was written a few days ago) but the new verses just weren't good enough. The intensity had gone from the poem compared to the verse I wrote the other day and I was pretty numb after writing the opening part of this post.
I shall go and check out your video Vlad. I agree that the sharing of these 'challenging' experiences is a key part of healing the collective unconscious from such extremes of inhuman humanity.
Hi @raj808!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.397 which ranks you at #2214 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 40 places in the last three days (old rank 2254).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 213 contributions, your post is ranked at #15.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
Congratulations @raj808! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click here to view your Board of Honor
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPDo not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Thanks @steemitboard ;-) I know you're just a bot but a bot needs a fist bump now and then 👊 Wow, 20000 upvotes.
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
@c-squared runs a community witness. Please consider using one of your witness votes on us here
This post has been selected for curation by @sunravelme. It has been upvoted and will be featured in this week's Working Title post. It will also be considered for the official @minnowsupport curation post and if selected will be resteemed from the main account. Feel free to join us on Discord!
This is powerful.
I recently visit Dachau, the camp on which the rest of them were modeled. The feeling of pain and suffering still lingers in the air. I can't imagine how anyone could go and not feel the atrocities.
One line in your poem struck me in particular:
The adjective surreptitiously says so much here. I watched folks at Dachau smiling and taking selfies, posing for their social media accounts and felt that was incredibly disrespectful. This one line, and that word in particular, does a great job of summarizing the feeling of simply being alive and living in the midst of place where so many were not as fortunate.
Yeah, I've seen videos of that stuff as well and I am really proud to say, that out of large group from a conference of bloggers/vloggers, I saw no steeemians exhibiting that type of behavior. I'm really glad I didn't, because I would n'y have been able to stop myself pulling them up over it in quite a forthright way.
Thanks for the compliment on the poem, I felt like that line was the strongest part of the poem, and the thing that elevated it to be something a bit different.
As you express so well, I thought that the adjective 'surreptitiously' was completely apt. It's how I felt snacking while I was at Birkenau, kind of guilty, but I was super hungry as I'd missed breakfast lol.
Anyway, it was a powerful experience and in some ways not a negative one as I feel I learned a lot and it inspired some decent creative work which tells a story, an important story to keep telling.
Thanks for the support and meaningful feedback @mattifer
I've read about these groups of steemians in a few different blog posts. How did you connect with a whole group of steemians all going to the same place? I'm glad that our group was respectful of their surroundings. :-)
And I felt the same way at Dachau. It wasn't a negative experience. I came away slightly different than I arrived, and I have a deeper understanding of why we can't let hate and authority blind us. It's important to stand up before it's too late.
I can't say I did connect with everyone in the 100 or more large group. We were split into 4 or 5 septate groups of around 20 but I was deeply inside my mind the whole time. But we kept walking past the other groups and I saw that everyone was acting in accordance with the tour rules. Lots of pictures being taken, some were chatting but everyone was respectful and none of that 'selfie cheesy grin' Instagram style shenanigans.
Sure, I get that. It changes your outlook somewhat. Awakens you to the importance of embracing compassion as an active mode of behaviour.
Posted using Partiko Android
I didn't mean connect on a personal level... I meant how did you find that large of a group of steemians to go do something with in the first place? So far, I've not met a single steemian in person, other than the one who turned me on to steemit in the first place.
Hi @mattifer
I was just re-reading some old posts and I saw I hadn't answered your question .... So long ago now.
This trip to auschwitz was one of the excursions at steemfest 3 in Krakow, which I was very lucky to attend 🙂
Posted using Partiko Android
This is such a powerful post, and beautifully done. Fabulous poem, thanks for sharing. Have always wanted to visit myself, but knew it would be such a hard and emotional thing to do, just looking at those pictures is truly heartbreaking, well done you for being able to do this.
You write so wonderfully ❤
Thanks you for the compliment on my poem and I completely understand where you're coming from in your comment above. There were many people at steemfest 3 I spoke to said they couldn't go on that trip because they knew they wouldn't be able to cope... and I understand why.
Very difficult but I could just about cope emotionally so I thought it was a worthwhile trip to make. Thanks for the support and meaningful feedback @letsgetquirky