May We Remember

Warning: Uncomfortable Post ahead

Today we went to Auschwitz Concentration Camp near Krakow, Poland. Libraries have been written on it, so I will not try to educate you here or now. I will say, though, that it is 3:18 a.m., my family is asleep, and I am up pondering all I saw, heard, and learned in the last three days.

I am pondering the human spirit and curious how any human left a concentration camp and healed enough to be a fully functioning, contributing, and even perhaps joyful adult.

I am marveling at the survivors I’ve heard speak in my life, at their strength, poise, and willingness to share depth and wisdom.

I am sickened at dehumanization in every form.

I am humbled by those who volunteered to endure the worst of the worst, stepping in and taking someone else’s place in either the camp or in death.

I am grotesqued (I just made that a word) by the efficiency…the same frigging Nazi German efficiency that gave us Volkswagens…the frigging sickening efficiency that made the extermination process so.awfully.terribly.unspeakably.efficient.

I am rejoicing for the gift of beautiful, inquisitive, booky people in my life who love history and social studies and politics and who have taught me so much about WWII in these last nearly 12 months of planning this trip.

I am filled with joy at the group of young adults we get to spend life with and love, who trusted us with trip planning and on this journey, who have read books and watched movies with us this past year in preparation.

I am blessed by getting to share life with my fella who loves family more than anything and wanted us to have a getaway so we could take time to build family ties.

And I am so.very.grateful for the soldiers and the nations who stood against that terror and insisted with their lives that it come to an end. And to those who continue to do so in wars and in ways we know nothing about.

Dear Veterans, thank you for your service. Specifically, WWII veterans—holy heaven—you endured so, so very much. Thank you to those who bravely choose to tell their stories, to our kids who shared Band of Brothers with me…

Oh, friends, it is all so much to process. How the human spirit can be so rich, beautiful, strong, resilient, faithful, enduring, and at the same time deeply, unspeakably depraved.

May we choose to lean into the light, seek goodness, humanity, connection, respect, truth, love. May we stand against the bully, be it in the boardroom, the backyard, the battlefield, or beyond. And may we remember that each and every person is fearfully, wonderfully, delightfully, purposefully made.