Auschwitz Birkenau: A Short Story

Hair of all different lengths and colours, glasses all smashed up together, cutlery of milk and meat, shoes of all sizes and designs, cyclone B gas canisters, barracks with the bare wood, gas chambers and even human ash are just a few of the things I saw that were ripped away from Jews during the holocaust. These items were there identities that were taken away from them in a split second.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for the raw emotion and shock that I would experience during this special trip. Going to the many concentration camps all around Poland took a toll on my body physically and emotionally. Out of all the death camps I visited Auschwitz Birkenau stood out the most…

I saw plaits that belonged to women and children. Detached, cut off and lying in a pile. Plaits that were no longer the plaits of Jewish women and children like me. They now lay as a reminder of what happened. A plait will never be the same for me. Now I see a plait as a person, a soul, someone who was murdered in cold blood. Someone who believed they were having a shower after a long journey. Being a teenage girl, I am well aware that hair gives a woman a sense of confidence. I know without my hair I would feel almost naked …show more content…
As I linked arms with my friends, along with all the jews from around the world, to march the same path our ancestors took towards their death, I realized that the power of unity can defy all evil and the importance of my Jewish heritage. After walking around the death camps and standing inside the gas chambers where so many Jews passed away, my outlook upon the Holocaust completely changed. I learned that history textbooks and movies will never do the horror of the Holocaust justice. The only way to truly appreciate our Jewish heritage is to actually see and feel what our ancestors felt years