Dear friends:

We come from Oświęcim - a place of a difficult history, known as Auschwitz. We have participated in meetings organized by the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer during which we have studied the issues of the camp and we have listened to stories told by Witnesses of those times. We are grateful for those meetings, for what we have expressed together with our German and Austrian colleagues, writing letters to former Inmates on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp liberation.

We have received many interesting replies - some of them we would like to present here. Listen to stories about suffering, death and pain, but also about the hope and faith of those who survived the hell of the camp and in honour of those who cannot speak for themselves... Let these words become a testimony and a guide for building "civilisation of love"...

Brief history of the camp:

Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide and Holocaust. Auschwitz camp was established by the Nazis in 1940 in the occupied town of Oświęcim (the name of which was changed to Auschwitz). Initially, Poles were imprisoned and killed at the camp. Later, it was also used for imprisoning Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies and other nationalities. From 1942, the camp became the place of the largest mass murder in the history of humanity, performed on European Jews according to the Nazis plan of complete extermination of this nation. The total number of Auschwitz victims is estimated as 1.1 to 1.5 million people. Majority of them were Jews from the mass transports that took place from 1942, who died in gas chambers of Birkenau. Let us commemorate them with a minute of silence...

Let the survivors speak...

Illustration I: About the suffering and the camp

Jewish women and children, after selection, on their way to the Birkenau gas chambers

"Barbarism of the war exceeded limits of human understanding and recognition. German Nazis built death factories - concentration camps, places of humiliation and death, where people died among incredible psychological and physical tortures".

"Selection occurred at the ramp in Auschwitz. Mother would be killed with the child and burnt in the crematorium. (...) On January 21, 1944, the father was gassed to death and burnt in the crematorium. It is hard to describe in what tragic conditions co-prisoners died, hastened across the country, without food or drink, beaten and maltreated, shot to death and thrown to ditches. (...) They died in gas chambers and of bullets or bats only because they were Jews. 'Doctor' Josef Mengele, supervising the selection in the camp, decided with his finger who could still live and who was to die".

Illustration II: About hope

"I have never lost hope".

"I remember their mutual love, keeping to even the tiniest hopes to survive, to preserve their humanity in this hell on earth, to save their dearest".

Illustration III: About faith

"I remember their faith in a better world, their will to live - and the pleas seen in their dying eyes, with rests of their strength, to remember them, to remember that they used to be here once among us, people, and wished to live so much, to exist in this world".

The railroad platform or ramp where selections were carried out on arriving Jews marked for destruction. SS photograph, 1944

"In the camp I lost my touch with God".

"Those who believe in God never keep anything against Him".

Illustration IV: Conclusions

"The cry kept down for long bursts out of the depths of our tortured hearts. Never again to allow such a mad scenario to repeat anywhere and towards anyone. As an effective barrier, we should pass on to young generations the baggage of our tragic experience with a warm appeal to act as broadly as they can to clear human minds of intolerance and hatred".

"Auschwitz has become a symbol of Holocaust and the world mustn't forget about that. We must speak about it in a loud voice to the youth for whom the camp in Auschwitz is but a museum. We must make these young people aware that people prepared such fate to people".

Illustration V: Request from youth

The main gate of Birkenau concentration camp through which trains carrying deportees entered the camp after May 1944, is visible in the background. SS photograph, 1944

"Do not stop being witnesses of those who died".

"It is simply dangerous to erase difficult facts from group and individual memory. Without the past there is no future".

"I would like to say to the youth, when at the turn of the third millennium the old Europe is getting unified; when the borders opened, when owing to modern communication distances get smaller. I would like to say to them: meet to know each other better, talk to one another to understand each other better, learn to respect the others even if their appearance and the way of thinking differs from your own, so that owing to all this you do not have to experience the tragedy of our generation."

"Do not allow hatred to find a place in your young hearts. Love people without respect to the colour of their skin, race, beliefs or political views."

We, young people, who will soon have major impact on the history of the world and, as Pope John II said, the future will largely depend on us, promise to all those who suffered and died in concentration camps that we will help others to remember about history, we will pass it on to further generations, learn lessons from it, and try not to make the same mistakes which in the past led to these terrible tragedies. Only then the world will become a place ruled by Joy, Love, Justice, Peace and Faith.

Young people from Oświęcim

The project was prepared at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Auschwitz. At the Centre's website (www.centrum-dialogu.oswiecim.pl) you can find more texts, including correspondence between young people and the Witnesses of time.

More photos from the World Youth Day in Köln