After Auschwitz

Beneath the glass, I saw coral colored overalls. They were fastened with big, plastic buttons at the end of each suspender.

They were the size of my nephew’s overalls.

He’d gotten several pairs from my mom on his first birthday a few months ago. I’d helped her wrap them, placing them proudly on the fireplace to open after birthday cake and candles.

They were big enough for him to grow into, which he’d done now. He had learned to walk, to toddle run, and to say “light”, “again”, and “mama”; which tends to turn into a long line of “mamamammamamamama”. It’s more babbling than words, but we cheer for him anyway. I call him Mr. Big Eyes, they’re always curious and wide. His laugh is contagious.

Our tour guide’s voice broke my thoughts. “There are rumors now that there were never children here.” Her German accent was subtle. “This room is dedicated to the children of Auschwitz.”

I looked again at the overalls.

They were so small.

I wanted to hold them. As if touching the fabric would reach to the small child who hadn’t had a chance to outgrown them-- to pop the buttons or skin their knees or laugh too loudly or cry at naptime.

I stood for several moments. There is no natural way to turn from something so precious.

When I looked up, I saw another glass display.

I moved closer.

This one held hundreds of pairs of tiny shoes.

They looked like doll shoes.

I stood still before it. I saw some were larger.

Up, toward the top of the pile, a familiar pair. I had shoes like that in second grade….

“Please remember, this is only a small portion of what was found here at the end of the war.” Our tour guide had repeated this phrase several times. Each time it was needed. The room already seemed so full of potential lost. Joy, lost. Life, lost.

How could there be more?

We followed silently to another doorway, where we stopped to listen to our guide’s instructions. “In this next room, photography is forbidden.” I hadn’t taken any photos. I was glad others had. This should be remembered. These stories, repeated. Never forgotten.

Stories live in photos.

But I couldn’t. My camera remained unused in my bag.

I rounded the corner.

At first, I saw nothing. Just more plaques with information too terrible to imagine. Numbers reflecting lives. Index cards with German scribblings to describe another person deemed unworthy of tomorrow.

But then, I saw braids. In the glass display to my right, I saw dark braided hair, laid in a row.

I had to stare to comprehend what was before me.

Eight woman had lost their braids.

I looked toward the far wall-- the longest wall of the room, and noted that it, too, was a glass display.

In the dark room, it looked empty.

But as my eyes adjusted, I saw that it held piles and piles of braids.

They’re all dark…

Maybe time had faded the color?

Maybe they were very dirty.

But then I remembered…

Jewish people were not light enough.

Their hair and eyes, fatal flaws.

I looked closer. Some braids were grey. Others, white.

Old and young.

No one was safe here.

No one was safe.

“Please remember” her voice was sad, “this is only a small portion.”

Crying always makes me uncomfortable.

But sometimes, when I know I need to, I remind myself that crying releases toxins from our bodies.

When there has been too much stress, or heartache, our bodies hold the toxins.

Crying is one way our bodies release these.

But… nothing could release this.

Nothing could release what had been done here.

The tears swimming in my eyes felt shallow. Empty. Such a small reaction to so much lost.

Each braid, a life.

Our tour lasted for 3 hours. It was not enough time. Plaques were everywhere along the journey, each one filled with more information. Each one worthy of respect and sorrow.

I bought a book, “I Was Dr. Mengele's Assistant” written by Miklós Nyiszli. He details the camps with even more depth than was provided by the tour.

There are hundreds of interviews by survivors.

There are so many accounts.

It would take days...

Please remember, this is only a small portion. 

Our bus drivers were two Polish men. We became friends with the help of Google Translate, patience, and laughter.

We had dinner together. They told me that Poland had come far since communism. They didn’t anticipate anything like Nazi rule to ever happen again.

And I hope that they are right.

But humanity has a way of abusing itself. Humanity has a way of drawing lines in peaceful sand; of making groups of “us” and “them”.

The tour was full of people, all around me, whispering to themselves, “how could this happen?” “How could people allow this?” “How did it get this far?” Tears in their eyes, lost and looking for reason, “How?... Why?”

I asked myself too.

I found myself saying it would never be me.

I would never treat another person this way.

Not I.

And I truly hope, from the very core of my being, that I will never have to know for sure if that resolve is as committed and strong as I believe it is.

I hope I am never faced with that choice.

But I cannot help but wonder, in the lapse of that choice, how close will I allow myself to be?

I don’t completely trust myself  when I hear my own voice “I can’t believe this happened.” As if it was built from evil ground, operated by ignorant, third party creatures who did not know the devastation they were causing.

I think it is easier for me to say I cannot imagine, because it is too much to know that we built this. People, built this.

Auschwitz was a process.

Auschwitz started with attitudes.

Before buildings, and electric fences, and guns and gas, there was pride.

There was selfishness. There was “us” and there was “them” and “us” deserved better than “them”. “Us” was smarter than “them”. “Us” was prettier, handsomer, stronger, than “them”. “Us” was desirable and “them” was not. What “us” wanted was right, so what “them” wanted was wrong; unimportant, even. Not a factor. Not a thought.

Before buildings, and electric fences, and guns and gas, there was greed. “Us” had decided that what “them” owned would be best used to build “us”.

Before death, there was self focus on the life of “us”.

I left Auschwitz wanting no part of it.

But history repeats the heart of Auschwitz. In different cultures, in different countries, in different times, years past are filled with the heart.

And I cannot stop only at the desire to not partake-- for those who simply ignored Auschwitz are those we talk about with disgust as well. Those who knew and did nothing. Those who could have changed things and remained still. Those who believed the biases just enough to save themselves.

I love to engage in conversations about minorities being seen and heard. It is easy for me to feel empowered to protect the marginalized. These are conversations that should take place. We should continue to talk and discuss and move until all feel safe to exist. There should be no apology for the air we breathe, the color of our skin, our age, our gender.

But, I know too that it is impossible to be unbiased.

In my counseling classes, I was told to recognize my biases so I could be aware of them. I would counsel people who my biases told me to distrust, to avoid, to dismiss and apply quick judgement to.

“Know your biases”.

Know my “them”.

But it is hard to call a bias by that name when it feels so earned. Justified, even.

Since March, I began running regularly and have since participated in 3 different 5-K races.

I would love to expand my workouts by running outside when I get home at the end of the day. At dusk, when the air is cooler and the roads aren’t busy, alone with earbuds and determination.

But I can’t.

I won’t.

Because I have been followed through aisles of a store by a man entertained by stifled fear.

More than once.

I’ve walked through parking lots and returned to my car, with measured breaths, grateful. I’ve slid into the driver’s seat, immediately locked my doors, and remained shaken even after returning home.

I’ve known men with wandering hands, who heard a challenge in the word “no”. I’ve kept secrets I didn’t have to be asked to keep. I believed them when they said it was my fault.

I’ve heard my own voice in jaded conversations, “well, what’d I expect? They’re a guy...”

I’ve laughed at mostly good-natured jokes, reminding those involved that convents still exist and maybe a life without men would be best.

Sometimes laughing is easier than being honest about the fact that the few times I have felt genuine, chilling fear, there was always a man involved.

The times I have looked in the mirror and wished the reflection was different, my mind repeated the words of a man like rehearsed lines of a school play; hoping that the next time stage lights hit, I’d look the part.

Most of my deepest betrayals, the times I’ve held on to lies as truth, the times I’ve been left bewildered and broken and lost for words, the times I’ve felt stupid, foolish, “I should’ve known”--Men’s names were attached to my pain. And if the names belonged to women, most often they were women acting out of desperation for a man, wounding me in the process.

I am never alone with a man without knowing exactly where my exits are.

Women have had to fight to be heard, believed, empowered, given equal rights…

Betrayal is less personal if stereotypes are real and behavior is determined only by social expectations.

For me, I think that it is easier, and I feel less vulnerable, saying that I have been hurt because men hurt women, rather than saying an individual person decided to act in a way that caused harm to me. 

It is easier to say “it happened because it’s how men are.” Instead of saying, “it happened because he, an individual, chose.”

I have noticed, in my own heart, that while I’ve engaged in movements to see all peoples speak their voices, while I’ve engaged in honesty about my own experiences, reverse bias has begun to take root.

And this type of bias removes sympathy from the new “other”. Reverse bias, often salted with revenge, does not leave room for questions, because it is toward those who have proven to be persecutors. It is toward those we have learned to protect ourselves from.

Reverse bias carries the same pride; assuming we know someone before we take the time to know them.

When I am honest, I have known good men. I know great men. Some of the best people I know are men.

And by contrast, I have known harmful women.

I have known wonderful women.

People are just people.

But I think we look for patterns in our pain, to try to avoid getting hurt again. We make band-aids out of preventative relationships.

I am not advocating for foolish trust of all people.

I will still not be running alone at night.

But I am saying that there is no formula for getting out of life without pain. We have all been harmed. There are different degrees of harm, and those degrees demand differing amounts of attention, patience, and healing to move forward from. But, no one is left unscarred. 

Dangerous people exist.

But there is no formula for determining who those people are. 

           You cannot know a person until you know them.

There are harmful people who will grow to be generous, kind, loving people. 

And there are those acting within stereotypes now who will be transformed by those of us brave enough to call out something different in them.

“You’re better than this.” is a powerful sentence. 
           But it is not a sentence we can say if we don’t believe it.  

           And for the sake of tomorrow, I hope we begin to believe it.

           It took 25 hours to return from Europe. I spent the night at my parent’s house and drove over 5 hours the next day to finally arrive at my apartment. I woke up the next morning, thinking I’d conquered jet lag but really only feeling refreshed because it was late afternoon Poland-time.

I was working the 11am-8pm shift.

I’d solidified my work schedule with multiple emails to the scheduling team. It had been chaos to ensure the shift, so my manager had approved the request and partnered with me to make sure the change was reflected prior to my flight out of the country.

My schedule is my responsibility to know. It hadn’t occurred to me that, after all of that effort, the scheduling team would’ve changed it.

I was working out in my living room when my phone lit up. “Hey, are you okay? You were supposed to be here at 8am.”

I looked at the clock.

9:02am.

I got ready with my bathroom door open, whisper-yelling rants while I applied make up, to my roommate, who was on the phone with our apartment’s maintenance team. Our sink and our air conditioning were both broken. 

Welcome home to me.

I was out the door by 9:34am.

I marched through the parking lot.

I noticed the door to my truck wasn’t closed all the way.

Well great, Mel, you big dumb-dumb.

I never leave my truck unlocked, much less with the door open.

When I squared with the window, I noticed my glove compartment was open. All of its contents were spilled out on the passenger’s seat and on the floor.

I don’t remember doing tha—

The middle console was open, its contents strewn about as well.

I opened the door.

My backseat was a wreck.

I’d had a full tumbler of water in the driver’s seat cup holder. The tumbler laid on the floorboard. Empty.

I stepped away. I pulled out my phone, called my roommate, “Someone broke into my truck.”

I got to work at 11:03am. My truck was covered in black dust used by the police to detect fingerprints.

The initial buzz around my arrival died down after 10 or 15 minutes.

No, The police didn’t know for sure who’d broken in. There were rumors of a group of men robbing cars from different neighborhoods within 20 miles of me.

But nothing could be said for sure.

Yes, the police took fingerprints.

No, not much was stolen from my truck.

Yes, I’m okay.

No, there is no security footage.

Yes, it was right outside of my apartment.

No, windows weren’t broken.

Yes, I locked the doors-- or I was sure I had.

And yeah, I’d rather be back in Poland.

I sighed deeply and made myself sit up straight at my desk. I began to work. Headphones in, music playing, I dissolved until my attention was caught by a familiar ding. A message popped up on my computer through our company’s internal Skype:

“I don’t want to bug you, but I just want to let you know that if there is anything I can help with car wise, or if you need anything, let me know. Besides breaking in and taking belongings, the feeling of someone in your vehicle is a weird sense of violation and it sucks. I’m sorry. Let me know if you need anything…”

I know kind men.

I have good friends.

People are just people.

And we get to work together toward a better tomorrow.

For Today

"His name is Boo."
He was a very ugly dog.
"Was he born close to Halloween?"
"No. They named him Malibu at the shelter. I got him when he was ten years old. He'd been there a long time. Everyone just passed by his cage."
I nodded. I would have been one of those people.
"He's old, and blind, but I wrangled my husband into getting him." She smiled, "Now the two of them are best friends."
I smiled back; imagining this old woman with her shawl wrapped against the cold, leaning over her cane, convincing her husband to give this tiny, ugly dog a chance to know love.


I never thought I'd be the kind of person to cry at work. I've always thought that when people cry at work, it's just weakness. Something you have to grows from.

I always hope I'm done growing.

I say I know I won't be. Asked point-blank, I'd say I'd never want to be. But I always hope I've arrived.

But then I cried at work.
I'm a high-strung perfectionist who thrives on verbal affirmation and I work in customer service.
Of course I've cried at work.
Of course I'm not done growing.
Of course this old woman in a shawl in the cold would show me the part of me that would not want to love the old, tiny, blind, ugly dog.

I had a bad attitude today.

Traffic was worse than usual. So we all drove like it was everyone else's fault.

I pass over a bridge on my way home. There's a lake and a dock and a small landing below the bridge. The sun always sets on the water, and every day I tell myself when I have time, I'll stop to watch the sunset.

Today I had time.

I kept my promise to me.

I pulled into a parking spot in the grass between two palm trees.

Next to me, an elderly couple, parked facing the water. They spoke to each other. She smiled.

I smiled.

He looked grumpy, but endearing.

I put in my headphones, and leaned against a tree by the waterfront.

Picnic tables were behind me. I turned to see a family coming up from the dock to the tables.

They were young. They were in love. Their children's noses were red.

For all the complaining I did today, I was thankful to see this young family teaching their children to stop at beautiful things.

A car honked from the highway on the bridge. An angrier honk answered.

Today, I'm glad that peaceful, beautiful things live in the messiness.

I get to go downtown now, to laugh with friends who love me well. I get to wake up tomorrow and do better at my job than I did today.

I get to be alive, and think and feel it all.

I'm thankful for the consistency of peace.

For the choice to see it.

For the chance to grow.

For today.