Personal reflexions of Herminio Correa, EPA Ambassador
After many years of studying, reading, and
listening to testimonies and watching movies and documentaries about the
Holocaust, it was finally time to make a visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau.
A hard, cold and unforgettable experience, that
have aroused in me an emotional roller coaster and left in the air a question: How
could this happen?
Yes, why so many men and women, ordinary people
just like us, suddenly became terrible predators and cold killers?
Walking through the concentration camps, I can’t
help wondering the subhuman conditions of life in which, so many human beings
lived, that the only crime was to be different in their way of thinking, their
origin, religion or culture.
Every stone on the sidewalk, every brick, every
piece of wood tells a barbarous, tragic and inhuman story of total contempt for
human life that shames all mankind. Every piece of clothing, shoe, or personal
object taken from the victims tells a story of life, family, work, hope and
love.
Entering the facilities of the fields, from the
quarters to the unimaginable latrines, from the execution wall to the gas
chambers, I felt a great emotion and sadness, but at the same time I felt a
great inner strength that tells me that nothing that has happened here will
ever be forgotten. This is the message that I will have to spread to my
organization and to all those with whom I live. It is the best way to honour
all those who have been murdered here.
I felt the greatest emotional shock when I
visited the quarters where mothers and sons tried to survive. The drawings on the
walls made by someone are a faint attempt to keep alive a memory that was dear
to them and thus somehow keep hope alive and try to lighten the dark
environment in which they were forced to live.
Dr. Mengele's ward is the most barbaric and
inhuman testimony of what madness and utter disregard for human life can do.
Talking to a survivor was a story of life,
struggle and hope. Listening to the living memory of a concentration camp by
those who passed through it and miraculously survived is something I will never
forget. So, thank you Bogdan Bartnikowski.
Victim's struggle for survival sometimes has no
rules or limits. They fight for their own lives, to stay alive and sometimes they
forget everything and everyone and deny their basic values and principles of
life. These are the limits of the human mind when the most primitive instincts
dominate it. We must forgive and understand the huge suffering, both physical
and psychological, of the victims of these Nazi concentration camps. We must
respect their memory.
It was a very important week for me. I saw,
heard, reflected on, discussed and learned with a group of extraordinary people
that I will never forget.
So, thanks to: Jean-Philippe, Andrzej Kacorzyk,
Piotr Trojanski, Marta Berecka., Alicja Bialecka, Natalia, Artur Szyndler,
Margrit, Agnieszka, Marta Swieton., Anna, Alekandra, Loizos, Richard, Monika,
Ciprian, David, Nick, Naomi, Louise, Oleksandr, Magdalena, Alexandra, Ioannis,
Jillian, Kathryn, Anna Makowka, Fanny, Ilda, Andrea, Gordana, Caslav, Dmitry,
Ana Radovic, Lokman, Igor, Sumru, Zsolt, Vitmar, Daniel, Olga, David Kennedy
and Krzysztof. (Sorry if I forgot someone)
Hermínio Corrêa – European Parents Association
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