Fine dust crammed meet the open pits, cold wind played a whizzing sound of a morning in early autumn. At Auschwitz-Birkenau we inhale particles past the float and drift, presenting the past in the present.

The sky was brilliant on the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau conservation when we were down the railroad tracks in front of the gate. As it hit the rails, I was thrilled by the chill that crept from the tip of the finger and stopped right in the gut.

This railway line which used the SS-the Schutzstaffel, security squadron, the largest paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to transport Jews who were selected from various countries in Europe to Birkenau between 1942-1944.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau wide about 138 times the size of a football field, 10 times the area of ​​the main camp of Auschwitz. That's where, genocide against the Jews began in 1942 with the functioning of the first gas chamber Little Red House. Birkenau is 2 kilometers from the main camp, Auschwitz.

Model town

Auschwitz-Birkenau conservation sites located in the suburbs of Oswiecim, Poland, about 50 kilometers west of Krakow, or about 312 kilometers south of Warsaw. The extent of nearly 200 acres, consisting of 150 buildings, about 300 ruins and the former camp. Including the most important trace the history of Auschwitz: the four gas chambers and crematoria at Birkenau, more than 13 kilometers of barbed wire fence, 3,600 concrete guardhouse, and 20 acres of deciduous forest. Newfangled's largest concentration camp the Nazis built the city by displacing 1200 houses in eight villages.

Szymon Filapek (34) led us into the barracks contained traces of the remaining personal belongings of victims in the glass box on the wall, model the process of extermination, and the gas chamber that makes shivers because it is still dark by the aura of death.

The house I Auschwitz commander, Rudolf Hoess, was still maintained. "They live a normal life. His family did not know was going on behind the walls, "says Filapek.

Auschwitz-Birkenau site visited by more than 1.6 million people per year. Visitors and groups of school children walking in silence. There was complete silence, making the guide's voice whispering sound and friction shoes with dry leaves was noisy.

Reflection

It was a dream to tread the extermination centers which study various studies about the Holocaust. Although never visited the Holocaust Museum in several cities in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the Holocaust Museum and Research Center Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the atmosphere at the Auschwitz-Birkenau taste very different.

There was, at least 1.1 million Jews-from more than six million victims of 200,000-plus Poland, Gypsie, Soviet prisoners of war, and others were killed in gruesome ways.

The story of potential victims squeezed like livestock in carriages covered with stinging smell of chlorine was widely read and watched through the film, both documentary and based on a true story. No matter how the selection of a worker or a guinea pig SS doctors conducted. What is considered 'useless' and 'guilty' was killed in seconds by steam Zyclon B, the results of the air with a granule cyanide compounds in the gas chambers, or left cold and starve to death.

Filapek repeat the story at the heart of the events of atrocities, which spans the atmosphere make the pain in the chest, leaving an empty feeling that can not be described with words.

However, the great narrative, however, eliminate the personal narratives of history many survivors. In the grand narrative, the notion of nation is authoritative, because there are only two roles: the cruel perpetrators and victims are helpless.

Polarity which complicate the reconciliation process both personally and as a nation was broken, among others, by Wladyslaw Szpilman narrative, the Jewish citizens of Poland, in The Pianist (2003). Szpilman reveals discrimination in the Jewish community, including the selection on the basis of class and social status to be sacrificed first.

Szpilman also wrote, at the most critical moments in his escape, he was rescued Capt. Wilm Hosenfeld, a German soldier is actually a teacher. However, Hosenfeld saves Szpilman failed after Germany lost the war.

At Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, carrying 16,000 people Aryan (German) who is remembered among the 400 000's Poles who risk their lives to save Jews.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, November 2000, Elie Wiesel, survivor, scientist, writer, Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, asserted, "I do not believe in collective guilt. Child murderer not a murderer. They deserve my love. Many of my German students are very intelligent and compassionate. "

The dark history of Germany appeared to be a burden. German-Jewish citizens have a number of privileges in Germany. Although a problem with immigrants, especially from Turkey, Germany's most favorable immigration policies in Europe.

Harass

On the way home, the shadow of a pile of shoes 80,000 casualties, about 3,800 suitcases and bags with the 2100 label name, could not be driven. Mound 2 tons of women's hair at Auschwitz did not move. Filapek narrative about a dozen tons of hair found in a textile factory when investigating Nazi atrocities after Germany lost the war continued to reverberate.

However, the dust of the past of Auschwitz-Birkenau is also a disturbing statement in the context of contemporary Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, about the 'moral bankruptcy', following the tragedy of genocide at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The question, "how Israel hit its ethical moral conscience which is believed to be characteristic of Judaism after Auschwitz, the brutal attacks on the Palestinian territories" to be reflections of Dr. Fleet Riyanto SJ, Director of the School of Philosophy Widya Mandala, Malang, which for years conducting research on the Holocaust .

"Auschwitz was not really into the past," says Fleet, "The destruction by war and hatred still continues to happen ...."