We walked freely on the paths and through the same doorways that brought thousands to their deaths. I looked out of the windows and saw the same scene that those being led to the “showers” saw. Unlike them, I was guaranteed to view it again from the outside. Why were these mothers, fathers, children, and grandparents given this unimaginable fate? Who were the monsters who closed the door to the gas chamber and watched through the barred window?
“Forget who you were,” they were told upon entry.
Today, Majdanek gives names and faces back to the people who suffered these horrors.
Emilian Kowcz, you will not be remembered as prisoner no. 2399. You will be remembered as an up stander. Someone who risked his life to aid his neighbors and, when captured, served as a spiritual guide to fellow prisoners.
Stefania Perzanowska, you are not prisoner no. 235. You were a physician who courageously joined the resistance, and after your capture, continued to provide medical assistance to people in the camp.
You cannot be erased.
We walked the paths. We saw the shoes.
As we were reminded during the memorial service, it is now our duty as teachers to take what we have learned and “seek to become moral agents in the world, not passive bystanders.”
