Auschwitz as a dream metaphor ...

I've always been a very prolific and vivid dreamer and have been able to harness my dreams to help me with my self awareness and personal development.  Even before I began my counselling training and all of the self-exploration work which has come with that, I used to love my dreams and would often find the answers to life or study questions in them.

The unconscious mind tends to work in metaphor or very literal meanings, so uncovering the messages in dreams can be challenging, but also fun and hugely enlightening.  I love working with dreams that clients bring to our sessions; it never ceases to amaze me the messages the unconscious can leave behind in a seemingly random dream.

Last night, I dreamt I was on a camping trip and I was sleeping in one of the male barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenhau.

I knew immediately that the dream related to my experience of my new eating plan, but I wasn't sure just how.  I thought of all of the seemingly obvious connections between an eating plan and concentration camps.  I thought about the idea of the plan instilling a sense of deprivation, hunger, terror or torture.  

But that just didn't sit comfortably with me; that's not my experience of the plan.

I smiled to myself throughout my drive to work at my unconscious connections to Auschwitz.  And then because of the positive feelings, I'd been left with following the dream, it suddenly became clear to me ...

My dream was actually about choice, freedom and relief. 

I 'm choosing to take part in this eating plan.  I'm in complete control of it and if I decide I don't like it, I can stop it at any time.  The choice of what to eat is always mine.  

I'm free in a way in which the victims of Auschwitz and other concentration camps weren't.  I have the freedom to stop and walk away at any time I choose.

And this then linked to my past eating disorders.  The relief comes from the recognition that I am not controlled by this plan in the way in which I was controlled by food when I was experiencing anorexia or bulimia.  The Auschwitz of my dream was symbolic of my relationship to my own eating disorders.  


And I've walked away, I'm free ... and that's a hugely empowering confirmation; even my unconscious agrees that my eating disorders are history ...

Which is what I believe leaves me in a good place from which to be researching the subject and working with people who are currently still experiencing the torture, deprivation, dread and hunger of their own Auschwitz ...

The food we eat becomes who we are ...

Once again, I find myself embarking on something new as a result of where my research has led me.  This time, an eating plan which has the potential to permanently change my way of eating.  I embark on this as a personal experiment to verify the conclusions I've been reaching.

As someone who works with clients with eating disorders / difficulties, I've thought long and hard about sharing this experience. I don't want it being misinterpreted as my way of returning to a way of controlling food or my body shape.  Nor do I want my clients seeing it as me condoning diets or controlled eating practices.

However, the reality is that I have embarked on a 28 day eating / nutrition plan.  Where this differs from any past diets or controlled eating behaviours is that this is in no way about controlling my eating or my body.  And I feel that I've only been able to embark on this plan because I am confident in the fact that my own eating disorders are firmly in my past.  I'm not detailing the plan here, but it does feel important to say that I am being supported by someone who has vast knowledge and experience of nutrition and foods' physiological affects on the body.  I am also being supported psychologically throughout the process.

The plan I have embarked upon is, for me, about making even deeper connections with my own body.  My research has led me to the point of understanding the idea of being more fully connected with one's body as corresponding to being more fully connected with one's Self and life.  Taking care of one's body equates to taking care of one's Self.  How we feel about, and treat, our bodies is a reflection of how we feel about, and treat, our Selves.

As a result of engaging with the plan, I aim to learn to listen ever more closely to my body; to hear its specific nutritional needs, wants and demands.  And of course, this becomes the metaphor for listening ever more closely to my own Self.  To hear more accurately, my own psychological inner needs, yearnings and wants and to find effective ways of satisfying these.  Of taking better care of my Self.

For someone with a past history of eating disorders and who works with this client group, I've given a lot of thought to the prudence of embarking on this process.  Removing food groups from my diet and having rules imposed on my eating is very reminiscent of historic disordered patterns around eating.

But what I am very clear about is that I'm approaching this eating plan from a very different perspective; one which is only possible because my eating disorders are so distant in my past.  For me this time, there is no focus on weight loss or changing body shape.  It was suggested to me before I started the plan that I take photos of myself, as a changing nutritional input may lead to a change in body composition and hence shape.  I refused though.  So sure am I that this isn't about appearance for me, and nor do I want to make it that way.  This is instead, about my own inner subjective experiencing and an experiment with the foods I feed my body and my Self.

From my research, I have an appreciation of the meanings we attach to different foods and ways of eating.  Our relationship with food can be viewed as an analogy of our relationship with our Selves and how we engage with life.

Before I committed to the plan, I was therefore aware that it would potentially tap into emotional experiences and beliefs. Indeed, part of my motivation for embarking on it was to experiment with just how much a change in diet might affect my moods, thinking and subjective experiencing.

I have no doubt that the kinds of food we eat affect us, not just nutritionally and physiologically, but also emotionally and psychologically.  I believe we all have foods which we attach emotional meanings to.  And those foods tend to be the ones which aren't necessarily nutritionally good for us.  It's interesting to me to think about the fact that we often try to nurture ourselves with foods / drinks that aren't good for our bodies.  And although in the short term, they do provide both a physiological and emotional boost, in the long term, they don't resolve things.  Quite often, they instead lead to further cravings and remorse.

So with all of this in mind, I'd given a lot of thought to the idea of changing my eating, and in the week or so leading up to its commencement, I thought I'd prepared myself psychologically for the experience.  I found myself laughing as I felt the need to eat the packet of Giant Chocolate Buttons that was in my house; that feeling of needing to eat them because I'd never be able to eat chocolate ever again in my whole entire life! Of course, I knew this wasn't the case, but it made me smile to catch myself thinking like this!  

Despite this preparation however, the day before I was due to begin, I found myself unexpectedly caught out.  Quite happily walking around my local supermarket with a trolley-full of nutritious foods, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a deep sense of sadness.  Mixed in with this was a deep sense of compassion towards myself for taking care of me and my body.  There was also a sense of loss towards all the foods which weren't in my trolley and which wouldn't be part of my life for the coming 4 weeks.  And probably most significantly, was an overwhelming sadness for my historic eating disordered self.

Later that same evening, my sadness shifted into fear.  Allowing myself to experience that fear led me into a deeper understanding of some of the meanings I've attached to particular foodstuffs.  Knowing that, for the next 28 days, I wouldn't have them in my life felt very frightening and I felt very alone with that fear.

Knowing about the emotional attachments people can have to food, especially in Western society, where we do tend to use food as a reward, a treat, a comfort, etc., I did expect to have some kind of reaction to the 'loss' of my own consumable comforts; chocolate and a glass of red wine.  However, I wasn't prepared for the intensity of my reaction simply to knowing that I wouldn't be able to rely on them for the coming 4 weeks.  And it was from this place of fear and of feeling utterly bereft that I was able to fully appreciate just how much emotional significance I'd invested in that bar of chocolate or glass of red wine.

I'm interested to see what other discoveries I make over the coming days and weeks about myself and my own relationship with food and eating.  Despite the years of self-awareness work I've engaged in, and especially over the last 5 years or so in relation to my PhD, it amazes me how much I still have to learn about myself.  My experience of this new way of eating to date has already confirmed the powerful and entwined nature of eating and subjective experiencing.  Food is, after all, the only substance which crosses our bodily boundaries; taken in, digested and used for energy and body composition.  In that sense, food literally becomes part of us, which is one of the reasons people develop such complex relationships with it.

I look forward with excitement and trepidation to the coming few weeks ... & to further deepening my understandings of the connections between our relationships with food and eating, and how we experience ourselves ...

Yoga assists & attachment theory ...

Following from my last entry I've been reflecting further on my recent experiences of "assists" in yoga classes ...

It seems that for me, they've helped me connect to some early attachment experiences. "Attachment" is a psychological concept which explores how people develop emotional bonds & ways of relating to others; and I would also say of relating to oneself, one's body & one's life.  Babies learn how to attach and relate to others (and self, body and life) through their early relational experiences with their caregivers.

From the infant's pre-verbal development stage, much of that relating and experiencing is situated in the body.  Mother (or other caregiver) responds to her baby's bodily needs for food and attention and the baby begins to form ideas about itself and its self-efficacy through these responses.  How well attuned mother is to her baby and its needs can have a significant impact on how that baby's sense of itself and confidence in the world develops.

Over the last year or so I've read quite a bit about attachment theory for my research; looking at how those early relating experiences contribute to an individual's sense of self, to their relationships with food, eating and their body, and to their way of being in the world.  And this is why I guess the concept has been (unconsciously) on my mind in my yoga practice.

From this place I've experienced many yoga assists as extremely nurturing and holding. Trusting the teachers / assistants and feeling safe in their hands has enabled me to relax into my body and allow them to manoeuvre my body wherever they could see it needed to go.

My first recognition of the connection between these assists and attachment ideas (and embodied memory) happened during Savanasa one evening.  Having my head and neck held and massaged felt hugely comforting and nurturing, and brought to mind an embodied memory of being held as a baby; feeling safe, held and nurtured by my original caregivers.  Being able to let go and be free of all adult responsibilities, thoughts and tensions, and reconnect with the innocence and "just being-ness" of infancy.

Since then, I've re-connected to that infant experience in other assists; especially those where my teacher / assistant has their body wrapped around mine in some way in order to manipulate my body.  And again, I've experienced a sense of absolute trust and safety.  I've been able to step out of my head with all of its adult / learned responsibilities, beliefs and tensions and fully immerse myself in my body and its experiencing; knowing that the assistant has hold of me and I'm safe.

It's very rare in western culture to have such close, intimate bodily contact with anyone outside a sexual context; we're taught that it's somehow "wrong" or inappropriate.  And yet with body psychotherapy and other body based therapies, touch is key to their effectiveness.  And in terms of enabling me to reconnect with the embodied memories of early attachment experiences, it no longer surprises me that such close bodily contact can trigger those memories.  Most relating and caring in infancy occurs at the bodily level; the body contact in the yoga assists are symbolically reminiscent of that time.

This connection between yoga assists and attachment interests me as I begin to explore more deeply how yoga might be helpful for people with eating disorders and other troubled relationships with food and their body.  I feel it's important to find ways of enabling people to re-establish a comfortable, enjoyable, safe and self-nurturing connection with, and way of being in, their body.

I've been fortunate to have experienced safe holding in infancy, so I do wonder, for those people who maybe weren't held so securely, what the experience would be like.  But I guess that to be getting in touch with one's early attachment experiences, an individual would have had to have done a lot of Self exploration to peel back the layers to that extent.  Or the enabling of that connection would need to be done in a very safe and trusting environment.

I appreciate that for many people, the assist will be experienced purely as a helpful physical manipulation; and from that perspective they're hugely beneficial too.  It can be amazing to experience what my body is capable of and to experience it move more fully into a pose.  But from my current place of interest in the idea of the body as a reflection and container of my Self and embodied memories, I'm interested in what I can learn from my body about my Self and my way of being in the world.

Allowing myself to immerse myself in the embodied experience of the assists seemed to enable me to connect with embodied memories of infancy.  And from that place, I've come to a state of "remembering" and "knowing" how I was related to as an infant.  I have a strong sense of "knowing" how my body's (and hence my) needs for food and nurture were responded to.  Of "knowing" how my caregivers responded to, and touched and held me and my body.  Of "knowing" how those caregivers felt towards me and their experiences of caring for that infant me.

And with these new knowledges. I've been able to further deepen my understanding of mySelf and how I became who I am.  As our relationships with food,especially in relation to eating disorders, are intimately connected with early nurturing experiences, I've also unpeeled another layer of understanding of my own disordered eating history.

I just wonder if, after reading this, the yoga teachers & assistants I've had in

 mind as I've written it, will offer me more assists in future ... 

or avoid me ... !!?!

From my research to yoga ...

I’m aware I haven’t written anything on here since New Year’s Day … apologies! Mostly, this has been due to the time demands of my therapy practice and working on my thesis.  I want to find more time to write again though as I move through the next steps of both my PhD / research journey and my personal journey; both of which are intimately interlinked …

I’ve also been practising yoga regularly since September and so have been spending time reading around yogic practices and philosophies.  Yoga is a practice I’ve dipped in and out of for many years, but hadn’t really found a teacher / school which compelled me to stay.  Until last August when I was introduced to ‘Forrest Yoga’ through an organisation called ‘Jambo Yoga’ …

Forrest Yoga is more physically intense than other approaches I’ve experienced and encourages an internal focus alongside the physical, which is partly what makes its philosophy so similar to my own.  It encourages its students to connect more fully both with their bodies and their authentic selves.  As stated on the ‘Forrest Yoga’ website (www.forrestyoga.com); “The practice challenges students to access their whole being and to use Forrest Yoga as a path to finding and then cleansing the emotional and mental blocks that dictate and limit their lives.”

As much of my PhD journey has been serendipitous, it seems that I was led to Forrest Yoga at just the right time.  My research was leading me to conclude how just how much of our self experiencing is situated in our bodies.  I was also thinking more deeply about the disconnect between mind & body, so commonly experienced by people with eating disorders and other disordered eating / body image concerns.  This mind-body disconnect is very prevalent in western society and I think it plays a huge role in the rising numbers of people we see experiencing eating disorders, obesity, disordered eating, body image concerns, etc.  Seeing our own, and others’ bodies as objects to be manipulated into looking a particular way is common practice in our culture; and this takes us away from our authentic embodied experiencing. 

In my work with eating disordered clients, I see how disconnected they are from their body’s experiencing.  Their body has become a ‘thing’ which they want to control or change.  They don’t experience it as part of themselves.  They don’t experience their body as their embodied self.  Their body has become the problem. 

I also find many clients, with no eating issues who are disconnected from their bodies and their feelings.  Our feelings tend to be experienced in our bodies; as sensations, as ‘feelings.’  But many people focus too much on what they’re thinking.  It’s amazing how often a question about how a client feels about something is answered with, “I think … “ 

Our bodies have a lot of wisdom and learning to listen to our body can tell us so much about ourselves.  Our body communicates in many ways; through its unique internal sensations, through its posture and movement, through ‘psychosomatic’ manifestations and much more.  Our body is what allows us to experience the world around us.  It’s what allows us to relate to other people and it’s from where we present ourselves to the world.

In a Forrest Yoga class, I experience myself as being fully in my body for the 90 or so minutes the class lasts.  My mind chatter stops and I can simply be fully in my body in way I don’t think I can be anywhere else.  I experience no judgement of my body from anyone else in the room; teachers or other students.  And nor do I experience any judgement towards anyone else or their body.  And more importantly, I don’t experience any self judgement or criticism towards myself or my body. 

For the first time in as long as I can remember, being in a Jambo Yoga class is the first time I have felt absolutely no self-consciousness about my body.  I experience no concerns about how ‘it’ looks; I step into my holistic (and authentic) embodied experience and out of the disembodied objectified experience of western society.  I experience the ‘assists’ offered by the assistants as nurturing and supportive and powerful in enabling me to connect even more fully with my own body and its abilities.  In short, I feel alive.

In that class myself and my body are one … authentically and without judgement.

I’m working on increasingly being this way outside of the yoga room, and also on finding ways to enable my clients to connect more fully with their embodied experiencing and authentic selves …

"New Year; New You" ? Not for me ...

I'm writing this now as I've just received an e-mail from a well-known store inviting me to their online Beauty Department sale with the promise of a 'New Year; New You.'

At the start of another new year, I'm already noticing how often this phrase, 'New Year; New You' is being bandied about in magazines and online.  It's a line that comes around every year, and much as I see the potential good in the concept I think it's implying, it's an idea I no longer subscribe to.

I think that life is a constant process of personal development and growth and that we can always strive to be the best that we can be.   But for me, that means becoming increasingly true to my authentic self; to who I 'really' am, outwith the expectations society places on us to be a certain way.

In the past, I might have grabbed hold of the 'New Year; New You' promise and latched on to whatever product, diet, exercise regime it was attached to and placed a lot of hope in its changing me into that 'new' me.  That new me, that would somehow be a better version of the one I already was.

I think that lots of people do this.  Somehow believing that if they eat the diet, follow the exercise regime, buy the products, wear the clothes, etc., they'll somehow become a better version of themselves.  And yet by placing faith in external purchases and regimes, people are becoming increasingly detached from their true inner self.

In my counselling work, this is something I see a lot of.  People looking outside of themselves in an attempt to find themselves.  Somehow believing that other people, other peoples' rules and regimes or material objects will give them their answer, will give them their happiness.

This approach rarely works though.  People follow the diets, the exercises, buy the products and maybe feel good about themselves for a while.  But it's often a hollow sense of happiness; not the genuine happiness that comes from being congruently oneself.

So for me this year, I'm not even going to try becoming a 'new me.'

I like the me I already am.

And I don't want, or need, to change that;

but I will allow myself to grow in whatever direction my authentic self leads me ...

"Breathe it in ..."

 

This entry refers to my experience of visiting Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau.    To build this camp, the Nazis destroyed 7 local villages and built the brick barracks from the houses of those villages.  Following this visit, I then went to Auschwitz l, originally a Polish Army barracks, which today is a museum .   I’ll write about that experience, as well as my experience of visiting 2 barracks in this camp in other entries.

A friend, before I visited Auschwitz, told me to ‘breathe in every bit of my experience.’  I remembered his words as I walked around the camps and did just that …

On the days immediately prior to my visit, and the actual morning of the day, thinking about ‘going to Auschwitz’ felt very surreal.  A bit like a child waiting for Christmas, the day I’d wanted to happen for such a long time, was suddenly upon me.  But it wasn’t excitement that I was filled with.  How could I be excited about visiting a place where around 1.4 million people had lost their lives at the hands of fellow humans?  I struggled, in the lead up to my trip when telling people I was going, with how to describe how I felt about it.  Saying ‘I was looking forward to it’ felt wrong.  And yet, I was looking forward to it, in a way.  I guess I was filled with a sense of anticipation about whatever I was going to experience.

On the actual drive towards the camp, I began to feel really anxious.  I realised I had no real idea as to how I would feel or how I would react when I got there.  There was also something about being in a people-carrier with 5 strangers, 4 of whom would share the experience with me and my mum when we got there. Our driver was very chatty and informative about the area, which was good because listening to him, stopped me dwelling too much on the experience ahead.  He was even able to make us laugh about the irony of us visiting Auschwitz in a German manufactured Mercedes.

Seeing the road signs to ‘Oświęcim,’ the Polish version of the German-named ‘Auschwitz’ kept bringing my anxiety to the surface.  I began thinking about how the Jews must have felt on their journeys to the camp; both those who knew where they were going and what fate awaited them, and those who didn’t.  What a very different experience to my own …

As a counsellor, I always try to step into my client’s shoes and experience their world through their eyes.  And I think that’s what I was trying to do here.  As I said in my previous entry, for me to be able to fully understand something, I need to experience it for myself.  That’s what I try to do (as much as I ever can step into someone else’s experience) in the counselling room, and was also I think, how I approached my visit to Auschwitz.

Getting out of the car and walking towards the main building felt surreal.  I think I dissociated slightly, especially when seeing the train track leading through the tower, knowing what had lain at the end of the thousands of peoples’ journeys.  I felt a heaviness inside of me; sadness, helplessness, disbelief, respect and awe.

Stepping inside, two things hit me; the vastness of the site and the air of stillness.

I felt that the air held a certain heaviness, almost a sense of its holding onto the gravity of what had taken place there. There was an eerie quietness to it too; despite many visitors being there.  I guess that some of this quietness could have been due to the amount of empty space, but it somehow didn’t feel that way, because alongside it, I also experienced a powerful sense of respect and sadness.

The vastness of the site, stretching both to the right and left of the central walkway for me, began to put into perspective the huge scale of the atrocity.

 Seeing both the surviving barracks and the remains of destroyed ones helped me appreciate just how many prisoners had been held there, especially knowing how crammed they were inside their huts.

Going round the site with a guide was a mixed experience for me.  In hindsight, I think it was probably the best way for a first visit, but I’d like to go back again, on my own.  The guide was very informative and ensured that we saw the key things, but going round with her, and also as part of a group meant that there wasn’t always enough time to experience fully and process what I was seeing and experiencing.  In hindsight, I think this might have been a good thing, as I think it had to potential to be overwhelming.  I feel that from the guided visit, I’ve been able to process more of the facts and to get a sense of the camp and life there, but I’d like to go back and process more of the emotions.  To spend a little more time at the sites that held more meaning for me, to stay still and reflect on the lives of the prisoners.

Seeing the electrified barbed wire fencing around the camps was powerful.  Thinking about its use in controlling prisoners through fear, and also providing a painful means of suicide for those prisoners unable to cope. 

I think the sense of awe I mentioned earlier relates to my amazement at the resilience of human beings.  I often feel it towards my clients in the therapy room when I hear the life experiences they’ve had or are living with.  That same sense of awe was magnified countless times inside this camp.  I still can’t begin to comprehend the scale of the fear, terror, humiliation, loss, hunger, anger, etc., etc., that the prisoners must have lived with constantly.  Their sheer helplessness, powerlessness, despair …

And what makes it even more incomprehensible, is that it was at the hands of other human beings.

Looking at the watchtower in this photo helps me envisage the Officers in it, keeping watch over the camp and the prisoners.  And I just can’t even begin to put myself into their shoes.  I can get a small sense of what the prisoners must have felt, but I just can’t comprehend the other side.  Or maybe, I just don’t want to.

Another really powerful moment for me, was my first sighting of a railway carriage used to transport people to the camps.  Having previously read about the horrific conditions within these carriages, actually seeing one up close, made me appreciate more just how horrific those journeys must have been.

Another poignant point for me was the end of the railway track.  Originally, the tracks stopped outside of the camp. But once it became an extermination camp, and to speed up the process of liquidation, prisoners were made to extend the tracks right into the camp.  New arrivals were then simply taken straight to the gas chamber … very close to the end of the railway track.

The gas chamber at this camp was destroyed by the Nazis before liberation to hide the evidence of their actions.  Its ruins still remain …

And again, for me, actually seeing this helped me see in my mind’s eye the experiences of those whose lives ended here.

For some reason, and I still don’t know why, I was drawn to the trees stood to the left of the gas chamber’s remains (photograph at the top of this entry).  Whilst I was there, I was certain there were 4 trees stood there, and even the first few times I looked at my photos, I only say 4 trees.  I was really surprised, almost a week later, to realise that there were actually 5 trees.

Walking around the camp, I kept thinking about my friend’s words.  I kept closing my eyes, taking a slow, deep breath and simply breathing in both my own experience and those of the people who suffered and lost their lives here.  I think it would have been easy to just walk around, seeing the sights.  And maybe that’s what some people need to do; just to see it.  Any more than that could be overwhelming.

I wanted a little bit more than that though.  I wanted to experience it in order to help me to comprehend it and to breathe it in as part of my own connection to humanity … both the horrors experienced by the prisoners and the incomprehensibility of man’s ability to afflict such horrors on other men, women and children.

Visiting Auschwitz ...

I visited Auschwitz last weekend.  It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, and now that I’ve been, I know it was the right thing for me to do.  And I’d actually like to go back …

I’m going to try and put my motivations for wanting to visit into words, because it’s provoked a number of discussions when I’ve told people I’ve been.  At times, I’ve felt that I’ve had to justify myself and my reasons for going there.  Other people have been hugely interested and have wanted to know all about my experience.  I think it's good that it provokes such debate, as it helps highlight what an emotive experience it was, and still is.

From conversations I’ve had with people over the years, Auschwitz seems to be a place that people either want to visit.  Or they don’t. 

Why did I choose to visit?

For me, it’s a way of remembering the horrors that occurred there and showing my respect to the people who suffered and lost their lives there, and in other similar camps.  I have no family history linked to Auschwitz, no religious connections, but it still feels part of my personal history.  My sense of connection comes simply from being human. 

As a counsellor, I have a keen interest in trying to understand humanity and individual life experiences.  The holocaust and what took place in camps such as Auschwitz and on the journeys there, are almost incomprehensible to me.  Trying to imagine the terror and fear that Jews and other prisoners must have experienced is almost impossible and my heart goes out to every single one of them.  In preparation for my visit, I read a number of survivors’ stories just to try to understand their experience.  Their horror began way before arriving in the camps.  Life in their own homes became an experience of terror just waiting for what might happen to them.  Thinking about it, makes me appreciate just how very lucky I am.  I think it’s easy, living in twenty first century Britain, to take for granted the safety and security of your own home and freedom.  And yet I’m also aware that many people today (in the UK and around the world), for all kinds of reasons, don’t have that luxury that I’m fully appreciating right now.

What I find even more incomprehensible is the thinking and action of the Nazis and people involved in the torture of the prisoners.  As someone who is generally very accepting of people, I can’t comprehend the Nazi thought processes of hatred towards the Jews and other marginal groups.   It seems a very arrogant position to have taken; that they were the better people & to try to create a ‘pure’ Aryan race.  One of the sad things for me though, is that it’s still going on today; maybe on a smaller scale, but we still see racism, homophobia, sexism and all of the other human hatreds happening in the world today.  To some extent, it seems that we haven’t learned anything from the horrors of the past …

I wonder how many of the Nazi officers truly believed in what they were doing and how many of them were coerced into behaving the way that they did.  This is another aspect of the Holocaust that interests me.  As humans, research shows that we do have a tendency to follow those in authority and to behave in the same way as those around us.  I wonder how many of the Nazi officers found themselves in this position.  Maybe not agreeing with what they were doing, but feeling pressured into ‘having’ to do it so as to please their superiors and fit in with their comrades?  I guess that for their own survival, they felt they had no choice. To some extent, my heart goes out to those people too.  I wonder how their experience changed them?  And how did they rationalise what they had been involved in when it was all over? How, for the rest of their lives, did they live with their memories of the things they’d witnessed and carried out?

My guide at Auschwitz was telling us that there are probably many Officers’ diaries still buried at Auschwitz.  In the future, I think these will have informative experiences to tell.  Out of respect for those still living who experienced the Holocaust and for their children and grandchildren, the diaries are not yet being uncovered.

So to get back to my original question; my motivation for visiting Auschwitz was to try to comprehend the atrocities that happened there and across Europe during the Second World War.  For me, being in a place like Auschwitz helps me feel closer to the experience.   To fully understand things, I have a deep need to experience them for myself; I feel I can’t fully comprehend anything until I have.  Now I know that I can never personally experience what happened in, and around Auschwitz (and nor would I want to), but for me, by being there, I felt a closer connection to it and to everyone whose lives had led them there.  Touching the walls of the barracks and the bunk beds, touched by the hands of thousands of victims helped me feel closer to them …

Some people I’ve spoken to have viewed visiting Auschwitz as being voyeuristic.  Others have talked about the disrespect of turning it into a tourist attraction.  I think that for some people it maybe is these things.  The guide told us that some of the barracks have had to be closed to the general public due to graffiti. For me, the people who choose to disfigure any monument are showing disrespect and I disagree with their actions.  However, I also see that for some people, the graffiti may be their way of expressing their feelings towards what happened.  I also suspect that some of the graffiti was carved / written by people not fully understanding the depth of feeling that others would experience and maybe their naïve way of adding their own mark to history.  I don’t condone any such actions and whilst I was in Auschwitz I didn’t even want to take any photos of myself or the person I visited with.  For me, that somehow would have felt disrespectful, and moving towards treating the place as a tourist attraction rather than the monument I think I see it as.

And the issue of taking photographs have also provoked a number of comments.  I took a lot of photos whilst I was there.  I took photos of everything that had meaning to me.  And again, I can see how this could be viewed as voyeuristic.  But I’m glad I took my photos.  I couldn’t take everything in whilst I was there.  Looking at my photos, as I have done many times since I got back, is helping me process both my experience of visiting and my ongoing struggle with comprehending.  I’m a very visual person.  I’ve always loved photos.  And when I look back at photos I don’t just see the images; I feel the atmosphere and the feelings being experienced when the photo was taken.  And what I’ve found especially strange with some of my photos is the eeriness and bleakness that are visible in them.  Despite it being the 26^th October when I visited, it was an unusually hot and sunny day (22c) with blue skies.  

This photo to the right has had not filters or effects added; it’s just as I took it …

When I look at my photos, I 'see' and 'hear' the prisoners in a way in which I didn't in pictures before I visited.

The guide told us that the majority of Auschwitz survivors, when asked, will say that when they were liberated, they wanted the camps to be destroyed.  However, they’re all now glad that they weren’t and that they still exist as a reminder of what happened there. 

In my next entry, I’m going to try and put into words my experience of being there …