What Is Appropriate To Wear To Mourn The Murdered?

Melissa Smith
Aug 9, 2017 · 12 min read

July 8 — Last night was the We Roam welcome party. This time it is laser tag. While I’m going to miss hanging out with my fellow Roamers, I was not at all interested and happily skipped. It was about all I’ve been happy about in the last 24 hours. This morning I headed out to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, now turned into a memorial and museum.

I don’t know how to dress appropriately. I know we’ll be doing a lot of walking and what is appropriate for this kind of tour is exactly what I’ll be wearing. I’ve got on comfortable walking shoes, blue jeans, a gray t-shirt, scarf and jacket (another cold and dreary day in Germany). This seems highly inappropriate to me. I would never wear this to a funeral or memorial.

Sadly, I have a funeral dress. I bought it for my father’s memorial service 14 years ago. A fitted sleeveless black dress with flared pleats that comes down to my knees, with a matching suit jacket. I’ve worn the dress to many additional funerals and memorials including my husband’s. The last time I wore it was to my girlfriend’s funeral last July. Every time I look at it I’m reminded of all those gone.

Today isn’t technically a funeral. It’s a tour. Death is like a perpetual funeral to me. Death itself is something I can understand. The finality of it isn’t what I struggle with. The circumstances are what bothers me. So few funerals I’ve attended are from old age or even someone passing away late in life. Sympathizing isn’t something I do well. I empathize and make it my own. It becomes personal and I have a hard time not thinking about it.

Me and another Roamer agreed to meet up and head to the tour location together. It’s a long day and a couple of train rides away to get to Sachsenhausen from the tour stop. We were told to bring water and food. In total we’ll be gone for six hours.

During the time we were waiting to depart and on the train we discussed work and jobs. I don’t know how to do small talk but I can always talk about business and love to hear about what others are doing as well. At this point it wasn’t nervous chatter. This was genuine because I had no clue what I was headed into.

I’ve seen photos, read stories, and watched several movies on the Holocaust. The horror stories regarding the events, murders, torture, punishments, living conditions, and so much more of the like can’t really prepare you for visiting a concentration camp. At least it didn’t with me. Until this moment I hadn’t even looked up what holocaust means. The definitions are:

  1. a sacrifice, consumed by fire
  2. a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire a nuclear holocaust
  3. a often capitalized : the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II — usually used with the Several members of her family died in the holocaust. b : a mass slaughter of people;

As soon as we were off the train and onto the street the guide told us what we were about to do, walk the very path the Jews (many Gypsies, gay and lesbians, and mentally ill were also taken) had walked. How strange. They couldn’t have possibly known what they were walking into. This was the first concentration camp. One not as horrifically known as the others, but very much instrumental. Sachsenhausen was the testing and training ground for all that would happen later. Including training the SS military leaders who would later run the camps created for mass murders.

I pretty much kept quiet. The same way you might in a funeral procession. I’m already hungry and feel guilty for eating my snack and having a smoothie which I had packed in my bag. Here I was eating and drinking on the same roads where so many came before me hungry, tired, and afraid to say the least. I rationalized my behavior as better here than on the inside.

When we arrived I saw people taking pictures by the wall and smiling. At first I thought it was very strange. What was good about this place? Then I realized maybe they are part of a family which survived this camp. This is where my empathy goes over board. Besides, it’s not unusual for people to laugh and smile at funerals and memorials. Still, there is something not quite right to me.

Our tour guide began and quickly I had so many questions for him. Like, why did he word things the way he did? For one, he kept saying this was not an extermination camp like the others. This was specifically built for working unlike the others. People weren’t murdered here. But they were! He later changed it to the intent was not to murder. Again, this was not an extermination camp.

When I was able to pull him to the side I asked why he kept saying “extermination” instead of “murder”. You exterminate mice not men. He said extermination was in fact the correct word to use because it implies the killing of many. Murder is the killing of one by definition. Technically he may be right but I still had a problem with the verbiage.

If we were speaking about one of my family members or friends I can’t imagine I would look back on the situation and describe them as being exterminated. No, I would say they were murdered.

All afternoon I would have an issue with this as it is so impersonal. Every person mattered. Each one had a name and a family, a reason to live no matter who thought differently. No one deserved to be murdered. Soon I would have bigger problems.

It was as if he wanted me to feel sorry for the SS. The war started over money problems he told us and everyone needs a scapegoat. The Jews were Hitler’s scapegoat. He even said at one point during the day “exterminating” the Jews and the like was necessary because the SS had no way to take care of over 3 million prisoners. Umm…how about letting them go?!

My history is not very good. Meaning, I can’t argue both sides. I haven’t memorized dates, leaders, armies, and wars. Most of the time I’m okay with not being able to have these conversations. In this moment I’m furious with myself because I don’t know the right things to say or questions to ask.

Every step was tragic. I felt like I was standing on someone’s grave. All the signs made sense and yet I couldn’t fathom anything. A Nazi sign at the entrance of the gate is no longer one of the originals. Neo Nazi’s keep stealing it. People are stealing it because they believe in it. Absolutely disgusting.

The stories got worse and worse. From the conditions to the mental breakdown and brutal force. I was extremely bothered watching people have picnics, eat lunch, and listen to music or be on their phones. Would it really hurt to have waited an extra hour or two? Did it have to be an event? Couldn’t they quickly just shove food in their mouths? Was I being too harsh? Maybe I’m completely missing the mark. Maybe they are doing it in some kind of rebellious, defiant act.

In one of the bunker houses we had trouble moving around and getting past one another and the other tourists. This was nowhere near the capacity of the men it used to house. Here we are bumping into each other and there is plenty of empty space. Then I saw the symbols and numbers. They were never treated as people only numbers and things.

Our tour guide would make me mad again when we were inside the museum with old photos and equipment used in torture and so forth. There was an original height measurement tool. The Soviet soldiers would lean up against the device to be measured for new uniforms. At least that is what they thought. What really happened is they were shot in the head.

In the same room were photos of prisoners working. (Is this even what you call someone held in a concentration camp? They did nothing wrong to be sentenced to worse than prison like conditions.) Our guide made it a point to have us notice the men were not emaciated like many photos show. He acknowledged many camps did allow this because they were death camps where people were sent to die. Since this was a working and experimental camps men needed to have strength.

Really? Is this really happening? Am I supposed to think these men were given adequate food to be “worked” they way they were? Yes, the tour guide did say the food was terrible but giving someone 20 minutes to get up, wash up, eat, and be out for roll call on time or be punished or even killed is not giving someone proper nutrition or time to work. These men weren’t surviving on subsistence. They were surviving on hope. A will to live.

There were only a handful of recorded suicides on record where men jumped into the electric gate. Based on my past I found it both heartbreaking and shocking. One of the prisoners was a famous Russian soldier, the son of Stalin. He was being held in a different part of the camp where the “important” prisoners were kept for trade. When Stalin refused to trade for his son they moved him into the regular part of the camp. After finding out what his father did he committed suicide.

Being a double suicide survivor this is the kind of circumstance I can understand for taking your own life. How much can one be expected to take? How much can a human bare? I hope I never find out. What I want to know is where the hope came from. The purpose of the camp (one of many horrible purposes) was to break their spirit. Have them believe they were in fact less than human. More than brainwashing. Breaking the body, mind, and spirit.

A broken man (or person) is an awful thing to see. It stretches beyond depression and even suicide. It goes beyond despair and instead causes the person to truly believe they not only deserve what life is giving them, but they were born into it. In this case the Jewish men were being broken to believe they were subhuman. Miraculously their spirit could not be broken or taken along with their bones and possessions. No, they even still had the strength to hope which so many people in much better circumstances have lost the ability to do.

The nightmares continued throughout the camp tour and each one was more shocking than the next. Photos of Soviet soldiers right before their death was incredible. How and why did these photos exist? An exhibit was going on in Berlin and they were showing what subhumans looked like. After having their photo taken (which they probably thought were for IDs) the soldiers were shot and those photos were put on display for all to see. People actually thought this was art.

My heart broke. Again. How haunting to have the last photo of your loved one labeled as a non human. It was constantly taking place without photos but to have a photo makes it stick in your head. I didn’t want to see my father or husband after they died. That isn’t the way I wanted to remember them for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t have wanted to look into their eyes and seen the pain and eyes void of hope. The eyes of these men did not show fear. They had no idea in a few short moments they would be dead. Murdered.

Entering in the death chamber was like viewing ruins. It was broken down over time and uncared for. Understandably so. The purpose of preserving is only for tourists. Well, maybe that’s not true. They could have been used in the trials. A small space to carry out so many murders. Something our guide would soon point out.

We saw the room were the murderous shootings of the thousands of Soviets would take place. One at a time. To keep them unaware opera music was playing in another room. When the SS realized it was taking way too much time they started using the gas chambers. Then to get rid of the bodies instead of burying them they burned them. I refuse to say cremated. Cremation would imply there was a funeral or ceremony. There wasn’t.

In this same area there was a statue for the memorial created by the Jewish community. It wasn’t like anything else in the camp. Who better to create than those who were persecuted? The statue was of two men carrying a dying or dead man. All men were sick in body. Unlike the healthy looking men in the photos we saw earlier, these men were visibly not well. A far, loud cry to what we had been told earlier.

The ashes of the murdered were not sacred which I’m not shocked or surprised about. What was done with them I was. The guide reminded us so much of the war was about money. You may have heard stories about fillings and teeth being removed from the Jews for the gold or silver which they would make money on later. The SS made money from the ashes as well. When someone was murdered a fake death certificate would be represented to the family and they could pay for the ashes of their loved ones. What they actually received was a jar of mixed ashes and not likely those of their loved one.

The next place to go was in the infirmary which has been changed into a historical room. There were stories, both video and written, about the men in the camp and the men who ran the “hospital”. I remember reading the notes and letters. I can see the strength in their writing and the courage through fear in their words. It was extraordinary and I cried for not having as much through far less circumstances which at best could be described as trivial.

Our final stop on the tour was where the “autopsies” took place. I felt as though I was entering hell. Everything was original I wanted to touch nothing. I was as careful as you can be, as if touching anything would have burned my skin like acid. Then I saw where the bodies were desecrated after death.

On a large white table with a shape that reminded me of an altar more unimaginable took place for the study of what makes someone subhuman. In the center was a drain for what I’m sure was the blood. We were told after the war jars of horrendous body ingredients were found. I don’t want to know what was in them.

Walking down the steps into a makeshift morgue there was a rail. Normally my first instinct is to hold onto the rail. It was the first thing I noticed as we made our way downstairs. I didn’t grab hold. Not because it was like acid to me, it would have been like holding hands with the devil himself. I did not touch it.

I was so drained and glad it was finally over. The guide, who I still both love and hate, made some profound statements. There were times on the tour I felt like he was on the right side. Then there were times I felt he was on some crazy business, logical side as if this was a business and logic ever took place. War is not a business. Other times I wanted to ask him if he had a heart or the ability to care for a single stranger as a human being and not a statistic.

Maybe I’m just over emotional about these things. Not the severity of the situation which we all agreed upon. Rather how we handle them. This young man was from Ireland. Who knows what he has seen, witnessed, been victim to and so forth. Maybe nothing. Maybe it’s youth. Maybe it’s because all his knowledge comes from the books and tours he’s taken at university. Maybe it’s because he can’t let it sink in because it would be overwhelming to him.

He let us know this awful genocide is not the norm of the human spirit. If it was no one would have come today because they would be living and breathing it every day. Instead we would have had a museum and dedication of love and compassion which is what most of the world is made up despite those who would choose to believe otherwise.

Another thing he told us are these genocides are still happening today. Rwanda is one and there are more happening as I type this. I could hear the anger in his voice. Anger is fueled by passion and passion by the love of someone or something.

On the train ride home few words were spoken with my fellow Roamer. We talked for bit on the bus and the conversation was not going well so I quickly ended it. I didn’t have the energy or strength. How sad. Learning of the details of Sachsenhausen I had nothing left. The men who lived through it had enough to survive and not lose hope.

Tonight I was supposed to go out for dinner and cocktails. Not a chance.

My end of day gratitude:

  1. I have a good life.
  2. I’ve never known such hardship nor has my family.
  3. I’m grateful for men who never lost hope.

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My Year As A “Roamer”

The daily life of a human while working and living in 12 countries in 12 months in 2017.

Melissa Smith

Written by

World traveler. Virtual Assistant Matchmaker. Remote Work Consultant. Entrepreneur. Bestselling Author. Mother. Sister. Daughter. Human. Everybody is somebody.

My Year As A “Roamer”

The daily life of a human while working and living in 12 countries in 12 months in 2017.

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