I put a lot of time in my Auschwitz project. Too much time perhaps. I have a fascination for everything that is related to world war II. I guess this fascination grew because I live in the Netherlands, where our grandparents experienced the war at first hand. Also, right outside the town where I live is a huge bunker that was used by the Germans to tap British radio messages and relay them to Berlin. Back then it was called Hoeve Birkenhof, and today Herenboerderij de bunker. So it was in our face already as a kid growing up here, since we used to play around there, when we played war as kids. Nowadays an escape room is located in the building, where you can experience an escape during the days of WWII.
At school during history lessons the world war was a often returning subject. I even remember that we went to see Schindler’s List with our whole class including our teachers. That made quite the impact on many of us. So… I have always known about the “final solution“. A monstrous thing in Germany’s recent history that will hopefully never happen again. Nevertheless, a very interesting period in our time, for a variety of reasons. But mostly, hopefully, for future generations to learn lessons from.
I decided to replicate the infamous concentration camp out of interest. And so I performed some research on it. I’ve read Wikipedia pages, watched at many old photographs from that period, and I used Google Earth to see what is left of the camp nowadays. I really dove in to the subject, even far beyond what was required to build the replica. Like I mentioned, I was already fully aware of the things that had happened, but it had never before fully gotten through to me as it did recently. I guess this has a lot to do with myself since I’m older now, and perhaps even more mature. When I saw how large the camp was, and I’m talking about Auschwitz II of course, it really sank in with me. It hit me emotionally even. Even though thinking about it makes me sad, it still occupied my brain for quite some time.
Here in the Netherlands we have annual celebrations that are related to the war. We remember the dead, and we celebrate our freedom. During these days you’ll hear people say: “We have to keep remembering this, we can never forget what happened. Future generations must understand what happened”. Having heard this a gazillion times already I had grown tired of hearing it. But now I have decided that I’m fully behind this statement, and I might even mention it myself in the future.
I decided to write a post on the subject in case people might think that I built the replica out of endorsement or something. That is obviously not the case. I built it out of interest for our recent past, nothing more. We should never forget!
