Auschwitz

Today’s post will be sombre, short and hopefully a little thought provoking on current world affairs. Hayley and I visited the Auschwitz complex of concentration and extermination camps, about 40km west of Krakow, Poland. It is the most depressing place imaginable.

Approximately 1,300,000 people arrived at Auschwitz’s gates from 1940-1945. 700,000 people never even spent a night on the cold hard bunks – it was directly from train to gas chamber. Only 7,000 were liberated by the Soviets in 1945. You can still feel the evil wash across the grounds and buildings here.

It is easy to look back at World War II with hindsight and see the red flags popping up throughout the 1930’s that may have indicated just how evil Hitler and the Nazis were and what they planned to do. Hitler and the Nazi’s were elected democratically to power, and the red flags were there all along – low tolerance for those of other religious or political backgrounds, violence as a means to solve problems and a populist push to elevate the German state to its ‘rightful place’ at the top of the totem pole.

How many of these red flags are we seeing today? We are seeing low (to no) tolerance for people being displaced out of the Syrian and neighbouring conflicts. We see large amounts of anti-Islamic sentiment in the mainstream and social media. We have encouragement of violence at political rallies (Yes - looking squarely at you, Trump). Even in a well-functioning democracy - it only takes a small minority to scare the vast majority into compliance…

So, what is all this doing on a travel blog? Well I believe travelling makes you tolerant. You meet people, you see how they live, you try their food, sleep in their houses, discuss their politics, drink their booze, admire their architecture and their landscapes and you begin to create human connections. Travel breeds tolerance, and tolerance is the vaccine to violence.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz

Auschwitz