About Auschwitz and other human "qualities"

The best way to hide is to be everywhere, but still do not spend too much time in any place, you do not want to be recognized, known or denounced.

I saw again The reader last night. (I started to watch too many movies for more than once, even if I don't like this thing. I even had a rule not to lose my time re-reading a book or re-watching a movie). Nothing happened differently. It was the same movie. Don't laugh, I know that it should be like that. What I want to say is that I didn't observe anything new. That's the first sign that the movie is not so good.

But still it's a hard movie that struggles with morality, law, love and drama and which does not allow you to make any final and unique decision. If you had to sacrifice the movie for the well-being of each character, then you would have changed the script for every single main character. Maybe this could happen with any movie, but I believe that this issue is more obvious for this movie than for any other movie I saw until now. As a movie-watcher, I wanted, more than ever, to be able to use only one angle, one point of view in understanding the story... for my emotional comfort. Anyway, in the end I chose to leave out the individual story and the law and to support the morality and the well-being of the human society.

Moreover, I cannot lie and I cannot hide my "admiration" for the Germans involved in the camps work: they were very well organized, their work was high-quality, and they were focused and firm on their objectives. This admiration appeared in my mind during my visit to Auschwitz from last autumn and I felt guilty for it. But we are able to learn so many things about the Nazi camps, because these "workers" had all these "qualities" I mentioned. At the same time, I was and I am terrified to find out how these "qualities" were used for the efficiency of a killing-people industry.

The lessons I learned from the movie and from my visit: life is not "white" or "black", it is real and most of the time it is "gray"; most of the victims or SS men survived in these camps because of the "pink" moments from their lives - moments crowded in a small painted tea caddy hidden from everyone. Nobody could be trusted. Victims or guards are your enemy, just because they might value their live and their painted tea caddy more than you or your friendship/"strong" relationship.

The Nazi camps only made these "characteristics" of mediocre human beings more obvious. This non-entity, this mediocre human being would have had a simple answer - "I would have done the same" - to the SS man's question "what would you have done if you had been in my place?". How many of us can say that in similar conditions we would have reacted in a moral way and we would have refused to obey the authority or our survival instincts? How many of us would have resisted to our survival instincts, when, now, we cannot resist to other instincts/hormones which are easier to manage? How many of us would have resisted to physical or psychological torture? How many of us would have resisted starvation? How many of us would have not wished for our death? 10%? Would you be one of these 10%?

I will quote one of the movie character: the Nazi camps were not Universities where people learned how to survive. From these camps nothing can come out, says the victim, and I will add that only pain comes out from the camps. This pain washes everything inside you and then leaves you empty.

I went to Auschwitz by coincidence and thanks to one of my dear friend. I entered in the camp late in the evening. It was raining and I was carrying a small bag through the rain water. It was dreary. I slept in one of the ex-offices of the SS men and I was afraid to open the window and to observes the barracks during the night. Then I realized that there is a lot of pain and I was studying a killing-people machine. I wanted to learn how to survive and I only succeeded to forget completely about me and my dear family and friends for three days. The camp is full with stories and pain. You cannot get more than that, and that is more than enough. You cannot learn how to survive and you cannot find yourself and learn how you would have reacted if you had been a victim or a SS guard.