Finding Hope in Hell

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and I thought I'd share thoughts and my photography from Auschwitz.

A few years ago I was visiting my team in Poland. I was working at Google for Susan Wojcicki at the time and had various teams around the world. One was in Krakow and they were building some AI systems that helped us optimize Ad spending of small to medium sized customers of Google's AdWords Product.

A short ride outside of the city is a tiny village named Oświęcim, a place that is today synonymous with Auschwitz concentration camp. It was a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

I took the trip out to the area and it had a profound impact on me. I've since read many books and watched lots of documentaries. In particular, the survivor and personal histories are incredible and tragic.

When you visit in person you are struck by the immensity, the symmetry, and the heavy feeling that it is a horrible and dark place of extreme sadness for humanity. I couldn't help but personify the experience and think about my own family. What would I be telling by youngest daughter? How would I explain it to my son?

Beyond the personal feelings, I had broader thoughts about the world. This place is a reflection of what we are capable of as a species. We can do horrible things to our own kind and are certainly capable of repeating them in the future.

I remember texting my wife and saying, "this is literally the saddest place in the world." Families like mine would have walked down this path lined with electrified fences.

On either side were the remaining chimneys of the barracks that were woefully over filled with prisoners who were being worked to death, stacked four across and three high.

The only thing left of the people are their decaying belongings. It's very sad to see the things people took with them to the camps. The museum displays these items in large piles...thousands of pots and pans...thousands of eye glasses. It's shocking and makes it very personal. Shoes, glasses, clothing, luggage, cheese graters, ... everything that people arriving considered a necessity to take with them.

Along with the horrible, I also saw the humanity shining through. Visitors have left thousands of small tributes everywhere within this massive cemetery. A tiny token to say, "I was here and I want to pay my respects to the people who died here."

Literally everywhere, there are tokens, flowers, candles, messages...

There was also hope.

On the day I visited, there was barely a person in sight, but I did manage to get behind a group of middle school children on a tour. I stood at the end of one of the barracks and heard the echo of the professor telling the history. The children were listening very carefully and asking questions. My hope is that they will grow up and will continue this cycle with the next generation, and will tell their children about the importance of remembering.

More about the author: patrickcopeland.org