Oświęcim is located outside of Krakow. It was the site of a Nazi Concentration-Extermination Camp. Over 1.1 million people, 1 million Jews, died there. The Caylor-Browns spent the afternoon of July 5, 2019 in this hallowed and somber locale in the Polish countryside. In 2019, you would… wait, what? You’ve never heard of this Nazi camp? Wait a second. Do I have the correct place? Well, yes, I do …. I guess perhaps you don’t know that the German Nazis enjoyed changing names of places as mental subjugation to those they conquered. It’s to subdue people into forgetting who they were. It was a way of erasing their existence: art, music, history, literature, the name of a town, their language …. You name it. Oświęcim is the Polish name for Auschwitz. The German Nazis renamed Oświęcim to Auschwitz.

I have to divide up The Caylor-Brown Polish Experience 2019 into two parts. It’s the best way to do Auschwitz and the importance of memorials justice.

Birkenau Extermination Camp July 5, 2019

Several countries, Russia, Austria, and Germany (Nazis) have tried to erase Poland from the world: Literally. When people do this, they eradicate art (sculptures, STATUES), literature, music, and language. They wish to ERASE your identity …. your heritage. While we were at the Schindler Museum I took a photo of a photo where Nazis were toppling a provincial / national Polish statue attempting to erase history. Folks, since the dawn of civilization, groups have done unnecessary sometimes horrific atrocities. No person, city, state, nation, or empire is blameless. That doesn’t mean we erase the art, literature, and heritage from the past. Madame Marie Curie was born in Warsaw. Her birth home is now a museum which we toured. Poland / Warsaw was under the rule of the Russian Empire. When she was born in Warsaw in 1867, it was AGAINST THE LAW for her to read or write in Polish: Her family’s native language! How ridiculous , right? Who wants to erase languages in 2020? Y’all this rhetoric of deleting history and the social upheaval is happening right now here in 2020 in the United States. My birth-town, Dalton, Georgia is fighting to keep a statue of Confederate General Johnston who saved Dalton from being burned to the ground by General Sherman from being moved. As with the Nazis, appeasement is never the answer. It leads to removal/eradication.

Nazis remove history in Krakow.

General Johnston’s statue in Dalton, GA

However, we know it’s just not in Dalton. It’s all around this country. We are the UNITED States of America, yet, since 2008, there has been an unfortunate movement to divide us. Get rid of George Washington, Elihu Yale, Christopher Columbus, Cervantes (once a slave to the Turks), Robert E. Lee!  Once again, a group of people trying to change/control another group of people to give up their existence isn’t new.

Allow me to use a one-sided,  abridged yet TRUTHFUL (proven time after time in history) monologue of how groups of people have controlled people during the past 100 years.  I could use Russians to Poles in 1800, but that is too distant from my understanding. However, I am using 20^th Century Poland and the Nazis in Europe.  I have listened to and researched primary sources who lived through the Nazi time:  my grandparents, my Nanny who saw actual photographs of people wheeling the bodies of exterminated Jews in wheel barrows, I walked through Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, I actually heard live and in person, Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s step sister, tell of the atrocities of Nazi extermination camps, I have trod the grounds of the infamous Auschwitz, and I have read the stories of Polish people from Warsaw, Gdansk, and Krakow Poland who experienced the horrors of intended extinction.

Nazis to Jews & yes, the Polish people as well:

You are not worth anything. You are the reason for our problems. We are better than you. You need to bow down to us. Everything you have erected as a group of people must be taken down. Surrender your armaments. You need to surrender your businesses. You need to surrender your riches. You need to surrender your freedom. You need to surrender your homes. We will provide you a home in certain areas. You try to escape from this area and you will be killed. We are taking you from this guarded area to a place where you can live at peace (a lie… concentration / extermination camps)…

FINAL INTENT: 
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