Where Do You Even Start…

I think I would have thrown-up…

I sit here in a state of wanting to cry, but no tears will come…

It really did happen. The pictures make it real for me. Then the narrative Elie Wiesel can provide on the whole Holocaust experience just puts you in awe.

I just finished watching my recorded Oprah episode from Wednesday, and it brings about the above statements…

I want to take a quick second to explain the importance I see behind the Oprah show. I have been heckled for my faithful taping and watching of the Oprah show, but I see it no worse than those who will skip out on friend gatherings to get home in time to see Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, or The Office. I don’t mind the heckling one bit, because what I remind myself is the awareness I have gained over my coming up on two years worth of dedication to this show. The light Oprah’s show sheds on life experiences that either we many times have no idea is going on in the world around us, sometimes even in our own backyards, or the situations in life that we many times are unaware that we are not alone in experiencing in life—these are the episodes which can change a person from that day on. Because as Oprah many times has said, “Once you’ve seen it, you can’t say you don’t know it is going on.”

Please understand, it is not Oprah herself that draws me to her shows. Matter of fact, I often give her very minimal credit for her show, as I think it is her writers and producers and other such people, who are BRILLIANT! The types of shows she has on day-after-day are 85-90% of the time very eye-opening. It is seldom that I will find myself fast-forwarding through an episode, and those typically only for the occasional diet episode, or guest clothes designer who is on having a modeling shoot on stage, or the sometimes celebrities that she might have on that I have no interest in. But most of the times she deals with topics that are so real and in your face that you leave the episode under a new sense of awareness that you hadn’t had some 45 to 60 minutes earlier. This was Wednesday’s episode’s case…

I knew it was coming. I saw it on the Oprah website. I was anticipating this episode. I informed a buddy of mine of its coming. It was a special episode. Sponsored specifically by AT&T wireless to bring an episode with minimal commercials simply because of the magnitude of the episode…

…it was a walk into the life of a Holocaust survivor’s story. Elie Wiesel’s story. A Nobel Peace Prize winning story. The current Oprah’s Book Club book choice: “Night” by Elie Wiesel himself. And though I haven’t read the book, I can direct you here for some insight into it, but I can also tell you this, that from the quotes from it that were used in this episode, it must be a powerful book (as if the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize it achieved does not say enough). The episode its self was with Oprah walking arm-in-arm with Elie Wiesel on the grounds of the very concentration camp, Auschwitz camp, where he lived the hellish life of a 15 year old Jewish boy some 60 years ago brought to the camp to die as so many millions of other Jews were taken.

I watched this episode at first in a sense of, “yes this happened, and yes it is sad” to later finding myself in a state of “my gosh, what could that even have been like?”

When I finished watching it, I went to the shower. I thought I could think about it. Cry if needed. Think some more. Ponder the thoughts I collected while watching it.

I couldn’t cry. I don’t know why, but I get like this many times. But what I did notice was the titles of three songs that played on my iPod as I showered. I found their titles right on for the situation…

“I Can Only Imagine” (by Mercy Me), followed by “On Fire” (by Switchfoot), and then “Unbelievable” (by Kaci Brown).

That sums up a lot of the episode.

As one watching you “can only imagine.” Not only were there people “on fire” in the harsh death factories dying by cremation, but there were people “on fire” for Hitler. People “on fire” for a cause—started by Hitler. It’s just “unbelievable”…

…to the point that we “don’t want to believe it,” as Wiesel said. For his own state of being, while in the camp, he would not allow himself to “believe it.” You just couldn’t do that…

…or you’d go insane.

This episode had so many pictures. It was the pictures that really made it all real for me. Seeing the young children. Babies. Mere infants. In their mother’s arms as they waiting in lines for “showers.” Those being showers of gas, in one of the several gas chambers.

Wiesel said many times they didn’t know. They were told they were in line for a shower. But sometimes they knew. That’s what hits me. When you know…

…dear gracious. I think I would have thrown-up with the initial thought. When you know your death is impending and inevitable, where do your thoughts even begin? Where do you even start?

Since I am under the impression that many of my readers are not Oprah watchers, I’ll try a Grey’s Anatomy reference from one of the couple episodes I’ve basically been “forced” to watch (this is because I believe most everyone but myself and one other I recently discovered, is obsessed with this show). I believe it was the train wreak episode. And a younger lady and an older gentleman had been brought into the hospital following the wreak, as they were stuck together with a long pole of some sort that was from the wreckage that had been lodged through the two of them, more specifically through their stomach areas, making them “attached.” Both individuals were conscious and apparently not in states of pain due to the specific injury, but both knew the situation was serious.

The doctors were aware that the likelihood of saving both individuals was minimal and due to the injury, the chances were better for the gentleman. As they explained the situation to the two individuals involved they began to realize the outlook of the state. The lady became aware of her fate. And as most good ole television shows do, the character handled it quite well. Acting as if she understood and she wanted the best for the gentleman and so on and so forth. But I watched it and thought, “Dear God, what goes through your mind at that moment?!?!”

It brings tears to my eyes right now thinking back on it. When you are faced with death—your OWN death and you are in a state of cognitive awareness, what can you possibly think about?!?!

How do you look at pictures of thousands and thousands of women and children and elderly lined up for “showers” and not think, “My gosh?!!?” It’s the mothers cradling their babies in their arms that hits you in your heart.

It all takes me back to my recent post on how Can One Be Human and do something like this to another human being?! This thought reoccurred in my mind over and over as I watched the Oprah episode and as Elie Wiesel frequently visited that thought too. The idea of humans killing other humans in such mass numbers; it just seems so inhuman.

I suppose deep down I have theories. I can come up with theories as to how some humans are capable of such behaviors, but those of course are just that—theories. They are my thoughts. But it is the pictures and the memoirs though, that make the deaths of the Holocaust more than just “thoughts” for people like you and me. It really did happen…

…and I am in awe.