ECLAIT VOYAGER : October 2016

Then God commanded - "Let there be light" - and light appeared. God was pleased with what he saw. Then he separated light from darkness to make Day and Night". Genesis 1:3

Light attracts Darkness, just as Darkness attracts Light.

Does evil only exists so that we can understand the beauty of kindness?

The Auschwitz concentration camp was one of the largest camp during the Nazi occupation, where at least 1.5m Jewish were killed, among others including prisoners of war from Soviet Union, Gypsies and other "politically unfit" citizens.

The Nazi championed "Arbeit Macht Frei" also meaning, "Labor Creates Freedom", and yet many did not live over a year. Many believed they were merely going to a work camp. The camp was strategically located at the center of Europe, making it easy for the Nazis to transport refugees to the camp. Only a few thousands managed to escape. For those who have escaped, their immediate families were captured and questioned until the escapee has been found.

The Nazis had three different projects, a systematic product line of creating birth and death. They were trying to be god.

- The Nazi Babies: Reproducing pure Aryan babies

- The Death Factory (Auschwitz)

- The Human Experimental Lab

The Nazi Babies (Lebensborn)

Apart from getting rid of the unwanted Jews, Hitler had a higher level plan of creating the "perfect babies" with pure Aryan race. Women were screened for their ancestry and given incentives to have babies with his SS soldiers. Since resources were scarce then, many women did not think that this was an improper thing to do (and they did not have to go through the social stigma as many could leave their children in the special orphanage if they wish not to take their child). About 60% of the women participated in the program were unmarried.

The Death Factory

When women and men arrived on the train to the Auschwitz concentration camp, they undergo a medical inspection to separate those who were fit and unfit for working. Women and children were usually sent immediately to the gas chamber. They were told they were going to have a "bath", where their clothings were taken off (these were then resold or reused in other ways). The Nazis had a systematic approach, where they leveraged as much of the dead bodies as possible - removing any gold tooth, jewelry. They used the deceased hair for textile, or human fat for making soap before the actual cremation.

The museum had a shocking display of hair brushes, luggages and glasses, which were kept to remind us that this is only a portion of what remained. They found at least 800 cans of unused Zyklon B (each can is about 5kg, enough to gas 2000 people).

The Human Experimental Lab

At camp 1, there was medical building where doctors went through inhuman operations to test the limits of a human body. Prisoners were operated alive without anasthetics. Many were injected with various viruses to understand the changes of a human body. After WWII, the lab was disintegrated into 6 medical companies, and one of the most well known one that still exists is Bayer.

In addition, these medical experimentation results were shared with the Japanese, where the Japanese also established a similar lab (Unit 731) in China. The doctors may try to persuade themselves that they were doing it for the love of science, yet essentially they've become a culprit to this system of cruelty.

Hitler was a painter, he had an eye for beautiful things, for perfection. Yet no one stopped him from seeing through a different lens, that perhaps his notion of perfection lacked compassion and understanding of accommodating the differences.

Looking forward, with the refugees from Syria roaming into Europe, cultural clash is unavoidable. Cultural indifference inspires fear and pompous attitudes. Discrimination instigates revolt and turbulence. Just like using a rangefinder camera, we must learn to understand the different view points, to put down our prejudice and racial pride, before we can seek social harmony.

History repeats, but it can be prevented.