JUNE 7, 2009 — Piles of shoes several feet high filled a glassed-in room. Next to it was another room filled with eyeglasses. Then I saw the room filled with human hair—clumps of hair and even long braided hair which had been shaved off of women destined for the gas chambers. Despite the fact that it was over 50 years old, the braid looked freshly cut. Coming face-to-face with the remnants of horror and mass murder is life changing. The camp commandant at Auschwitz testified at the Nuremberg Trials that up to 3 million people died there. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has revised this figure to 1.1 million.
My 1997 visit to the Nazis’ largest death camp in southern Poland is still fresh in my mind after more than 12 years. The memories came rushing back after hearing of news reports of President Obama’s June 5 visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEn3Ip3tz5s]Buchenwald is a place “where people were deemed inhuman because of their differences,” Obama said. “These sights have not lost their horror with the passage of time.” Even though more than 50 years have passed, he said, “our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished. I will not forget what I have seen here today.”
The main gate at the Auschwitz death camp
He’s right. My experience left me with the same feeling. I left changed forever after seeing the ovens that the Nazis used to cremate the remains and erase their crimes. It was almost surreal to walk under Auschwitz’s iron gate crowned with the infamous motto “Arbeit macht frei” — work brings freedom — an obvious lie … and everyone involved knew it.
There are no words to describe the horror of standing in a place where millions of innocent human lives were so callously extinguished. It’s important that the world never forget the holocaust in order that it may never happen again. Civilized human beings should never permit the wholesale slaughter of a race of people under any circumstances.
If you’ve ever stood in front of an abortion mill and recognized what goes on inside, the feeling of horror is no different than that of visiting a Nazi death camp. There’s no question that the Nazis were good at killing. The abortion industry, however, has perfected it. Their efficiency would have left even the most hardened Nazi in awe. Hitler himself would be proud. Every state in the union has “clinics” where women can come to have their child exterminated. There were over 1 million abortions in the U.S. last year — 50 million dead since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the new holocaust in 1973.
Since taking office in January, Obama has consistently made pro-abortion appointments to key administration positions like the head of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. One of his first acts was to reverse the Mexico City Policy, sending millions of dollars to fund abortions overseas. Obama issued an executive order on Jan. 22 reversing the Bush administration policy that bans the use of federal dollars by non-governmental organizations that discuss or provide abortions outside of the United States.
Life is good. Really good.
Interestingly, despite his popularity, Obama has shown himself to be incredibly out of touch with the American public. A spate of polls in May revealed that the majority of Americans are against abortion on demand. A Gallup poll, conducted from May 7-10, found that about 51% of Americans call themselves “pro-life” and 42% “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking that question in 1995.
If this trend continues, it’s conceivable that within my lifetime, a future president of the United States will make a pilgrimage at a former abortion mill, lay a wreath and echo Obama’s very words: “I will not forget what I have seen here today. These sights have not lost their horror over time.”
Let’s hope. And let’s pray that this comes to pass.
Patrick Novecosky is the founder and editor of The Praetorium.
