Page 51 - Contrast1997
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small brick building outside of the main          thing is possib e. ,ut then again, what would
square. As I entered it the eerie white walls     the German govemment have to gain from
caused me to shudder. I entered a room la-        lying? They are already embarrassed. Em-
beled ~BRAUSEBAD," a word I shall never           barrassed, such a light word. I think that it
forget. I was told that it means shower or bath.  would l>ave been seen as wasteful for the
The room I entered looked much like a large       Nazis to build anything they wouldn't use.
shower room one might see at the gym .: The       Their gas showers are no exception. I think
main difference was the large vents in the front  they used that shower, and often.
of th room designed for the sole purpose 0
expelling the toxic gas used in 6.as eradica         Next to the showers are the crematorium
tions of what the Nazis deemed vermin. ~          oyens. A convenient location for the Nazis,
                                                  or rather whomever they forced to lug the

Arbeit Macht Frei                                 Ray Walker

sign in the front of the room proclaimed that     bodies into the ovens. I'm sure they didn't
this room had never been used to gas people.      want to dirty their hands with the filth of ver-
A feeling of thankfulness fell over me. This      min. How can I describe to you the horror of
 eeling was shart lived. As my group and I        these barbaric devices? They are the exact
exited the bull ing we encountered an old         size they rieed to be to fit a human body in-
man. His face was deeply wrinkled and his         side. A reddish metal, with a stretcher like
skin covered with liver spots. He told us he      device that slides in and out. This is the most
had been an inmate of this Hell on Earth. He      heinous use of metal I have ever seen. When
further told us that the showers had been         you look at these machines you can almost
used, used fervently in the last few days be-     see the evil that it took to cremate them em-
fore the camp was liberated. What do I be-        bedded in their metallic hulls.
lieve? I don't know. What would this man
have to gain from lying? More pity, if such a        A majority of the compound was gravel.
                                                  Long expanses of gravel covered the ground

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