Protestors Slaughter Lamb in Bizarre Auschwitz Stunt

Memorials matter. Shrines, statues, and monuments celebrate courage, lament tragedy, and force onlookers to internalize the fact that many freedoms we enjoy today were purchased with our ancestors’ blood, sweat, and tears. Auschwitz-Birkenau, a closed German Nazi concentration camp, is perhaps the world’s most well-known memorial.

We cannot fully understand Auschwitz’s importance without knowing its history. Adolph Hitler’s Nazi government ultimately slaughtered close to six million European Jews. Devoid of one ounce of contrition, Nazi policemen initially corralled several thousands of these hungry, poor, sick, and disabled victims into cramped railroad cars bound for Auschwitz. Auschwitz guards added insult to injury by telling prisoners that they could earn their freedom if they worked hard enough.    

This promise was a lie. Nearly one million Jews died at the concentration camp because of starvation, incineration, or poisoning between 1940 and 1945. Fortunately, Russian forces promptly closed Auschwitz after invading Germany in 1945.

No army, navy, or air force, however, could erase or ameliorate the immense pain and suffering that Auschwitz’s victims endured. Today, the concentration camp is more than a collection of old and rusty buildings. It is a constant and glaring reminder of man’s potential to embrace evil and divisiveness. Someone who disrespects this sacred site not only disrespects the graves of millions of innocent victims but also, trivializes their struggle against religious persecution.      

Apparently, this lesson was lost on eleven protestors who were recently arrested by Polish policemen. The group composed of seven men and four women slaughtered a lamb in front of one of Auschwitz’s main gates, proceeded to remove their clothes, and chained themselves together to protest Russia’s military activities in the Ukraine. 

Sickeningly, several group members were released last Saturday. However, the man who killed the lamb will face additional charges for violating one of Poland’s animal protection laws.

People should be allowed to protest in peace. But perhaps the Polish should punish criminals who disrespect genocide memorials as severely as they punish part-time farmers who kill livestock.