Shades of Grey

It isn't the greatest month to battle depressing visual stereotypes in Oswiecim. March is grey. It's cold, with precipitation that constitutes neither rain or snow. Misty at times. But more than anything, grey. When the sky is grey, pavement is grey, and many buildings are grey, it starts seeping into everything within your sight. And soon, grass and even bubblegum-colored buildings look grey. The color can be stunning, breathtaking. Personally, I love grey. Cameras love grey. Life can be seen in shades of grey (quite literally in photography). But it can also be abused, exploited. It can be used specifically for its drudgery and emotional strain, it's drama or lack-thereof (depending on how you look at it). The notion of using color for drama in photography is common, but black and white and greys have a special place.

Oswiecim could be considered synonymous with grey right now, in many more ways than one. Visually, I have to make a conscious effort not to use the colors of March as a crutch, not to overdramatize the symbolism and irony of it. In modern culture -or maybe it's always been- grey has come to mean grief, depression, despair. Words that for a number of years truly did define this city, in every way. But today, Oswiecim is much more complicated. The complex struggle for identity is far from black-and-white, and very...well, grey.

For those who might not know, Oswiecim is the Polish name for a city which, before World War II, had a population of around 14,000, more than half of which were Jews. It was a city of relative peace for Poles and Jews for several centuries until the 1939 Nazi invasion, when history was scarred with the notoriety of the city's German name: Auschwitz. Not long after, the infamous death camp was built just a few miles from the center, forever leaving this place with a legacy it never asked for. More than one million people were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a number that's incomprehensible in most senses of the human brain. In a country that served as ground zero for the Nazi's Final Solution, Auschwitz more than any other name holds the full weight of that horror. Most infamous of all the concentration camps, it stirs an instant connotation of darkness, genocide, and the worst atrocities history has witnessed from humans.

A mere handful of Oswiecim's Jews survived the war. Of the many ethnic Poles from the city who were sent as political prisoners to the camp, few also survived. Many locals who weren't sent to the camp were forced to leave (or fled) as the Nazis made Oswiecim their home, and a shining example of "a perfect German town." Though relatively few people were left after the war, the city today is home to about 40,000 people, many of whom came in search of work during Poland's impoverished, post-war, 40-year communist rule. The city's chemical factory, built by slave labor during the war as an industrial money-maker for the Third Reich, was significantly expanded during the Soviet sphere of influence. It grew to employ about 10,000 people, creating one of the few and by far largest work opportunities in the region during communist times. Even a few of the 200 or so Jews who made their way back to Oswiecim after the war, having no place else to go but "home" (as was the case with many), settled for employment in the factory.

The city today has a messy identity conflict. The question of whether Oswiecim can, or even should, exist without association to Auschwitz is a debatable one, and is sensitive to more than just the residents. Living in the shadow of the camp inevitably invites criticism from the outside world over what people's relationship with it should be, and discussion about what ethical barriers there are around a place of such grave historical importance. Initially, a natural reaction from people outside Poland seems to be bewilderment that anyone would choose to live next to the world's largest graveyard. But I think this is overestimating the use of the word "choose." What is a reasonable level of sensitivity here? And do the residents respect it enough? What is "enough?" It seems to me that in many ways the residents of Oswiecim face a similar question as the Jewish population around the world: how do you find the balance between remembering the atrocities of the past, while not allowing your existence to be defined solely by them? How do you move forward with good grace and strength to show that you refuse to be a victim, while respecting and educating about the ways you have been victimized? Will it ever be possible for Oswiecim to exist without the identity of "the place where Auschwitz was built?" For better or worse, I don't know if it's possible. So the struggle is how to coexist. And perhaps more pressing, why is it important to?

Questions like these never have black-and-white answers. They are only the surface of discussion. Which means that even as the dreariness of March passes, and the first green buds of spring push toward the light from the depths of the soil, Oswiecim remains, possibly forever, in a state of grey.