Lakota elders bear witness at Holocaust death camp in Poland

Renee Iron Hawk (Tituwan Oohenumpa) first heard years ago about annual “Bearing Witness” retreats at the infamous Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. She instantly felt a “calling” to attend.

In November 2022, Renee and her husband, Manny Iron Hawk (Titunwan Okowozu), of Red Scaffold SD on the Cheyenne River Reservation were among 35-40 participants who spent four days at the death camp located in what was German-occupied Poland during World War II. They were the only Native Americans who attended the retreat, but they felt a strong connection with other retreatants from all over the world.

Both Iron Hawks say that several months after returning from the retreat, they are still processing the experience, reflecting on all that they saw, heard, and felt on what Manny described as “a spiritual journey.”

According to the website of the sponsoring organization, Zen Peacemakers (zenpeacemakers.org), Bearing Witness Retreats take place in locations where deep human trauma occurred and where healing is endlessly needed. The gatherings are open to all, multi-faith, and multinational in character.

The Iron Hawks have been affiliated with Zen Peacemakers for almost a decade. Since 2015, Zen Peacemakers have held annual events in the Black Hills to bear witness to the traumas and tragedies of Indigenous peoples in the area. Past Black Hills events include the Bearing Witness retreat in 2015 which drew 180 participants, the intimate members-led Plunge in 2016 on Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (CRST) Reservation, and the dual programs in 2017 of a Week of Service on CRST and the Bearing Witness Plunge in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

When a Lakota delegation from South Dakota traveled to Barre, Massachusetts, in November 2022 to receive sacred belongings repatriated back to the tribe, a local group of Zen Peacemakers there helped to pay travel expenses of the delegation and attended the ceremony in Barre in solidarity.

Members of Zen Peacemakers and guests have been returning to Auschwitz every year since 1996 to bear witness to oneness in the place that became a symbol of humanity’s potential for cruelty, xenophobia, and intolerance for diversity.

According to Renee, bearing witness means “we look at something and we don’t look away. We listen.”  According to the Zen Peacemakers website, “To bear witness to both the joy and the suffering of the world is to have a strong glimpse into the truth that all people are, indeed, one body.”

Manny sees many parallels between the history of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Wounded Knee. “Trauma is trauma,” he said.

Nazis determined to exterminate all Jews were greatly influenced by official U.S. policies and laws designed to remove Indians from the path of American expansion. These policies led to attempted extermination and forced assimilation of Indigenous Americans, to Indigenous peoples being confined to reservations, and to federal policies to confiscate many of those reservations.

Auschwitz consisted of three camps including a killing center which were opened over the course of nearly two years from 1940 to 1942. People sent there were sent either to work or to die in the gas chambers. Of the 1.3 million mostly Jewish people sent there, 1.1 million died.  Those not gassed immediately on arrival died of starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during so-called medical experiments.

At the 2022 Bearing Witness retreat at Auschwitz, most of each day was spent sitting by the train tracks at Birkenau, both in silence and in chanting the names of the dead. Participants walked through the vast camps and held vigils and memorial services inside the barracks. Senior Spirit Holders were always available if needed.

On arriving for the first day of the retreat, each participant received a bowl with instructions to take care of it and keep up with it. Each day at lunchtime they received soup and bread. If anyone lost or broke their bowl, they did not receive any soup for the remainder of the retreat, reflecting the practice at the death camps.

Retreatants who received no lunch could look forward to dinner and breakfast at the off-site lodging facility where they slept. For the captives at Auschwitz, no bowl meant no soup until they starved to death.

Participants met daily in small Council groups, created to provide a place for people to share their inner experiences. In these groups, Manny talked about the genocide of the Native American people in the United States. Others listened and bore witness.

As the retreatants walked through the children’s barracks, Renee noticed large gaps where the walls did not reach the roof so that cold wind blew in. The children had no blankets and no heat. “It was bad,” she said.

Both Manny and Renee were deeply touched by large glass cases filled with clothes and shoes of children who were killed in the gas chambers. Manny asks rhetorically, “Why are children’s clothes and shoes on display? …How will the children make their journey?” He continued, “In our Lakota way, children are the sacred ones. We should always show them kindness and compassion.”

Manny said the crematorium was very hard to see. “You could imagine yourself being there.”

He noticed that busloads of school children and their teachers arrived to tour the death camps and learn about the history there. He says, “This (kind of education) should happen in the U.S. (in places like Wounded Knee).”

Manny and Renee both say that the overall experience was “hard mentally and physically.” Renee says that at times she had to dissociate herself temporarily to protect herself from being overwhelmed by emotion.

As challenging as this journey was for them, both Manny and Renee responded quickly when asked, “Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?” They both answer emphatically, “Yes – to find peace with relatives all over the world.”

The Iron Hawks are now planning a 9-day trip to Costa Rica in beginning February 17, 2023, where they will meet with leaders of six Indigenous tribes. In all their travels and activities, they say, “We can help make the world a better place.”

The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Author Seymour Joseph wrote this poem in 1955, after his visit to Auschwitz:

This ground has kept its secret.

As a sheet covers a corpse so time and grass

have conspired to mask the crimes committed here.

The earthen mouth that devoured the dead

is now green-blanketed with daisy patches.

Yet we know. We know from the rusting

barbed wire fences, the squalid barracks,

the brick wall chipped with bulletholes,

the showers, the ovens, a mountain of shoes:

men’s shoes, women’s shoes, children’s shoes,

work shoes, dress shoes, black, brown, white,

worn and new.

 

Outside the flowers and sweetened breeze

belie what went before.

 

Our guide, older than his years, when bidding us goodbye

his eyes welled up with tears

and through his quivering lips he said,

“No more of this, no more.”

 

 

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