Holocaust Lecturer Finds Mark of Nazis’ ‘Rising Ambitions’ at Birkenau death camp

Paul Jaskot, Professor of History of Art and Architecture at DePaul University with an image of the Bauhaus, a German art school that operated from 1919 to 1933. (DePaul University/Jeff Carrion)

Professor Paul Jaskot, who teaches history of art and architecture at DePaul University, became riveted by a mere seam in a brick wall.

That seam, in the guard house at Birkenau in Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz-Birkenau network of concentration and death camps, was Jaskot’s focus as he delivered Stetson’s 10th anniversary Bernard Weiner Memorial Holocaust Lecture on Thursday night, April 6.

“We are so familiar with this building that we don’t really see it anymore,” Jaskot said before a standing-room-only audience in Rinker Auditorium at the Lynn Business Center.

As Jaskot delivered his lecture, titled “The Architecture of the Holocaust,” he referred to photos of the Birkenau guard house, Auschwitz architectural plans and maps, and a picture of survivor Bela Korn that were projected on the auditorium’s large video screen.

That guard house “appears on the covers of books, in films such as ‘Schindler’s List’ and, of course, it’s referenced in many survivor testimonies,” said Jaskot, Ph.D. “We see it as the symbolic form it is. We think of this building as about genocide, not as about architecture . . . But I want to shift our attention from the symbolic form of the building and bring as back to the moment it was constructed.

The S.S. Guard House, (Death Gate), stands in Birkenau, Poland.
The S.S. Guard House, (Death Gate), stands in Birkenau, Poland. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi death camp and refers to the network of Nazi concentration and labor camps near Oswiecim, Poland. Historians estimate 2.1 million to 4 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered there.

“Let’s zoom in on a detail that disrupts our attention – a seam in the brickwork. Once one sees it, it’s hard not to notice it over and over again in photos of the building. That’s been hiding in plain sight. The seam is a mark of the building as process, a building that is not static.”

That seam indicates the adding of a new wing to the building and “the rising ambitions of the SS at this moment of 1943,” added Jaskot, whose several books include “The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy” (London: Routledge, 2000).

“It also is a trace of the lives and actions of Jewish forced laborers, some of whom survived,” Jaskot said. “I think of evidence like that trace as a way of marking and recalling important aspects of their experience. We cannot lose sight of the fact that the building represents the actions of victims as well. It is a sign of their oppression, or occasionally their acts of survival.”

Paul Jaskot
DePaul Professor Paul Jaskot speaks at the Weiner Holocaust Memorial Lecture on Thursday night, April 6.

Stetson student Noah Katz, during his introduction of Jaskot, noted that “the architecture of the Holocaust itself has often been a source of contention. Holocaust deniers such as David Irving have purported things like there were no holes in the ceiling of gas chambers at Auschwitz, and they use these claims to support their contention that the Holocaust never happened. It is through the work of historians such as Dr. Jaskot that we are able to challenge these unfounded, unsupported claims. Without historians such as Dr. Jaskot, the legacy of the victims of the Holocaust would go undefended and history itself would go ignored.”

As part of opening activities, Rabbi Barry Altman of Temple Beth-El in Ormond Beach led the assembly in the Mourner’s Kaddiah, a prayer recited in memory of the dead, and in the lighting of a yahrzeit candle, a “light of memorial.”

“The tradition is we light this light on the anniversary of the death of our loved ones, family members and friends,” Rabbi Altman said. “But when we come together, we must be cognizant of those who have no one to say these prayers for them. These are the people who lie in nameless graves. So, tonight we remember them.”

Rabbi Barry Altman
Rabbi Barry Altman, an adjunct professor at Stetson, spoke to the crowd and led a prayer for victims of the Holocaust.

Speaking in Hebrew, Altman then prayed for the victims of Nazi death camps and mass killing sites, while a young woman spoke in English the names of those sites, including Auschwitz, Babi Yar, Dachau and others.

Stetson President Wendy D. Libby, Ph.D., welcomed the audience by noting, “I think this is the largest attendance I’ve ever seen at this lecture series.”

She said she and her husband had recently watched a documentary about students “trying to unearth the chambers at Treblinka,” the Nazi extermination camp.

“The students found plans of how the camp was laid out and tiles with Jewish stars on them,” Libby said. “Watching those curious students and their faculties trying to understand how the camp was laid out was so fascinating. Take what you learn tonight because something might happen 20 or 30 years from now and what you learn will help you understand what you see.”

Wendy Libby
Stetson President Wendy B. Libby said Thursday night’s crowd was the largest that she has seen at the annual lecture series.

The Weiner Lecture Series was founded by Dr. Sy Weiner of DeLand to honor the life and work of his late brother Bernard Weiner. Bernard Weiner was a leader in developing Holocaust curricula for New York state schools and was one of the founders of the Rockland Center for Holocaust Studies, now the Holocaust Museum and Study Center, in Spring Valley, N.Y. The Bernard Weiner Lectures are presented annually to explore a variety of issues related to the Holocaust.

— Rick de Yampert