The Ashes at Auschwitz: On science, evil, and the ethical geography of knowledge

 There is a place, in southern Poland, where the soil itself seems reluctant to speak.

Auschwitz.

Not a place of ancient ruins or faded myths, but a modern geography of horror—built with precision, efficiency, and an appalling rationality.
The trains arrived on time.
The schedules were meticulous.
The math was correct.

It is here that I bring you, because if we are to speak of science, of reason, of progress—then we must also speak of this.

Because it is here that science, stripped of human value, became mechanized murder.

The same chemistry that gave us synthetic fertilizers also gave us Zyklon B.
The same logistics that optimized factories enabled death camps to operate at industrial scale.
The same statistical thinking that helps geographers measure poverty and development also measured the "efficiency" of genocide.

And that is the lesson we cannot turn from.

Science is not a thing apart.
It is not a neutral tool, floating above human affairs.

It is a product of our choices, shaped by our values, used in service of our geographies—whether to map healing, or to build fences, camps, borders.

I stood once, knee-deep in the pond at Auschwitz, where the ashes of murdered men, women, and children were poured after cremation.
And I reached down, and let the dark earth fall through my hands.

This is not metaphor.
This is not allegory.
This is geography.

This is what happens when knowledge is divorced from compassion.

When intellect forgets humility.
When people become data.
When maps become mechanisms for removal instead of inclusion.

Geography, at its best, helps us understand each other—how people live, where they belong, what shapes their lives.

But geography, when abused, can become the most dangerous science of all.
It can be used to define who is in and who is out.
Who is home, and who is foreign.
Who is worthy, and who is disposable.

The gas chambers were built not in spite of modern knowledge, but through it.

That is why we must never pretend that intelligence alone is enough.

There is no science without ethics.
No map without responsibility.
And no progress without remembrance.

Comments

  1. David Tyler Rand-McKayJuly 9, 2025 at 5:16 PM

    JUST ONE MINUTE:

    The gas chambers were built by engineers.

    The trains ran on time.

    The numbers were accurate.

    Auschwitz was not medieval brutality.
    It was modern science—without ethics.

    Geography made it possible.
    Railways. Borders. Census maps.

    This was not a failure of knowledge.
    It was knowledge, weaponized.

    That’s the lesson:
    If we build systems without asking who they serve—
    we risk rebuilding the same horror in cleaner, quieter ways.

    And calling it progress.

    ReplyDelete

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