OŚWIȨCIM, Poland — Łukasz, a Polish man who was our group’s English-speaking tour guide at Auschwitz, on April 7 asked us while we were standing outside one of Auschwitz I’s barracks why the Nazis systematically murdered more than 6 million Jewish people.

“Once they are gone, Germany will be great again,” he said, referring to the Nazis’s depraved justification.

There were other Americans in our group of about 40 people. I would like to think they are familiar with the dehumanizing MAGA rhetoric to which our country has become accustomed since President Joe Biden’s predecessor announced his White House bid in 2015. The fact that I was at a Nazi concentration camp was simply overwhelming, and I didn’t feel like speaking with them or to anyone else at that moment.

The unspeakable horrors that happened at Auschwitz are on full display. Łukasz’s comment was a stark warning to us all amid the backdrop of the current socio-political realities in which we in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere around the world currently live.

• Suitcases, glasses, shoes, kitchen utensils, prosthetic limbs, baskets, Jewish prayer shawls, and toothbrushes that were taken from people upon their arrival at Auschwitz were on display in Auschwitz I’s Block 5. One exhibit also contains children’s clothes.

• Auschwitz I’s Blocks 6 and 7 had pictures of male and female prisoners along the corridors. They contained their birthdays, the day they arrived at the camp and when they died. Block 7 also had mattresses and bunk beds on which prisoners slept and the sinks and latrines they used.

• The basement of Auschwitz I’s Block 11 had cells in which prisoners were placed in the dark and starved to death. The basement also had cells in which prisoners were forced to stand for long periods of time. Executions took place at the “Death Wall” in the courtyard between Block 10 and 11. Guards also tortured prisoners in this area.

• Medical experiments took place in Block 10.

• A gas chamber is located near Auschwitz I’s entrance with the gate that reads “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work sets you free.” The adjacent crematorium contains a replica of the furnaces used to burn human bodies.

• An urn with human ashes is in Auschwitz I’s Block 4. Hair cut from people who were killed in the gas chamber was also there.

Auschwitz I, a former Polish army barracks, is one of 40 camps and subcamps around Oświęcim, a town that is roughly 30 miles west of Kraków, Poland’s second-largest city, that became known to the world as Auschwitz. Upwards of 90 percent of the 1.1 million people killed at Auschwitz died at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which is roughly 1 1/2 miles northwest of Auschwitz I in the village of Brzezinka (Birkenau in German), and more than 90 percent of those murdered upon their arrival were Jewish.

The ruins of two crematoria the Nazis blew up before the Soviets liberated the camp in January 1945 are there. (A group of Israelis were praying in front of them while our group was there.) A train car used to bring people to the camp was also there, along with some of the barracks in which those who were not immediately killed in the gas chambers lived.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau’s sheer size is incomprehensible.

The Nazis killed 6 million Jewish people in the Holocaust. They also murdered gay men, Poles, Roma, Sinti and millions of other people from across Europe.

The day I visited Auschwitz marked six months since Hamas launched its surprise attack against Israel. 

More than 1,400 people — including 260 people who Hamas militants murdered at the Nova music festival in Re’im, a kibbutz that is a few miles from the Gaza Strip — have died in Israel since Oct. 7, 2023. The subsequent war has left more than 30,000 Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled enclave dead, and millions more struggling to survive. Oct. 7 was the deadliest attack against Jewish people since the Holocaust. That unfortunate coincidence of dates — Oct. 7 and April 7 — was not lost on me while I was at Auschwitz. 

Another striking thing is the area in which the camps are located.

The train from Kraków to Oświęcim passes through idyllic countryside with green meadows, flowering trees and freshly tilled fields. Purple lilacs — like those that bloom each spring on the trees in my mother’s backyard in New Hampshire — were in full bloom inside Auschwitz I. Grass and dandelions were growing amid the remains of Auschwitz II-Birkenau’s barracks. Birds were chirping. The weather was also unseasonably warm with temperatures well over 80 degrees and a cloudless sky.

All of it was beyond surreal.

I visited Auschwitz while on assignment for the Washington Blade in Poland. I interviewed gay Deputy Polish Justice Minister Krzysztof Śmiszek in Warsaw and sat down with activists in the Polish capital and Kraków to talk about the country’s new government and the continued plight of LGBTQ refugees from Ukraine and other countries. My trip began in Budapest, Hungary, and ended in Berlin. I did not write this piece until I on my flight back to D.C. on Tuesday because I could not properly articulate my thoughts about what I saw at Auschwitz.

Governments, politicians, political candidates, and parties in the U.S. and around the world have used specific groups of people to advance a particular agenda, to blame them for what is wrong in their particular country and/or to deflect blame from their own failures. The Nazis and what they did to Jewish people and anyone else they deemed inferior is the most grotesque example of what can happen if such actions are not stopped.

Łukasz told us outside of one of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau barracks at the end of our tour that the world “isn’t that much different today.” He also said that we are “witnesses.”

“It’s up to you how you react to it,” said Łukasz.

Let’s hope we all do our part to make sure the atrocities that happened at Auschwitz never happen again.

(Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part feature on open relationships.)

Boy meets boy. Boy likes boy. 

For the first time in a long time, boy feels that thing, that connection, that spark with boy. 

Then one day boy grabs dinner with boy. Boy’s smiles and laughs throughout are equal parts sincere and excited. Boy wonders, is this the one? After all this time, has it finally happened? 

Boy takes boy home. Boys cuddle. Boys kiss. Boys have amazing sex. And in the glowing aftermath of what can only be described as a perfect night, boy spots an unnoticed ring. 

“What’s that?” boy asks. 

“My wedding ring,” the other replies. “I thought you knew.” 

When I returned to D.C. in 2016, I quickly received a lecture on why open relationships were the future of queer love. Nearly eight years later, they’ve more than just sprouted among the gay scene – they’ve overtaken the landscape. Simultaneously, what became the swinging couple’s dream descended into the hopeless romantic’s nightmare. 

It’s not all so bad given what comes with it: a lot of sex, particularly with hotties who were off-limits before. However, alongside that sex comes a minefield of rules and regulations open couples create but horny singles must abide by. One wrong move, and you’re the villain. 

Truthfully, I’ve soiree’d with open couples before, both separate and together. On the bad end, things get awkward – particularly between me and the other partner. On the good end, I might come home satisfied, but the moment I hop on my couch to watch rerun television, I realize I’m back to where I started: alone. 

If you’re like me and not yet onboard with an open relationship, it’s also easy to feel like a fish out of water. Queer social outings can sometimes become a Swinging 70’s Redux, with partners passed around like gay dishes at a potluck. Next up: ass, and lots of it. 

This leads to another issue: in a scene full of open couples, detached sex is more than just accepted – it’s often expected. The moment you let emotional attachment enter the equation, you lose. Now even the singles are trained to run away, for your attachment may prevent them from jumping onto – or into – the next in their queue. And I can’t even get upset, for I’ve been that guy before. 

For all these reasons, I wanted to dive further into the rise of open relationships. All I needed was someone in an open relationship willing to speak on the matter.

“That’s easy,” quipped my coworker, Chad. “Just open Grindr.” 

Chad and I met working at the pub, and under similar circumstances; he lost his day job a few months after me losing mine. We quickly found solace in our shared circumstance, and now he and I hang in the kitchen of a gay bar divulging details of our sex lives and pining to meet the man of our dreams. 

And Chad wasn’t wrong, for these days Grindr is chockfull of profiles in open relationships looking to play. Yet it turned out I wouldn’t need Grindr, for at that moment, in pranced our fellow coworker, Scott. 

There’s no better way to describe Scott than this: They’re a bundle of positivity and joy. Oddly, I didn’t meet Scott at the bar but rather at a coffee shop in Petworth in 2018, where they were my regular barista. Little did I know we’d work together half a decade later. Life is funny that way, isn’t it? 

Outside the bar, Scott is an actor in productions across the DMV. Naturally, they became my biggest inspiration for abandoning my career for the arts. Following a bar shift last summer we smoked a blunt and talked about it. They taught me to tune out the noise and follow my heart. 

Together, Chad and Scott became my newfound support system. In a way we’re like the Three Musketeers – equally gay, just a lot more working class.

Of course, as soon as Scott entered, I had to ask: “Are you and your partner open?” 

Scott smiled coyly. “Oh yes, honey.” 

So as fate had it, here in the kitchen of a gay bar, I had both ends of the open/closed spectrum represented. On one side Chad, a self-proclaimed romantic seeking monogamy; on the other, the fully open Scott. 

While there were many takeaways from our conversations on the matter, I distilled six truths in the debate between open and closed relationships. But please, take these with a grain of salt – I am just a barback, after all.   

1. Monogamy is rooted in tradition.

For many of us, gay or straight, finding our one and only was a dream of our youth. Mine was supposed to be Colby Donaldson from season 2 of the hit TV show “Survivor,” but life had other plans. 

Yet many never dissect where this desire stems from. Our culture is inundated with stories of princesses rescued by their prince and true love’s kiss setting us free. There seemed to be a script we had to follow, and if we didn’t, no worries – God would simply banish us to hell. 

This is a common starting point for both the monogamist and the open connoisseur. When I asked Chad what drew him toward monogamy, he replied, “Honestly, it was how I was raised: settle down, have kids, and carry on the family name. I didn’t have any non-traditional role models.” 

Meanwhile, Scott’s past reservations toward open relationships were for similar reasons. “When I was younger, I was not pro-open relationship,” they told me. “I didn’t understand the intricacies of it. I didn’t understand the nuances of it. I also grew up in a very conservative, Catholic household.” 

Both responses touch on a key argument in the pro-open saga: that closed relationships are often reflections of tradition, ranging from folklore to religion, and these traditions held queer people back for centuries. If queer means subverting these traditions, then monogamy is simply outdated. Or so they say.  

1. The desire to be open is biological.  

Over time, Scott’s views on being open changed. “As I matured and grew into my queerness,” they started, “and saw friends with alternative lifestyles, I realized this is something I could be interested in.”

In Scott’s relationship, this led to an understanding of the core needs for them and their partner. “I knew my partner’s libido was higher than mine. For me, it came from a desire to allow my partner to experience something I wasn’t able to fulfill fully. I personally get a lot of pleasure knowing my partner can go out, meet people, and make connections, knowing at the end of the day we will be each other’s number one priority and person.” 

Scott’s libido reference made me wonder: are open relationships taking off across the LGBTQ community, or specifically among sex-obsessed gay men? Realizing this conversation should probably be more inclusive, I made an arduous journey east – roughly 150 feet, to the front entrance. 

Kelsey is a hot badass who works the door of the bar. She’s stylish, a fellow Aires like myself, and I once told Chad I thought she was Fabulous with a capital F. I realized then I’m getting gayer by the minute. 

While Kelsey is currently in a closed relationship, she enlightened me to the status among lesbians. “It’s about 50/50 with the ones I know,” she replied. Honestly, this surprised me, mainly because I figured men were the ones dicking around.  

Kelsey has also been in open relationships before, and she isn’t exactly closed to that route again. “I don’t think people were made for one person for the rest of their life,” she added. This reflected what Scott shared as well: “The human body craves sex to different degrees, and as you get older those degrees wax and wane.” 

To me, both statements highlight that the desire to be with others sexually is natural for many, so caging that desire can feel confining. As queer people, we can all relate to that. 

Next week: Part two looks at finding the right reasons for pursuing an open relationship.

Jake Stewart is a D.C.-based writer and barback.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an embarrassment to his family, and to so many others like me who supported his father and uncle. He uses his last name to try to gain credibility and that is sad. 

His real claim to fame is being an anti-vaxxer and lying about what impact vaccinations will have on the health of the American people. Were it up to him, and God forbid he had been president during the COVID-19 pandemic, millions more Americans would have died. Because of his dangerous lies, many more will die of diseases once nearly eradicated, like measles. 

Listening to RFK Jr. is difficult because of his voice. The cause of that is Spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological condition, in which an abnormality in the brain’s neural network results in involuntary spasms of the muscles that open or close the vocal cords. He has said, “I feel sorry for the people who have to listen to me.” I am also sorry for people who listen to him, but not because of his disability. I am sorry for those who listen to him because of the garbage he spouts when he speaks. He is actually a man with dangerous ideas, and one whose outsized ego could end up getting us Donald Trump as president. 

Kennedy is an environmental lawyer who recently made the bizarre statement, “Biden is a ‘much worse’ threat to democracy than Trump.” Like Trump, Kennedy is forever making statements like that and then trying to weasel out of them like he has with this one. The statement reminded me of when Susan Sarandon said in 2016, “there is no significant difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.” 

Kennedy recently sent out a campaign email saying the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill rioters were simply “activists.” Then when the blowback got too strong, he blamed that on someone else.  Kennedy is a lawyer with no real government or foreign policy experience. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to matter to many Americans, even though Trump clearly proved it should. We live in an often dangerous, and very complicated, world. A president has to deal with issues that could mean life or death, such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. 

Like Trump, RFK Jr. is on his third wife. His current wife is the talented actress, Cheryl Hines. When asked whether she agrees with his views Hines said, “there are some political topics she differs on with her husband, which she did not disclose.” She did mention one and referenced “the time Kennedy, made a comparison to the Holocaust while delivering a speech at a rally against vaccine mandates. She assured her Twitter followers she found the comparison ‘reprehensible.’ We can all agree it was reprehensible but so is much of what RFK Jr. says.

Kennedy recently named Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. Her ex-husband is Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google. She is a California lawyer involved in the tech field. It looks like she bought her way onto the ticket donating millions of dollars, including $4 million, toward the Super Bowl ad Kennedy produced. He will use her money to help get him on ballots across the nation. As of  April 10th Kennedy is already on the ballot in Utah, and his campaign has gathered the necessary signatures to be on the ballot in New Hampshire, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina and Idaho, according to a recent campaign news release.

If he gets on swing state ballots, it heightens his chance of being a spoiler. The reality of this was touted by one of his staffers who when talking to a group of Republicans about the campaign in New York, said “The only way that Trump can even see the remote possibility of taking New York is if Bobby is on the ballot. If it’s Trump vs. Biden, Biden wins. Biden wins six days, seven days a week. With Bobby in the mix, anything can happen. How do we block Biden from winning the presidency? Again, that’s the number one priority for me.” 

After the blowback, Kennedy said she didn’t speak for the campaign and let her go. But in reality, when looking at who to choose as my candidate I look at the people he/she surrounds themselves with. Who is advising them? I guess for Kennedy it doesn’t really matter since he won’t be elected. But it is time people like Kennedy stop trying to fool the American people into thinking they could win.  

He will simply get the political epitaph ‘Spoiler’ if Trump wins. No one will remember him for anything else. Let’s pray, and work hard, to see that doesn’t happen.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.