Auschwitz…

…a sobering memorial to the lives lost. The family tree’s cut short. Equal parts beauty and sadness. Trees have grown over the mud, the grass is vibrant green, a far cry from the pictures hanging on the wall’s of the well preserved buildings, devastation and mud.

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Dressed in jackets and scarves, hats and gloves, the wind treated us to sub-zero temperatures, but it is still so hard to imagine a bitter winter in the death camps. How can this have been life for so many? How did the world let this happen?

I learnt that Polish villagers managed to smuggle out photos and evidence of the atrocities being committed in Auschwitz and Birkenau in 1941 but the world would not, did not, believe. It would be years before help came. Is this not being repeated throughout the world, even now? The Rohingya people of Myanmar, minority tribes throughout Africa and South America, the threat of Global Warming. Even still there are those who are not listening, will not believe.

I count myself incredibly lucky to be able to visit, to pay my respects, and to learn all I can. I don’t have much to say, and I didn’t take many photo’s. What I will do though is forever remember this experience.