A Hard Day: Auschwitz

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On a cool grey Polish summer day we went to Auschwitz and nearby Birkenau-Auschwitz ll concentration camps. These are names that for all our lives have been associated with horror and cruelty: humanity’s capability of inhumanity.
We went first to Birkenau, where all is left just as it was with very little change, except for some ruined buildings that must have fallen over time. The sheer size of this camp took our breath away. We entered one or two of the accommodation blocks which are open to allow people to see the living conditions of those who suffered here. We walked and we looked, trying to grasp the reality of what we saw. Everywhere in this huge camp there were people also walking and looking, mostly in silence, witnesses to this horror. In the midst of the evidence of such suffering, it seemed to us a positive thing that a constant stream of people continues to come to this place. Like us, they no doubt struggle to comprehend how such evil could have occurred.
At Auschwitz we continued the journey, completing a day we had dreaded, still trying to grapple with the enormity of what we had seen and of events that must never be forgotten.

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