Auschwitz-Berkenau - Monday, May 22

Today we visited Aushwitz-Berkenau. Ann posted some of her thoughts and pictures and I wanted to add a few of my own as well.

I have never visited a death camp before and the experience was almost overwhelming. Since we have been in Poland, I have read a book about the Holocaust, Night by Ellie Weisel, and watched a movie about the Warsaw Ghetto, The Pianist. Both the book and the movie were quite emotional for me and I was already thinking a lot about the events that took place at Auschwitz. The feelings I felt there were very thick and dense. I was also most affected by the hair, eyeglasses, suitcases and prosthetic limbs left behind from those who were killed in the camps.

Walking around Birkenau was also amazing to me. The buildings they lived in there were much more primitive than at Auschwitz I and we were there on a warm day. It is very discouraging to think that people have been and can be so closed-minded and full of hatred.