As fate would have it, I went to Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Poland on 9/11/11. The day where everyone all over the world was remembering and reflecting on Wars. Television broadcasts from all over the world spent most of their time talking and discussing the effects of the attack in New York. They were also talking about the wars that is going on today all over the world.
Birkenau was the most disturbing in part due to it’s massive size. (281 acres). To remember the lives lost and forever changed, is how I felt today. I also thought about how quickly the Vietnam war came less than 20 years later with it’s own atrocities to mankind. That word sounds so strange today… Man – Kind. It seems man can be anything but kind looking back today. The amount of human suffering is unimaginable. But we, as responsible human beings must force ourselves to see the useable. To remember: “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again”
Most of the lower pictures are from Birkenau, not Auschwitz the more famous of the two camps. The guide said the Auschwitz was like a hotel compared to Birkenau. I could not take a picture that captured the vast operation the German Army had devised to bring in and process these 100’s of 1000’s of people like cattle.
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