Rows of brick buildings or wooden buildings seemed maybe "not so bad" until you saw inside the bunks about the size of a queen size bed and used for eight or more people. "Not so bad" until you imagine the grassy areas being only muck and mud. Not so bad until you imagine winter and almost no food and forced labor and separation from loved ones and fear...
"Not so bad" until you see the trees where the overflow of imprisoned people waited for days without shelter.
until you see the train tracks where people were unloaded like cattle or the pile of prosthetic arms and legs and feet, crutches and back braces or the portrait after portrait of shaved heads. ... until you recall the names filling the walls of the Pinkus Synagogue in Prague.
"Not so bad" until you see pits filled with ash...
They were People... Human... Men.... Women... Children... Babies
4 comments:
I don't think places like that can technically be called a tourist place. I believe people go to places like that to remember and respect and honor those people and the hardships they bore. By allowing ourselves to see that, by choosing to go there and look, and see, you are making those people more than the numbers they were assigned. You have given them the opportunity to be teachers and heroes and examples of just what it is to be a person and what it should be.
Your pictures are beautiful and sad. Your talented photography show your respect and reverence. Thanks for sharing them.
I should give credit to David who took about half of these pictures.
I think visiting these places which I too am slow to visit for same reasons, validates the existence of those who suffered and died and reminds us--perhaps harshly--that these things can happen again unless we remember.
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