Wed 27th – Thurs 28th Aug
I've been sitting here trying to think about what to write that could possibly do justice to the millions of people who lost their lives, or irretrievably lost their faith in mankind in this place.
I could write pages and pages about what I learned at Auschwitz – Birkenau and how the image of a young 13-year old girl with her head shaved and tears in her eyes will never leave my memory. Or how the 40,000 kg of human hair piled along the floor, entire buildings filled with shoes, and stacks of baby clothes made me and others start crying in the middle of the tour. Or how the ponds next to the crematoriums still have human bones visible amongst the piled ashes of those who were sent to the gas chambers.
This plaque is placed at the end of the rail tracks, between two of the crematoriums and gas chambers. There is one written in every language of the people who were murdered here.
It was no longer just some story I'd read about in History class. While walking through the hundreds of stone and wooden barracks, reading about the atrocities committed here and witnessing the evidence of such large scale “assembly line” mass murder, I just kept repeating in my head, “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”
Rail tracks at Birkenau that led to the gas chambers
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