"But it did happen.."

Approaching Birkenau

Outside Auschwitz

Part of my last holiday involved a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camps. It was a really difficult day and the stories we heard were mainly horrific yet extremely powerful. It's one thing to read about what happened but to be walking along the paths that the prisoners/victims walked along and to enter the buildings where they were living, was a totally mind-bending experience. In one of the buildings in Auschwitz, there is a hallway with hundreds of photos along either side of it of all of the people who were "booked" into the place. To stand in that hallway and look at their faces, into their eyes was truly startling. It made it seem so much more real.

It makes me wonder how something so horrible could happen? How could people do such horrible things to other people? How could they justify their actions, even to themselves? Did they lie awake at night toying with their consciences or were they so far gone? And where was the rest of the world? How could this have gone on for so long? How could this have happened? Dark questions...

It's a horrible part of history and it's difficult to process it all but it is part of history and it did happen. What can we do but find ways to deal with it, and make sure that our future does not repeat our past.