“With the progressive dawn, the outlines of an immense camp became visible: long stretches of several rows of barbed wire fences; watch tower; search lights; and long columns of ragged human figures, grey in the greyness of dawn, trekking along the straight desolate roads, to what destination we did not know” (23).

Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

I take no pictures, save at the gate and even then I don’t capture the infamous words.  To do so somehow seems disrespectful, wrong.  There are some around me, snapping selfies, smiling awkwardly for the camera.  You wonder: what could be so wrong to not see how wrong that is.  This has to be a sacred place.

On some of the bunks in Birkenau people have placed flowers, now dried.  No one moves them.

Take a deep breath and you will die quickly.