Majdanak Concentration Camp.
I’ve read dozens of books and seen hundreds of images of gas chambers and crematoria. I knew they existed, but, until today, I knew like I knew Jupiter existed – no experience, just certainty.
I’ve now stood under those shower heads, saw the room full of Zyclon B canisters, looked through the windows the guards used. I looked at a row of ovens used to turn people to dust and seen the smokestack though which they escaped the world. Now I KNOW, and I’m afraid I can never go back.
The tributes fall so far short. Nothing can excuse tearing up the stones from the Jewish cemetery to make roads designed to make it easier to kill more Jews. Only the enormous mound of human ashes fits. Everything else is inadequate.
Before this trip I was a universe unto myself, and, someday, I may be again. Today I feel small.