On June 16th, we visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum. The hours traveling gave us time to reflect about our expectations. I thought about scenes of movies or facts I learned in History class about Holocaust. Little did I know the difference it would make to see reality compared to reading about it in history books.
When we met with our tour guide and began the walk into the camp, everything changed. Each building was charged with more tragedy than the last. Some rooms contained information, pictures about how everything began, the Nazi mindset, the initial taste of affliction. The next ones contained personal objects: shoes, clothes, brushes, even hair. I was seeing an object which belonged to a person just like you and me. I imagined the medical experiments right in front of me. It was definitely a strong learning experience. Though the remembrance of such a horrible crime scene can be impacting and somewhat depressing, it is important that the concentration camps remain in place as museums symbolizing the consequences of extremism and racism. As Italian director, Roberto Benigni said, the Holocaust, “belongs to everybody in the world. It is a part of humanity.”
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