My dad just returned from a business trip to Poland. When there he got the time to visit Auschwitz. I go out my old copy of 'Night' (Elie Wiesel) yesterday and re-read it.
It was June 1940 when this Nazi concentration camp started functioning with the first batch of Polish anti- Nazi political prisoners. 1942 saw the camp transform into a highly efficient killing field, with thousands upon thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, but also Poles, gypsies and Soviet war prisoners, perishing in gas chambers, shot down or just dropping down exhausted with crushing routines. More than a lakh victims, estimates from 1,10,000 to 1,50,00 died in 5 years. Just a days collection of shoes of victims formed veritable mountains...
Here are some of the sites which are keeping the Auschwitz memories alive so that the world does not see it happen again.
www.auschwitz.org.pl
www.remember.org
www.auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm
www.eliewieselfoundation.org
'Night'- by Elie Wiesel
I remember the picture of the shoe-mound...a silent reminder of the horror, the Holocaust brought about in it's wake.
ReplyDeleteNice blog..:)