Auschwitz and Birkenau

Today was hard. Harder than the previous days have been. And, I thoughts words were incapable before today in expressing my emotions, but today.... today, is a different story.
Early this morning, we got onto our bus and made our way to Auschwitz. The day looked hazy as we headed away from the hotel, and the wind had a distinct crispness to it that you could feel drafting into the bus ever so slightly. The Polish countryside continued to amaze me in its rolling hills of beauty.
And, then we saw it-- from a distance... All I could make out was a perimeter of barbed wire and some symmetrically aligned buildings. In front of the entrance to Auschwitz, however, was a small house. This house is located on the street that Auschwitz is on and is not a part of Auschwitz. There was a front garden that had a variety of colorful plants and trees and the vibrancy of orange, purple, and maple colored flowers only confused my mind as I witnessed life in a place that I knew contained so much death.
The rain began to fall as we entered into a main building and were seated in a small theater to watch a 12 minute video of actual footage taken at Auschwitz. Piles of bodies, numbers etched in skin, starvation, mutilation, pain, suffering, and dare I say it-- hope?? Hope on the faces of those that had just been liberated. Hope for humanity-- is that even possible?
When we left the main building, the rain had really begun to fall-- hard at times-- misty at others-- and the wind was blowing, and howling. Atop barbed wire, a couple of birds sat, while high above them, a whole group of birds flew beyond the barbed wire and back-- free to come and go...
We went into barracks and while we walked we passed a room full of glasses (taken from prisoners), another room full of suitcases, one of shoes, another of pots and pans, and then perhaps the largest one-- the one of hair. Hair shaved off of the heads of women prisoners and used to stuff mattresses or to make different materials. While we stood by the hair, Lynne read to us a poem told from a young girl whose sister was murdered in the camps and whose hair was shaved and used to make a blanket.
After walking through the gas chambers, and crematorium, we headed back to the bus. The weather was awful. Pouring and cold-- and ever so symbolic.

Upon completing lunch on the bus, we had our name tag ceremony-- this is the ceremony where each person in our group told the rest of the group who they were marching for during our march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. We all walked for different people and causes-- For example, someone marched for victims of poverty, someone marched for her grandmother, someone marched for the victims of 9/11 and someone else for victims of genocide. Yet another marched for The Hidden Children of the Holocaust.

We ended up starting the march slightly closer to Birkenau than expected. But, the weather was awful and we needed to get to Birkenau to have our first ceremony which was Sally Wasserman's testimony....

We marched in silence-- four abreast-- and when we arrived to Birkenau, we were shocked. The size difference was huge between the two camps. And, I am so anxious to write more about Birkenau but I have barely slept and my eyes are closing-- and truly, I need to do justice to what happened next.... So, check back tomorrow-- and forgive me that I am so tired tonight.

Thanks for the comments and for your support. Until tomorrow....