Majdanek

Before we went to Majdanek, we were in Krakow for a day and night. We saw the grand synagogues the Jews had built, we saw the remnants of the ghetto wall that look like rows of tombstones. It was raining the whole time we were in Krakow. We went to a really nicely done, small museum about the Jews of Krakow. "It would be a treachery to those who lived here to remember only their deaths and not their lives." So we learned about their lives.

Majdanek.

"You'll have to read these things for yourself. I don't feel comfortable saying them out loud." -Shlomo, our tour guide

The smell here is making me feel sick. It doesn't remind me of track meets or grass. It is very misty and dark. Crows are everywhere, caw-cawing ominously.

Majdanek is within the city of Lublin. Houses built after the war border up against the Majdanek barbed wire. Apartments a few blocks away overlook the entire camp.

People saw what was going on here! What were they thinking!

Now the sun is filtering through the humid air. It makes the place look like a Hollywood movie--the only things clearly in focus are those directly in front of you.

This barrack is filled entirely with shoes. No one is speaking.

This is a stable for 54 horses. But they made 500 humans sleep here.

There was a reserve general who gave his soldiers a choice. If someone didn't want to partake in the murder, he didn't have to.

Along with that general, only one soldier chose not to participate.

It smells like barbecue in the crematorium. The ovens have large openings for burning the maximum number of bodies possible.

"May our fate be your warning." on the monument that houses the pile of ashes

Every window of every apartment I can see right now has a clear view of this pile of ashes.

Can "how?" be an emotion? It is not sadness nor anger which I am feeling today. Bewilderment is close, I suppose. I walk with my arms at my side and my palms facing forward asking, How?