The Gates of Hell

Today I stood in the place where millions unknowingly arrived to the site of their demise. Personally, I connect through analogies and imagination so I did the following: I picked a beautiful purple flower and pressed it in my journal. I not only did this to preserve a memory, but to force myself to remember although that this was a place of death, first this was a place of life. This horrible place is a place for the living to be reminded to never have to open up another memorial museum for a mass genocide cite.

One of the most awestrucking and horrifying details about the camps that hit me was all of the ravens circling above the rows of cement and brick buildings. In the novella, The Ancient Mariner an old man shoots an Albatross to end its freedom; I can now connect to his hatred of the bird. I imagine how much the prisoners must have hated those birds because of their pure freedom. They non-stop caw at everything and soar in the sky and eat bugs to fill their stomachs that never go hungry. I can picture someone standing there looking up at them and wishing to die so that they can become one and join them; so that they can have their position of power: untouchable and angelic over a satanic world. 

In my discoveries and learnings in one of the buildings I saw the famous exhibit of all of the shoes; all of the colorful, hand-woven leather shoes throw into a pile without a care for the stories behind them. I could see in my mind a bright eyes beautiful little girl stepping off the train after her horrendous seven day journey being told she had to go to the showers. She is told she has to remove and leave her shoes behind; the shoes that her mother bought her for her birthday, her beautiful and special shoes that represent her, the only thing that sets her apart from the darkness around her. Of course none of this would matter in a half an hour for she would no longer exist, a lost number in a pile of millions. 

One of the last many powerful moments I felt was an exhibit show casing the drawings of children in the camps. The were put onto walls and their voices were playing in the background noise. I saw two drawings that stood out to me from the rest. There was a little king and a little queen with tears coming down their faces. I can see a little girl or boy who will never get to know a childhood drawing their hopes and dreams. That a king or powerful man would feel for them, cry for them. Feel something. Perhaps they are the king, or hope to be, and they are crying for all those who needed empathy, and for all of those that they lost. Sadly we will never know. 

I tried to touch every pole, every rail, every dusty corner so that I could feel the blood and tears of all those who are gone. Although I cannot heal or feel their sorrows, I do hear their cries. 

How does it feel to be a man feeling powerless to a cawing bird in the sky?