Photos

No fear, I have not forgotten that I am not yet done with posting my journal entries. I hope to have another one in the next night or two. However, to tie you over, I thought I would just post some photos.

The track at Gleis 17 in Berlin that the cattle cars came in and out of the station, on. This strip of track is now a memorial for the 55,000 Jews deported from Berlin

The museum in the Wannsee Villa had fabulous exhibits including many maps, like this, which shows the percentage of the population that was Jewish in each European country.

The day we visited Auschwitz was oddly pretty; clear sky, green grass, and birds chirping. It's a beautiful place which made it hard to believe such horror took place there.

The exhibits within the barracks at Auschwitz were also fantastic. I was very interested in this one, on the tattoos and numbering system of the prisoners and Jews sent to Auschwitz. I was also unaware that this camp was the only one that tattooed people.

This is inside the gas chamber at Majdanek Exermination Camp. The blue and green spots are where the Zyklon-B has seeped into the walls. Ironically, the company that produced this gas for mass killings is still running today, and produces the chemical sprayed on the 2,711 concrete slabs in Berlin so spray paint will not stick and the memorial can't be vandalized.

This memorial, in the middle of the grounds at Majdanek, was an act of resistance. Several artists from within the camp were asked to make this monument, with eagles on top. They risked their lives to steal ash from the crematorium, which they buried underneath, to commemorate those who had already passed and left the camp.

Inside the crematorium at Majdanek. To the right of where I was standing there was a large bathtub. The commander of the crematorium used the heat from the ovens to heat the water for his daily bath. I'll refrain from using the adjectives I would like to when describing this man.

Inside the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw. The cemetery, prewar, was left alone during the war, but half of it was inside the ghetto, half was on the Aryan side. All documents regarding the Jews buried here were destroyed. Seen here is our tour guide, Michael, showing us a sewage tunnel that people used to escape - going down on the ghetto side, and coming up on the Aryan side.

At Treblinka. 900,000 people were murdered here and they are commemorated with 17,000 stones - some displaying the names of countries and communities they came from. A Soviet monument towers over them.

The black area in the foreground shows where bodies were burned - what remains is charred bone and wood. The stones of commemoration are seen in the background (Treblinka).

"Keep your head up, but your heart higher." - Devin Heroux, MRH 2011 participant.