Genocide Tourism

Tastefully there were no "I Survived Auschwitz... And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" but some people just had to document the entire experience on camera.

While not as harrowing as I had imagined, the barracks at Auschwitz, and the eerie acres of destroyed bunkers and gas chambers at Birkenau was a moving experience. Birkenau more so because while it was largely destroyed, the area inside the razor wire is still visible at it hauntingly underscores the scope of the Nazi's atrocities.

There's not too much you can say about a day spent perusing the aftermath of evil, but a highlight, if you could call it that, was the cell where St. Maximilian Colbe spent his last weeks.

Finally, perhaps, it is worth remembering that while UNESCO and the Polish Government maintain the site as a reminder to ensure that "this kind of thing never happens again", it continues to happen around the world. In Rwanda, in the former Yugoslavia, in East Timor, in The Sudan and so it goes.

The other thing I took away was the sheer and absolute cowardice of the Nazis. When they realised that they would be overrun they destroyed the gas chambers which only emphasises how thoroughly they understood the crimes they were engaged in.