Sharing a Story; The Reason I study the Holocaust.

On Footsteps, we have asked people to share their stories, their connection to the Holocaust. Of course not everyone has a direct connection, we have grandchildren of SS guards, of Nazi Criminals... Everyone from different backgrounds sharing their stories. So I thought, instead of paining everyone with my story via Footsteps, I would post it here, it's nothing special of course, I have no direct connection to the Holocaust. I just feel a deep sense of meaning when I think of my life, working against the rise of racism and making sure that this never happens again. 

This is a brief story of how I came to be part of a wonderful team, and started to fight against the rise of hatred in this world. 

Poland; Journal Entries.

I am finding it hard, too hard to speak of how I feel, unable to talk about my own deep feelings on what I saw, I thought I would post sections of what I wrote during the week, of course a lot of personal moments have been taken out for personal and private reasons... This is probably the easiest way for me, to express my feelings.

This isn't going to be extremely historic, I already know. It's more about my own emotions, feelings and thoughts throughout the trip.

Auschwitz-Birkenau; Schmerzhafte Trauer

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the camp which is so vast you can spend hours walking round and still miss so much of the history of this dreadful place. The gates were covered by the tent so that is why there is no photo of the snow covered gates which symbolise the whole camp in the modern day photographs. Of course we were there for the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, something which I felt honoured to attend, standing in the freezing cold for 4 hours was nothing, as we kept saying 'we are cold in 8 layers... imagine the poor prisoners who hardly wore any clothing at all' It really does make you feel emotionally unstable, just walking through this vast land.

Auschwitz Main Camp; Aller Anfang ist Schwer

Spending four days around Auschwitz, and two afternoons at Birkenau was extremely hard, this is why the article gained the title 'Aller Anfang ist Schwer' meaning 'All Beginnings are hard' This was my first time going to the grounds of Auschwitz, luckily I was with a group who mostly had been before. The first time we arrived, it was getting dark, the snow was falling and the grounds were white. It was such a weird situation to be in, the ground which we walked on had once been scattered with ash, to make it easier to walk on through icy weather, the ash coming from the burning of the bodies which were constantly murdered because of hate.