I simply find it so ironic, because walking through Buchenwald in the autumn is almost dreamily beautiful. It is quiet, nearly silent except for the tread of visitors on the gravel paths, and sunshine in good weather will turn the surrounding woods absolutely brilliant with gold.
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| From Erfurt, Weimar, and Buchenwald |
Yet Buchenwald is steeped in so much unspeakably horrendous history, as with the unfortunately many other concentration camps and other historical sites associated with the second world war (or as many other wars as you can name...) . There was so much suffering, I can not even imagine. I can't even describe, with or without words.
Today, while the rest of our group wandered off to look around some more before our bus ride back, I went to the center of the main prisoner camp, where it is now flat, and only black gravel in wooden frames outline where there were once several dozen barracks holding inmates hollow with despair. I stood where literally thousands of dying bodies and walking corpses passed by for month after hopeless, tragic month and forgot what it was like to be human...
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And I cried and cried...
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... and cried.
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