No words can do justice in describing the atrocious mass murder of the estimated 1.1 million Jews, Poles, Roma, political dissidents, homosexuals, and others at this one particular death camp alone. Miraculously, despite the odds of survival against them, a number of people lived through the experience of the camp to tell the world about one of the darkest chapters in humanity's history.
Sadly and expectedly, survivors of Auschwitz and other concentration camps are passing away due to age. As time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer survivors to tell their stories until eventually they will all be gone.
The stories of the Holocaust, however, will live on in books and in videos. After making Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg founded the Shoah Foundation in order to film survivors providing their testimonies so that later generations can learn of what happened. Through Spielberg's efforts and those of others, the memories of what happened will be preserved.
In the future, it will be libraries, archives, museums, and historical foundations that will give voice to those who experienced the horrors of the death camps. Today with more people around the world denying that the Holocaust even existed, it will be increasingly important that such institutions provide a voice for the victims and to educate so that history will never be repeated.
Be sure to visit your local library or other institution to obtain materials on Auschwitz and the concentration camps. If you can, spare some time to think about the past while casting a hopeful eye to the future.
Respectfully yours from the perch.
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