Auschwitz-Birkenau is a dark and gloomy place of remembrance on the most beautiful of days but on an overcast cold November day you get the extra layer of chills and goosebumps thinking of the atrocities that have taken place there some 80 years ago.

Phil and I traveled there early in the morning to catch an early English-language guided tour. There really isn’t much I could write about this memorial site that hasn’t been written already. I think it is important that we keep in mind the cruelty that humans are capable of to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

This is especially important since there’s a war going on in Ukraine at the moment and already there have been documented cases of mass murders and torture that we all thought was simply not of our times. Hundreds of bodies were buried in mass graves in Ukraine. In Europe. In 2022. This should be enough for the world to take notice and stop Putin dead in his tracks. Strangely it is not.

The tour is divided into two parts. The first took us through the Auschwitz museum where we saw a collection of items such as shoes, bags, or glasses that were taken from unsuspecting prisoners. We also walked through one of the gas chambers that was connected to the crematorium.

The second part of the tour takes place in Birkenau which is a few miles away. Birkenau is where the trains arrived and where the initial selection took place.