@auschwitzmuseum I visited the camps a decade or so ago and it was one of the most profound experiences in my life.

@aaron What do you remember as the most meaningful part of the visit?

@auschwitzmuseum @aaron
I went in 2017. So many things stood out, seared into my memory. When I watch things about it now there’s an entirely different sense of scale. Hearing numbers can be hard to process. Seeing the physical space, and knowing (somewhat) how crowded it was is different. The piles of gas canisters haunt me, as do the heaps of personal belongings. What was maybe most strange to me tho, or jarring I suppose, was that the area surrounding it was beautiful. I was there around dusk and the trees in the distance were so pretty, and that felt so wrong. I was surrounded by the remnants of one of the most depraved sites in human history, and there was still beauty in nature. To go from the basement in Auschwitz where unspeakable things happened, where I was afraid to be even when I knew I was perfectly safe, to seeing the sun starting to set at Birkenau just an hour or so later left me with a feeling I don’t know I’ll ever actually find words for. It somehow reminded me of the resistance and resilience of the people who ended up there. There were obviously more horrifying things, moments that made my stomach churn, but that feeling of watching the sunset has stuck with me in an uncanny way.

@abolitionbb @auschwitzmuseum @aaron I went as a teenager, as most young people in southern Poland, on a school trip. I remember some of my schoolmates acting silly, completely inappropriate. I was appalled then. Now I think it was a coping mechanism. How can a 13-year old truly comprehend it all without being changed forever? I was always a quiet introvert and it hit me hard. The worst were the piles of glasses, shoes, suitcases. And hair.

@steve @amythewicked @abolitionbb @auschwitzmuseum @aaron Similarly here. When seeing the shoes of victims in Auschwitz Museum I could imagine the people who died there and their number (and it’s just a small part of them whose shoes were exhibited there) It told much more than just words and number of victims in a history textbook.

@aemstuz @steve @abolitionbb @auschwitzmuseum @aaron yes. That's why what the Museum is doing on social media is so important. Most people won't have the possibility to see it. But sharing pictures of the people who perished, their names and ages... that humanizes the enormity of the numbers.