[yonif]

Maidanek is one of the easiest death camps to understand, because there is little need to imagine. When the Russian troops swept into Maidanek in July, 1944, the Germans didn’t have time to destroy the evidence, as they did in Auschwitz, Treblinka, and elsewhere. Here the gas chambers remain, with the stained residue of Zyklon-B gas on the ceiling and walls. Here the crematoria remain, still filled with the ashes of the last victims. Here the ashes remain.

[Lucy Lake]

With a group, a few years ago I visited Auschwitz and the guide took us into a room filled with shoes behind mesh wire, and another room filled with human hair behind mesh wire.

Upon seeing this horror I felt as though a horse had just kicked me in the stomach. I was actually ill. I've never gotten over the sight, and wish I had never seen it. The emotions are still overwhelming whenever I think about the holocaust.