I came with pretty grim expectations, but I was still shocked a few times. A sign said that the bodies of prisoners who tried to escape were left by the entrance for about a week. The other prisoners would march past the bodies twice a day, to and from work. And where were they left? This wall right in front of me. Or the ruthless efficiency of the way they exploited the prisoners, even after their death. After the prisoners were killed in the gas chambers, their bodies were taken past a dentist who would remove the gold from their fillings and bridgework on the way to the crematorium. And not just that they thought to do this - they designed the gas chambers to make this as easy as possible. Or the conditions of the camp - three levels of wooden bunks with a fourth level sleeping on the floor. The prisoners would fight over who had to sleep on the floor, because it meant sleeping in the diarrhea of everyone above them.

But even knowing these details of the atrocities, I just couldn't really comprehend what really happened here. I could imagine, maybe, a hundred people being gassed at once, but not the three thousand that the Nazis gassed at once. And the million victims in total? No way. Part of it is that the camp itself has changed since the war. There is no mud, only long grass and flowering weeds. The sky is now clear, the smoke and stench of the continuous cremation is long gone. From the gas chambers I walked further into the back of the camp to get away from everyone else and try to digest the idea that not only did it happen, but it happened right here. But to be honest, it still seemed surreal. I saw photos of Jews walking towards the gas chambers along the exact same road I was standing on, but … but I was there 60 years later as a tourist. Maybe it's a good thing that I can comprehend the Holocaust, can't digest the immense death that occurred. Maybe we should never try to understand why it happened, just know that it did.

The clearest memory I will take away from Auschwitz is sitting on the grass at the back of the camp looking at the gas chambers through the trees and the long grass, everything quiet except for birds singing to each other overhead.