Tough day today. Auschwitz.

In normal museums, displays and information overwhelms you. In Auschwitz I, and Auschwitz II (Birkenau), death overwhelms you. It hangs heavy in the air. You can breathe it. You can feel it on your shoulders. You can feel it sink into your bones.

They say that there aren't any birds in Auschwitz. While that's not quite true, there aren't many of them for the size of the place, and they behave much differently than is ordinary, as if they too can sense what's happened there. It's one of the quietest places I've ever been, but it's not a good kind of quiet. It's a depressing, saddening, demoralizing quiet. A quiet you can't wait to escape.

As a student of history, I'm glad that I visited. But as a human being, my heart weeps. It's best expressed by the monument at Birkenau:
"For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews, from various countries of Europe."

Humanity at its worst.