Today is the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz...

Today is the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and death camp during the closing days of WWII.

My Grandfather was kept there for over 7 years after being taken by the Nazis. He was a big man - and instead of killing him with the rest of his family, the Nazis kept him working in the mines, his legs riddled with quartz scars. He also had a twin sister, and spent time being experimented on by Joseph Mengele.

He never spoke of any of this. Tormented, He kept it totally inside, only his prison tattoo and scars were evidence of what he went through.

My father and I have a complicated history, but years ago we decided to follow the path that so many of our family disappeared and died on.
Over weeks we visited every concentration camp that a family member had been in. Those we knew.

Our last trip was to Auschwitz.
To see the gate my grandfather walked through. The barbed wire that caged him in. The buildings that housed his tormentors. The train tracks that spelled death. The eye glasses of the exterminated. The empty cans of Zyklon B used to kill 6 Million people.

If there was a reason I became a journalist it was this. To bear witness, to sway opinion, to make sure history doesn’t get washed away.
And I know that sounds naive. The lofty aspirations of youth. I did my war zone work, and war went on. It always will.
Today death camps don’t exist in the same way. The slaughter of millions isn’t carried out to the exacting standards of the Nazis. But people are being killed. And we can’t and shouldn’t pull our eyes and conscience away.

#auschwitz #auschwitzbirkenau @auschwitzmemorial #wwiii #history #family @worldpressphoto
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