DUBROVNIK, Croatia – It wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t easy to walk the same grounds of millions who have also perished on the grounds of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the 1940s due to ungodly events that took place there. 

 I was somewhat prepared for the emotions that I would be faced with when visiting a concentration camp, since I have been to Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany, however, no place compares to Auschwitz – the headquarters of all evil during World War II.

As I walk the grounds and come across signs that read that in this spot executions took place or that in between certain bunkers was a place infamous for thousands upon thousands of deaths – it’s sickening, it really is. 

 And yet the oh so simple and oh so complex question going through my mind the entire time: why?…Why?

To go into the museum and read the names of those taken to Auschwitz and to never return home and then to keep reading and see their age – that’s what made me the most heartbroken. Seeing a name and then seeing 2 months old, 14 months old or 2 years old next to their name – that’s just disgusting. 

 Going to Auschwitz – or any concentration camp for that matter – is powerful and moving in ways that cannot be taught to one in school, in a book or any other way.

It’s a disgusting part about traveling to be able to see a place like Auschwitz, but it’s also something that needs to be seen to not only realize and be blessed for the life you live, but also to get the most hands-on feel that you possibly can to what life was like for the four or so years where children would arrive at Auschwitz and be taken to have a “shower,” when really they were being sent straight to the gas chambers to die immediately. 

 From the bar-wired fences lining the camp, to the 28 bunkers that housed and toured more than one million people, to the gas chambers and to the areas where “doctors” would perform experiments on people as if they are rats, which would either result in death or life-long injuries – which may just be worse than death – it all was a whirlwind of emotions to experience, but something I’m happy to have done.

It gives you a wider, more diverse lookout on life and on the ruthlessness of the 1940s in Europe with concentration camps.

Be thankfully and appreciative for the life you live, because experiences such as visiting Auschwitz puts life in a completely different perspective.

God bless you all,

Anthony