At the age of 11 I met the word “Holocaust” for the first time.
In a book I read about the gas chambers of Auschwitz Birkenau. I wasn´t able to understand the dimension of what had happened there. Perhaps that’s why I was confronted by the descriptions without any protective emotional distance.
Up until today I have not forgotten the scenes described: people who are calm and controlled in the face of safe death. Mothers comforting their children, young supporting elders, some holding hands. Without any hope to escape what will follow. Each one had dreams, hopes, a life – and all ended there. Everyone was murdered, burned, erased.
How can humans do this to humans?
And what remains of all these people? After more than 70 years – a life span – the debris is overgrown with grass and the barbed wire is decomposed by rust. There are many such places. Without knowing what happened there, they are only mysterious ruins. Cryptic scars from a forgotten past.
This is a long-term project, which is continually being expanded.
