Remembering the Holocaust

In view of it being Holocaust Remembrance Day, the BBC has had a couple of stories/articles up about Auschwitz and its future. (I’ve also changed my desktop at work for the day to this stunning photo of the main entrance gate which has had a couple of questions already.)

The first was a debate on whether Auschwitz should be maintained as a reminder of what happened, or whether it should be allowed to fade away. There’s also a set of photos of Auschwitz then and now.

Personally, I think that Auschwitz – and other similar camps, where possible – should be maintained, and used as a vivid reminder of the Holocaust, and what happened in the death camps. Too many people now don’t know what happened, and it’s “just ancient history”. Now, we don’t have any real field of reference, we simply can’t imagine the sheer number of people who died in these places. We can’t comprehend a camp where 1.1million people were executed.

I didn’t lose any family members in the Holocaust, and nor (to my current knowledge) did anyone else I know. My grandparents weren’t involved with the liberation of the camps, so I have no personal linkage to them. But regardless of that, I firmly believe that some things should never be forgotten.