The sky is seething
and it starts
to drizzle.
__________________________“For the first two years, prisoners were Polish.”
__________________________“Here you can see real human ashes.”
__________________________“The average life of a woman was 3-4 months.”
Mid-July. Humid.
__________________________“1 crematorium was inefficient.”
__________________________“A man lasted 8 months to a year.”
There are children
everywhere.
__________________________“1.1 million Jews deported, 90% died.”
__________________________“1.5 million visitors come to hear this every year. Can you imagine?”
__________________________“Auschwitz II-Birkenau is 20 times bigger. Not brick, but wood.”
Headphones are not
just available.
They’re required.
__________________________“7 villages leveled to the ground so the camp could be built.”
__________________________“Established with the goal of killing 90 thousand people at once.”
__________________________“In our collection, there are more than 100,000 shoes.”
Someone
is mowing the lawn.
__________________________“No pictures allowed. Only in this block.”
__________________________“How much do you think is here?”
[_______________________ ]
__________________________“2 tons of hair. 40 thousand people.”
A guard walks by
under a black umbrella.
__________________________“This is a real train car.”
A woman struggles
to push a baby stroller
across wet mulch.
__________________________“Of course we can go inside the gas chamber.”
Bicycle baskets, wicker
and full of flowers pass by
along the other side
of the barbed wire.
__________________________“Do you think they are real?”
[_______________________ ]
__________________________“These scratches were made by tourists.”

JULIA KOLCHINSKY DASBACH