Note the stark contrast in the kinds of emotions you'll go through when you read these two websites.

Auschwitz - gate to hell
Auschwitz Museum site


I want to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau (Nazi concentration camp for jewish, soviet POWs and other prisioners in the south of poland, oswiecim) to see for myself if I'll get that overwhelming feeling, seeing how I'm normally desensitized when it comes to dramas about murder and all. Dramas are very different from reality afterall. You could say I'm slightly sadistic, I forgot if it scares me. It doesn't scare me anymore. .. maybe not. Some of the information are just too scary.

If you try researching on the Auschwitz and the reactions of the visitors, many described it as "overwhelming, chilling, life-changing experience". I want to know if I'll feel that way too, or if I'll simply nod my head, flinch alittle and move on.

{edit} I TAKE BACK MY WORDS. Reading too much makes me alittle sick, especially the experiements{/edit}

----

After reading the first one I thought I was truly desensitized as I felt almost nothing, nodding my head at the kind of torture equipments they had. Reading the second article proved me wrong, for I did feel for the people. It's probably because putting things into context allows you to relate to the people more, instead of cold, hard facts about torture equipments in the second site.

Along with photos like THESE, and the part about the doctors using the prisoners as experiments it's difficult to not be able to feel. I can't imagine walking in wooden carved shoes, (do check the other photos out). It's extremely strange that I find dissection and blood less scary than walking in wooden shoes and using bowls for eating, washing, and as pillows. Tell me if you feel the same?

I also heard about the entire deadly atmosphere, especially in winter where there aren't any birds in the sky at all and the place is just filled with a sense of vast emptiness. Totally different from what you'll experience from just looking at photographs.

------

The thing is, my family will be joining my brother in Europe at the end of his exchange program in sweden in June. Visiting a sunny concentration camp would defeat the purpose of visiting it in the first place, wouldn't it? But then again, will I ever get the chance to visit it during a chilly month of december?

Ah, I asked myself why I wanted to visit it so badly. Still in search of an answer. Most probably the one I've given above.