concentration camp

The air is dry. The only light is at the end of the long corridor. Flowers lie on the floors of individual cells in this empty prison barrack. Some seem to have been carelessly scattered, and others, merticulously placed. But they are all fake, plastic and very dead.

Tales of torture during WWII in this Sachsenhausen concentration camp flood through the grey, ugly audio guide hung around my neck. Chaos was the norm, and peace, the exception. Death... might be a relief.

Don't be sad. Don't feel. Don't reveal any form of vulnerability. I say to myself, wishing for a moment the stories I'm hearing are fiction.

The audio guide plays an interview snippet with an ex-convict, who relates how prisoners were given ropes and told to hang themselves. When asked why he didn't comply, he replies, "If they (the SS officers) want that done, they have to do it themselves."

The prison barrack suddenly seems warmer and colder at the same time.