HOW I FELT AFTER RETURNING FROM POLAND

I have wanted to go to Auschwitz-Birkenau since I was 12. My son made my dreams come true. Yet it was grueling, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally, and somewhat difficult to process my feelings. Krakow was a wonderful place to explore. The train ride to Oswiecim was on the same tracks that took people to their death. Oswiecim was once a small military town, but now because of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum, it is all built up with housing, restaurants, and souvenir shops, it is a tourist trap. It was truly amazing to put my feet on the same ground as the millions before me, yet, strangely disconcerting. All my life I dreamed of it in black and white, of course it was not now, nor then, in black and white. I used to dream I was an observing shadow, while it was in operation, the mud, the screams, the Musselman, the corpses, the guards, the cruelty, and the pain, but none of it was there. That aspect was very unfulfilling, although it is wonderful that it had ended. It felt like I stepped through a time warp, and all my thoughts of what I would experience were upended. I feel like I was born in the wrong era, on the wrong continent, and was supposed to have died there, when it was in operation. It made me feel guilty for not having lived it. It was more like going to a flower garden or a zoo and taking pictures of the flowers or animals or a cemetery taking pictures of gravestones. I read something I wrote, when I was there, to honor those that had experienced it. It was the only time I felt emotions, while in the camps, I cried. I have to say, I am very glad I experienced it. But my understanding of my emotions, is still in turmoil. If it was not for my son, Aaron, and his partner, Phu, helping me through everything, I could not and would not have been able to experience what I did. Thank you, Aaron and Phu, I love you both!!! I DON’T KNOW HOW I AM SUPPOSED TO FEEL!!!