I found myself wondering “Why am I taking these pictures?”

I mentioned to one of my fellow travelers that I didn’t know if I wanted to remember Auschwitz, and she noted that we still need to remember.

Tons of luggage, all carefully labeled by the owners who thought they might eventually be getting it all back:

And tons of children’s shoes that accumulated faster than they could be given away:

What was particularly telling was what was specifically destroyed before the site was overrun by the Red Army, the gas chambers and the warehouses of confiscated goods, versus what wasn’t.

The ashes, those you can’t get rid of not matter what you try: