Took a trip to see the Auschwitz exhibit at Union Station in KC and found myself walking through the exhibit and taking each deliberate and heavy step through the objects and people, videos and photographs, with deep reverence and mourning.
Surprisingly, Kansas City was only one of two exhibition stops in North America, including the Jewish Museum in NYC, and the exhibit had over 700 original objects, 400 photographs, and multiple survivor video accounts of one of the largest mass murder sites in the history of humankind.
I was so immersed that I forgot to take a lot of photos but there was this beautiful survivor poem before the exit, that I read several times before the guard reminded my sister and I that it was past closing time and we pushed open the dark double doors and walked out from the dark exhibition space into the well-lit splendor of Union Station.
What a strange feeling it was to leave this place and these people behind, when I knew with certainty by witnessing their stories and their survivor accounts, that Auschwitz was a place they may never be able to walk away from.
I hope I live to see the day when each of us, every person, can look into the face of another and know with certainty that we all have a life of value.
May we learn to live that life to our highest potential and with great love and meaning.
And may we never forget.
