So much happens in such a short time. In my life, and in the lives of others.

I've spent the evening reading Night by Elie Weisel. I read it back in 8th grade -- a poor excuse at educating the young. I'm reading it now, having been to Auschwitz and Dachau, and hurting quite a bit. It was a horrible, horrible place to visit, but a necessary one. I wept at Auschwitz. Mike and I were probably fighting the entire time, and we were miserable from two 90 minute bus rides from/to Krakow. (The first we spent standing in the aisle, where I saw an Australiant girl reading Smilla's Sense of Snow. How I know that she was Australian, I can't remember, other than possibly seeing a copyright, or noting the difference in language -- I knew for sure it wasn't the American version I've read so many times. The second trip was spent pretending to be asleep, while two young Polish girls stood in the aisles, and a young polish man was asking them, presumably, about why these two young men, us, hadn't given up our seats... "turiscki," I heard.) We had missed the bus back to Krakow, to safety and isolation, by only a minute or two. We waited for an hour for the next bus.

I wept at Auschwitz. I didn't weep because of religious persecution, or because of humanitarian guilt, but because of loneliness. I was only vaguely able to picture the hundreds of thousands of people passing through the gate maked "Arbeit Macht Frei." I felt the horrible tug of the thousands of gays walking through the "streets" of that camp. I wept for something more. I wept because my country was part of that place, and I wept because so many people continue to deny what happened there. But most of all, I wept because I felt alone.

Perhaps it's a selfish reason. But I was not there, and I only know through stories what happened there.

I walked through the gas chamber. There is no residue of human involvement. It's just a room. But that made me feel lonely too. I tried to imagine what really happened there based on my limited knowledge of events, and periodic plaques and snippets of tour guide script. But I honestly wept because I felt like no one understood what *I* was going through.

I suppose that's the ultimate point. Perhaps I'd unknowingly put myself in the place of so many people before me -- tourists and jews and homosexuals. How could they do this to *me*? I would never deny the Holocaust, or the scar it has left on the Jewish and gay people and families who did or did not survive it. It happend, and continues to happen in places like Croatia, and Darfur, and Iran. People continue to be killed for nothing more than being different.

I also attended diversity training today, which was a lot of fun, and rewarding, and enlightening. It focused my attention and skill as a manager.

But I continue to think about Auschwitz. I will probably never visit again -- at least in the forseeable future, but I will never forget how terrible I felt there. Everything is still intact, but it's not the place that haunts you... It's how you feel about yourself.

Posted at 23.45