It's really hard to put together a cohesive experience about walking through a place that killed 1.5 million people. I had my note book out, and recorded my thoughts as I walked around. It was a coping mechanism for all the death around me I suppose. I couldn't focus on the concept of the totality of suffering that happened there. They put faces to the names of the people that suffered there, and it was somehow beyond my ability to cope. Here is what I managed to get down on paper, however trite it may be:

For the different language tours, they placed stickers on people. Different colored stickers for different languages. I didn't go on a guided tour, but it was weird seeing these groups of people with stickers on them as you would read about an exhibit about how they classified prisoners by their crimes with little badges with colors on them. I found it ironic.

There were rooms of hair, shoes, luggage, shoes, and other things taken from victims. They were stacked to the ceilings in huge rooms behind glass for display. It was too much to even try to even guess the weight, scale, or number of people that it all must have come from. The stone steps of the barracks were worn down several centimeters so much from peoples footsteps. So many people must have walked there before me. I wondered how many died before they left that place?

Fellow tourists:
One woman, commenting to her companion about the luggage from victims: "Oh, this reminds me of Ellis Island. Ever been there?" I bit my tongue to keep myself from snapping and yelling at her. It was in no way like Ellis Island if you knew what those pieces of luggage represented. This woman went on to make several more comments that had me slack jawed in her ignorance and insensitivity.

Another man would walk from room to room, literally spending no more than 2 to 5 seconds at a particular room entrance. He would snap two, or three quick photos, and then run a video camera around the room in a quick sort of "Look, I was here" sort of wave. Never stopped to read the walls or look at what he was seeing really. Perhaps he couldn't cope and this was his way of getting through it. Click, beep...gone.

A man walking through the rooms in the "Death Block" where prisoners were tortured, hanged, and beaten, or just shot next to a wall, was snacking on a loaf of bread quite contently. I felt guilty for even bringing my snack lunch bag into the camp, yet he ate at each exhibit as the tour guide described the grisly ways people were killed there. I was having a hard time keeping down the food I did have in me, and he was eating in front of exhibits that showed mass starvation.

Other things:
When the camp first started, the prisoners were forced to sleep on straw. Later, they were given mattresses. The mattresses people slept on were made out of human hair from people that died before they got there. There is something so cynical and sick about that I can't even wrap my head around it.

Several pieces of excellent artwork and sculpture were housed in the blocks. The "starvation" pictures and a picture of a penal group carrying bodies back from a day of work were absolutely beyond description. The guards, smiling as they watched this...I just can't describe how it makes me feel. The faces were so smug that I couldn't even write down an emotion to capture how I felt.

The result:
I really strongly recommend seeing this museum. It was extremely powerful for me, personally. It's almost beyond people's ability to cope with it, which I hope explained the odd behavior I was seeing in fellow tourists. It's hard to be in a room when you see a sign that says "Several thousand people died here, be respectful." The weight of their deaths actually comes across physically like an anchor on your shoulders as you walk around. There is so much raw emotion attached to that place that is actually really hard to put complete thoughts in writing. I need some time to think about what I saw before I can even begin to think of the ways that this experience has changed me.