We spent the morning at a KZ (Konzentrationslager, Concentration camp) named Buchenwald. Just recalling this experience as I write makes me feel slightly sick. Buchenwald was one of the first KZ’s built during the 1930’s. It’s truly a hellish place. There is no better way to describe it other than a literal hell on Earth. We drove by bus about 20 minutes away from the city of Weimar into what seemed like beautiful, undisturbed nothingness. Our bus stopped in an empty parking lot, and there was nearly nothing to be found other than a visitors center and memorial. As we walked another 100 meters or so, we approached a huge, sprawling plot of land with a large gate made of brick, mortar, and stone. It looks exactly like what all of you are picturing. The clock face atop the entrance was plain, other than hash-marks and two still hands, positioned at the time of 3:15 PM (the time at which the camp was liberated). In the middle of the large gate, there was a small entrance gate of black iron and some illegible phrase was positioned on the opposite side, facing into the camp. Once we took the steps necessary to enter the camp, we were turned around and stood face to face with what the inmates saw each and every morning as they were counting roll. From here, we could clearly read what we couldn’t have from the outside world. In a way this uniquely and abstractly symbolized life in captivity. The bright red sign read, “Jedem Das Seine” (to each his own). Upon first reading this, I interpreted it as the Nazi’s saying “keep to yourself and you may get through this”. As my friends Eyasu, Quint and I started to discuss this, it became clear that the Nazi’s were degrading the inmates even further, kind of saying “this is exactly what you are worth and what you deserve.” The rest of the visit did not disappoint these criterion.

This camp was in such a beautiful area of the world. Truly a paradise. Yet, there was no life. There were cold breezes, a stillness in air that I’m sure was once full of joy and beauty. The earth felt literally dead.

We stopped as a group of 45 teenage American students in front of a large stone, implanted into the earth. Upon it, the names of many, far too many, countries were inscribed. The list included the obvious (Germany, Poland, Austria etc.), but it also included the obscure and the seemingly unbelievable. Among those were such countries as Fiji, Ghana, Canada and the United States. The names were inscribed here to signify that one of their citizens had been murdered in this camp, along with 56,000 others.

At this point, we broke up and all had two hours to tour the camp by ourselves. There was no laughter, no smiling or happiness. The gravity of the simple location (granted, we were aware of what had taken place) was nearly too heavy to bear.

As I walked along and between the rows of stone foundation which had once kept the inmates barracks within it’s tight grasp, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was stepping on the same pieces of earth that had at one point transported so many innocent people to their deaths.

I walked along, reading all of the information about various buildings and working grounds, my soul sinking with each step. One of the places no longer standing was a brothel, in which women from other concentration camps were transported to and made to work as prostitutes for the “wealthy inmates” (those who were not Jewish were able to work for a disgustingly low daily wage, with which they were allowed to buy cigarettes, toiletries and sex). Of course, the SS officers and guards were provided with these ‘services’ free of charge.

I eventually made my way to the crematorium. Before even entering, my palms began secreting and my heart rate rose to a frightening level. I knew that what had taken place in the same exact building, only a number of decades before, was something made out of pure, concentrated evil.

I entered immediately into the furnace room, adjacent was a room with tables that look like they’re straight out of a high school biology class. This was where human experiments were conducted. In the corner of the room lied a conveniently sized chute, that looked like it should be for laundry, but was far too large. I exited the room into a lawn and trekked down the staircase into a cellar. This is where the body chute ended up, and the dead victims were stacked, like chairs. On the sides of the walls hung tens of hooks that looked a lot like coat hangers. When an inmate was particularly troublesome, he or she was hung and tortured from these hooks before being asphyxiated. The Nazi’s literally cared for these people less humanely than a butcher cares for the carcass of a dead pig.

The next room was a makeshift “doctors office” (torture and executions chamber). Against the wall was a body ruler, so the doctors could note down how tall any certain inmate was. I opened the door to a small room, which I assumed was a closet or something similar. Inside this “closet” (which was conveniently sized for one man, and one handgun) was a small slit in the wall which peered through to the room in which “measurements” took place. I felt physically ill when I realized that the point of this small slit was to enable one gunner to put his pistol directly up to the spinal cord of an inmate “being measured”, and pull the trigger, all without ever alarming the victim. The Nazi’s, among being sadists and sociopaths, were cowards.

The uniquely awful smell of this building lingers with me still as I describe it, and I fear that it will never leave me.

The Nazi’s routinely used the charred (but sometimes still in tact) skulls of dead victims to create “shrunken heads” to give to officers and other higher-ups of the SS as gifts.

The bus ride home was nearly silent, and there wasn’t a kid without a heavy heart that day.

I chose not to take pictures of this experience. Partly out of respect, partly because I felt as though that would be a disgusting thing to do because it takes away from how disgustingly real and horrible this place was. It highlights one of the darkest points in the history of human existence. How could one human being ever put any other of his or her kind through something as uniquely degrading as this? Those who initiated the “final solution” are, in my opinion, the absolute worst human beings of all time.

The truth is, unless you see something like this in person, you can never feel what I and the other 44 kids must now carry with us until we die. We now know exactly to what extent one person can physically and emotionally harm another. I thought that I knew most things there was to know about this subject, but seeing it in person gives it a whole new dimension.

I hope I did it justice.