It’s Tuesday again in our part of the world. Time for us to join Frizztext’s A-Z Photo Challenge.
Letter this week is R and I picked the theme Remember as I share with you some of the photos that I have taken while I was at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria (click here to be taken to more photos from the said camp along with my review of the award-winning graphic novel Lily Renée, Escape Artist by Trina Robbins and Illustrated by Anne Timmons and Mo Oh).
“War is what happens when language fails.” – Margaret Atwood
“The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread.
When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!”When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.” ― Bertolt Brecht, Selected Poems
“War is like a monster,” he says, almost to himself. “War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows.” He’s looking at me now. “And otherwise normal men become monsters, too (392).” ― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go
Gathering Books 
These photos gave me chills…and perfect quotes.
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Hi TBM, I’m glad I learned about these photo challenges through you. 🙂
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I am very impressed by your article
about remembering the concentration camps!
“War is what happens when language fails.” – Margaret Atwood
It is so necessary to remember – and to use language
(and photography as a language too)
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Hi Frizztext, I am glad that you liked this post. 🙂 And I believe wholeheartedly that photographs are a kind of language too. Very powerful one at that. There are moments when words fail us – very rare, but it does happen.
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Wow, powerful post! I have never been to the concentration camps, but it reminds me of Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge killed so many Cambodians. So sad and horrible…
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Are you referring to the Killing Fields in Cambodia? I hope to visit the place soon.
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Hi Myra… The Killing Fields is a separate place from Tuol Sleng Prison; both are in Phnom Penh and both are equally powerful. I loved Cambodia all around, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap with the Angkor temples. I’m sure you will really enjoy it…. If you’re interested in reading my blog about my visit to Vietnam & Cambodia, here it is: http://catbirdinthemekong.wordpress.com/
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Hi there, I visited your post. The photographs are awesome. I’m crossing my fingers that we get to visit Cambodia this year.
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I hope so too! If you do, I hope you’ll write about it and take lots of pictures!
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The “burning hatred, blind obedience, and atrocities committed by people against one another” often bewilders me too… yet it continues to occur daily.
Your exceptional photos of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in conjunction with the perfectly paired quotes create a very compelling entry. Outstanding post, Myra!
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Hi thirdhandart, I am heartened that you found the post meaningful. On occasion, it’s good to be familiar with the darkness – makes us appreciate the light even more.
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