It was such an eerie and silent place as if the few buildings that remained were in mourning. There were soft thuds as a dozen pairs of feet trod on the spiky crisp grass. The group, with the teacher and tour guide in front, full of authority, came to a stop in what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary courtyard. Then the guide explained that this was where 'they' were separated, the people, some this way and some that way without knowing where they were going. The tour guide was an intelligent blunt woman. She told you the facts. She rammed them down the teenager's throats but with a respect for the past. As she talked an image grew in there minds and hearts, unforgiving and unyielding, it lodged itself in the imagination and took hold like a deadly tumour.
A swarm of people, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, families, orphans, boys, girls, lovers, friends, enemies, some held hands, some were in groups and some walked alone. A majority were wearing a heavy collection of clothing; most carried suitcases or bags, some carried children and others struggled on false legs, crutches or in wheelchairs. The air was heavy and humid and they could taste the dirt in the air they breathed. Despite all of their differences however they did have three things in common. One, they all felt a suffocating fear. Fear of the unknown, fear for the future of their family or friends, fear for their home, fear for their future, fear for their treasures and so on. Two, they all walked, hobbled, shuffled, plodded, limped, stamped or in some cases rolled on a worn out, lifeless, dried and dirty road. Three, all of them the tall and small, the young and old, the men and women were a smear, a disgrace, parasites or a danger to 'purity'. These impurities needed to be crushed, pulverised and rubbed out erased and that is why they had come here - not that they knew it.
Some who understood what was going to happen were sorting the block of people. The strong were sent one way, the young and old, the pregnant and the weak were sent another way. Some lied to stay together. Some were said to be younger and some older just to stay together. They were promised by the cold officials in uniform that they would reunite again elsewhere, just after this queue, and were assigned designations and this queue went to the showers then they would meet again. There was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. The now divided groups of people began to move past glaring, unblemished buildings, standing to attention and all ready to do their purpose.
Either way neither one was better than the other. One lane led to a quick panic filled death in the gas chambers and the other led to a few months of exhausting work, starvation, disease and desperation - then death.
The clear voice of the tour guide made the repulsion recede like the dimming of a light bulb and yet in this hot sunny day, the teenagers felt that it was as if Death's pale, white hand had left his misty imprint on every inch of the camp -the camp that, thank God no longer serves the terrible purpose that it was made for.