I was at Auschwitz in summer. It was beautiful weather, the birds were singing, flowers everywhere. Hard to connect this to the conditions in a concentration camp. It would have been much easier in winter.

I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in February of 1995. It was well below freezing and there was some type of ice ball precipitation, perhaps because it was too cold to snow. I was the only person there.

I walked all the way back from the famous entrance gate, along the train tracks, to the monument at the back. The place was huge and imagining people suffering there during that type of weather was especially heartbreaking. I was luckily able to convince the taxi driver to wait for me. I have some black and white photos I took of it somewhere on my shelves. That visit sticks with me more powerfully than almost anywhere else I've been.

It is so well preserved, because those who were liberated from it, were so horrified at what they witnesses, that they did not want anyone to forget. It was a herculean effort, many wanted to bury it,because of the pain, and many more wanted to bury it, like it never happened.

A personal salute to all those who fought to preserve it.

There is a great video on the Poles who worked to preserve it. A lot of it is ... Unspeakable.

I was at Dachau a couple summers ago in similar weather. I actually found it worse and hit harder because it was such a pleasant day as I watched people stroll around the grounds, taking selfies, kids running around playing. It made me feel like I couldn't even breath.

It might have reflected the experience of the guards. One of the most astonishing facts i heard was that the guards used to get prisoners to play music for them and would even be moved to tears!

It reveals something deep about the human condition. Auchwitz was a perfectly lovely place for many of the employees as long as they disassociated themselves from all the suffering and evil around them.

I was fortunate enough to once have the daughter of a client I took care of in a nursing home ask me if I would escort her dad and her on a day trip as he needed help into the bathroom and such. We ended up going to a Ukrainian hall in Vancouver BC where he was going to meet some old friends.

The older ladies busy making handmade perogies was such a delicious treat.

But I also got to meet Stefan Petelycky. He wrote the book: Into Auschwitz, for Ukraine

He ended up there and was one of the lucky ones who made it out. When he pulled up his sleeve and showed me his tattoo, the number he was given there, a chill crossed my entire body and an overwhelming sense of sadness hit me.

I of course had heard about the concentration camps but seeing a tattoo in person made the event much more real where I could connect to the tragedy in a way I never did.

I visited Dachau years and years ago. It was a nice summer day, but a pallor fell over when we went inside the camp. It felt like the sky darkened and the color drained from the entire environment.

Much much smaller scale but we did a 'Salem Witch Trails' tour and it was a grey dreary autumn day and I felt it complimented the story.