Not to be a downer after the previous update...

but I thought this was fairly important. Well, maybe not to most people, but worth mentioning.

Today is the 62nd year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. As they do on every anniversary, witnesses to the Holocaust will gather in Oswiecim (the Polish spelling of the city, adopted once again post-liberation) in Poland — growing older, frailer and fewer each year.

The sad part is that the camp itself, is also showing signs of aging under the pressures of tourism and time. The biggest dilemma is trying to preserve what is authentic while also keeping it possible for people to see and to touch. It wasn't built as a medieval castle with strong materials to last for all time. It was a Nazi camp built to last a short time.

Any decay at all poses a problem given the camp's role today as evidence of the atrocities inflicted on Jews, Gypsies, Polish political prisoners, homosexuals and others. What's still visible are the railroad tracks along which inmates were brought in, the barracks where they lived in inhumane conditions, the gas chambers where they were murdered, and the crematoria where their bodies were burned.

For all that to crumble would deprive future generations of priceless historical evidence of Nazi atrocities — a further concern in light of Holocaust denial. The site provides a clear picture of how the camp operated — while many other former Nazi death camps, including Treblinka and Belzec, were dismantled and are marked today only by monuments.

One of the things that surprised me most, when I was planning my trip to Krakow, was that when I was looking up which bus could take us from the city to Birkenau (where I thought the whole site was) I found out that Auschwitz is actually not one camp, but two. Auschwitz I was built in an abandoned Polish military base, and Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, is a much larger complex built two miles away during the war to speed up the Nazis' "Final Solution." Together, Auschwitz-Birkenau stands as a metaphor of evil and a symbol of all Nazi crimes, so making any change at all is fraught with great responsibility and potential controversy. But any tampering with the gas chambers is problematic because Holocaust deniers could seize on that — and photographs of repair work — to try to argue that the whole thing was fabricated.

Inluded in the exhibit at Auschwitz I, housed in the original brick barracks are photographs of inmates, SS offices left in their original state down to the picture of Adolf Hitler on the wall, and displays of suitcases, twisted eyeglasses, and hair taken from victims before they were killed.

The exhibit was at the time created for people who remembered the war very well. Now we have a generation of young people whose parents don't even remember the war. If we don't change it, and try to maintain it this exhibition will always say less to the next generations.

This news makes me even more sad that I didn't make my stupid flight. I just sincerely hope that I'll still have another chance to visit before time takes its toll and makes it impossible. Noel is considering studying in Russia this summer, and if I can, I'd love to meet up with her in St. Petersburg and take a train to Krakow. I still have all my information and guides printed off, of all the things I wanted to see in the city. It's odd how looking at that brings back a nostalgia for a place I never visited. I must make it there one day.