100 kilometers northeast of Warsaw

Go there when snow falls.

Take the train to Małkinia, then hail a taxi for the remaining eight kilometers¹. You will arrive at an inconspicuous outlet in the forest.

The museum is small and unassuming. It does not need drama or pretension to tell its story. It need only say what happened.

Personal artifacts that survived the scavenging of corpses.

A section for Janusz Korczak, who ran an orphanage and stayed there to the end.

A gravestone. Others were repurposed as building materials.

Leave the museum and take the trail southward. Turn right at the first opportunity to enter the field of stones.

Read the names of the cities, the homes they were taken away from.

Watch the snow float down like petals in spring.

There is a word, sonder², for the realization that everyone else has lived, is living, will live a life as grand and complicated and full of feeling as yours. 800,000 of those lives, 800,000 like you, lie beneath your feet under the stones³.

Try to count up to 800,000 from one. One. Two. Three. Four. For i equals 1 up to 800,000, comprehend. Do you feel the same on each increment? Does every soul’s index have the same color and intricacy as the last?

A building lay here once. Every life taken here exited this building as ash. Those responsible tried to remove any trace of the building, and unless the viewer of this photo knows where it’s from, they have most likely succeeded.

Take your leave of the stones and walk two more kilometers south.

Arrive at the quarry, a swath of earth hollowed out to further what was called a righteous cause. Listen to the ghosts, how they were made to carve through the ground for weeks, months, then collapse to the dirt, dead.

Observe the following piece, a simple rectangular prism, and note how its precise, well-formed construction reveals the expertise of its creator. In life, before being taken here, he must have been a mason, and in spite of it all, he must have honored his craft.

Walk to the razed quarters of the guards, the remnants of their kitchens and offices and mini-farm and two pools in which they swam during their free time⁴. Realize that these people believed they were doing the right thing.

Watch the snow swim through the air like dandelion seeds in summer.

The foundations of the buildings are blanketed in white, and your body shudders at the freezing cold. Are you dissuaded? Do you want to leave and come back later, when it’s easier, more convenient, less painful for you? Oh, but truth is true, regardless of how you feel in this moment.

The last path is marked by fourteen crosses for fourteen stations of Christ’s road to sacrifice. Even if you do not understand the crosses, follow them to the end.

There are other places where they couldn’t leave in time, couldn’t destroy all the facilities, couldn’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s on their Final Solution. This is not one of those places. Here, they won. This is what’s left of their finale.

Wonder to yourself how such acts, such memories, such twisted ideas can flourish for three years and leave behind so little.

Watch the snow flutter to the floor like yellow-orange-red pieces of tree in autumn.

Compare that in front of you to that which once came before your eyes.

Marvel at how despite our hands scrambling to build monuments that scream “remember, remember, for the love of god remember!”, we can still turn to each other and say:

Harden your hearts, for they are the enemy.

Ideas never die. There is a limit to how much our primitive brains can hold back, and should we let the snow smother the stones, nothing stops the same insane rage from seeding its wicked roots and blossoming once more⁵.

Russia, Ukraine⁶.

Armenia, Azerbaijan⁷.

Israel, Palestine⁸.

Myanmar⁹.

Syria¹⁰.

Sudan¹¹.

Yemen¹².

We placed here 17,000 stones and a slab of black basalt, the best graves we could muster for 800,000 whose remains were incinerated, scattered, and lost to the winds. Ask yourself if the stones still mean something to us, or if we have forgotten that they are graves for 800,000 lives and can now only see stones.

Go back. Stop by one of the stones. Wipe off the snow. Then return to your life, grand, complicated, full of feeling.

On the train back to Warsaw, 800,000 lives and a field of stones rush backward in the window’s reflection. Ask yourself: do we remember?

Watch the snow descend, swallowing whole the earth and making it pure.

1. If you are lucky enough to have a local companion willing to spare the time and effort to go with you, ask for a ride instead. ↩

2. https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder ↩

3. https://muzeumtreblinka.eu/en/informacje/number-of-victims/ ↩

4. https://muzeumtreblinka.eu/en/informacje/topography-of-the-camp-1/ ↩

5. Images are from Associated Press and are taken from various online news articles. I don’t make money from this blog, so I believe this falls under fair use. Image and article URLs provided for each photo. ↩

6. https://abcnews.go.com/International/photos-show-devastation-bucha-wake-russian-invasion/story?id=83872938#:~:text=sanctions%20against%20Russia.-,Rodrigo%20Abd/AP,-Bucha%27s%20deputy%20mayor, from https://abcnews.go.com/International/photos-show-devastation-bucha-wake-russian-invasion/story?id=83872938# ↩

7. https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/605ed5a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2250+0+0/resize/1440x1080!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.googleapis.com%2Fafs-prod%2Fmedia%2Fa3579dc854e54073bd7f3710dd0b722a%2F3000.jpeg, from https://apnews.com/article/europe-azerbaijan-armenia-41a103bcde14fa8b28968000d7992b84 ↩

8. https:///assets.apnews.com/51/b0/73214fc76de881294539b3b85f07/cba0c02ebcd14fb2af16d15de5d765b9, from https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-misinformation-fact-check-e58f9ab8696309305c3ea2bfb269258e ↩

9. https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/a185367/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2030+0+0/resize/1440x974!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.googleapis.com%2Fafs-prod%2Fmedia%2F0de01dc0f38749aa92db23c7d4ef5022%2F3000.jpeg, from https://apnews.com/article/myanmar-no-peace-one-year-after-military-coup-1db3ac0e7b051098cd3268b8d16dcac4 ↩

10. https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/fac092f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/1440x960!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.googleapis.com%2Fafs-prod%2Fmedia%2F4dea1ee8fe514dbd95f68fead5c35374%2F3000.jpeg, from https://apnews.com/article/turkey-islamic-state-group-migration-bashar-assad-syria-c928ec068b59ea33d54018d796382969 ↩

11. https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/47799c6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2068+0+0/resize/1440x993!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.- googleapis.com%2Fafs-prod%2Fmedia%2F0746e800d12e4d75bb92151f7addfa9a%2F3000.jpeg from https://apnews.com/article/sudan-fighting-army-paramilitary-democracy-coup-765030f7b686ec02cfd6ae1c7e416e2c ↩

12. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57cf18ae6b8f5ba693497e1a/1528996501514-6B226BQ3V5ZFMNRHE3ZY/AP_18152368624216.jpg?format=2500w, from https://apimagesblog.com/yemen/2018/6/14/war-leaves-yemens-aden-hollowed-out-shadow-of-former-self ↩