Walking through the preserved barracks at Auschwitz II-Birkenau confronts visitors with the stark reality of life and death in Nazi concentration camps. This photograph captures one of the sanitation sheds, where rows of crude concrete benches with circular openings served as communal toilets for thousands of prisoners. Under the holes ran open cesspits or channels,…

Last year I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. A harrowing experience, and not one I want to repeat, but now, more than ever, these places should be visited.

The train tracks of Birkenau concentration camp in Poland lead off to the front gate. The camp is only a 5 minute bus journey from Auschwitz, along a road bordered by a train track. It’s surreal passing by homes, businesses and people walking about living their lives next to these places. Tourists gather around the…

The Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, lived in the large house at the end of this road. It sits right outside the concentration camp where so many people were put to death, but a family lived here, and they are the subject of a 2023 movie, The Zone of Interest. When I visited the camp…