On the road to Auschwitz...

This picture may not look like much. Just a countryside, a landscape similar to Ohio, some electric wires and such.

But I have to tell you, this part of my trip I just dreaded... but with anticipation. I have watched the movies about the Holocaust, read books and even tried to understand how this could have happened.

Up until now, it was all far away. So far away from Heath, Ohio, I couldn't imagine ever being close or feeling some piece of what those hundreds of thousands of innocent people must have felt...on their way to what was promised to them as a safe place.

As I looked across the countryside, I couldn't help but notice the tracks. The very train tracks, that not that long ago, had carried these people to the very place we were headed...Auschwitz.

I was filled with a deep sadness. I had never related that this place was in Poland...I hadn't planned to come here or visit a concentration camp. I did not want to feel it, did not want to get close to it. The car was quiet as Jenny and I studied the landscape and pondered what lay ahead.