There, where one burns books… one, in the end, burns men.

A few thoughts from the Holocaust Museum Houston -

Here all things scream silently.

There was a bowl and two spoons at the museum, remnants of what was used for meals at Auschwitz. The spoon had splatters of blood on it, still. A lady told a story of her best friend at the camp. The friend died of sickness in the camp. The friend hadn't been eating for days and kept her rarioned bread on her in a sack, carrying to and from the labor camp. When the friend finally succumbed to her demise, the lady said "please forgive me, you do not need the bread anymore but I do. I must survive so one day I can tell your story."

There's a carriage of a train used in Germany to carry Jews to camps. You can walk inside that carriage. It's barely big enough to fit 15-20 people. Four vents on top corners for air, and two doors on both sides of the cabin. Sometimes up to 100 people were stuffed in these and sent off to their fates. You step in there and even with open doors, you feel suffocated.

I saw a picture of a few kids aged 6-9, looking at a camera with fear. Their bodies were blackened. They were burnt in Mengeles lab for scientific experimentation purposes.

Elie Wiesal described it all as, around me everything was dancing a dance of death.

There weren't many worse crimes a woman could commit than being pregnant in the camp. If a woman was pregnant when she got to the camp, she faced two choices - abortion or losing her child after birth. No choice at all.

There's a tree in an exhibit celebrating survival there. On that tree, you can write something in remembrance and honor of the victims and hang it. It's called the tree of life. I read many comments saying 'never again.' My first question was, how soon does the never end?

Heartbreaking, to sum it up.