Love Thy Neighbour

I couldn't hear the birds, not because there aren't any here, just because heavy artillery shells were being tested on the ranges adjacent to the former concentration camp. I found this something of an irony. Quite sad that 62 years after this nazi monstrosity was razed to the ground innocent people are still being killed in the world today.. In the name of War,power,corruption,lies and greed.

I looked around for something to photograph that would help me complete the first blipfoto assignment, 'Shoot Thy Neighbour' I found this famous photograph inside the museum but it seemed totally inappropriate and I'll look forward instead to next week's assignment. However the story of this little boy certainly is not inappropriate. After the war this image became symbolic of the suffering of millions of children under the Nazi regime and many people believed the boy in the image was most probably dead. After a search lasting decades his identity was discovered and he was alive - Tsvi C. Nussbaum, a physician was traced and found living in Rockland County in upstate New York, USA, was the then seven-year old little boy. He told how he and his aunt were arrested in front of a Warsaw hotel, where Jews with foreign passports had gathered to find a way to escape Poland. He remembered the date, July 13, 1943, and how he was told to put his hands up: I remember there was a soldier in front of me, and he ordered me to raise my hands.

Nussbaum's story is an especially tragic one, most notably because his parents had immigrated to Palestine in 1935. But they found life too difficult there, and returned to the town of Sandomierz, Poland, in 1939. Nussbaum's parents were murdered before the Jews were deported, and his brother simply disappeared. He and his aunt went to Warsaw and managed to live there as gentiles for over a year. When caught, they were deported to Bergen-Belsen in Germany, liberated by the allies in 1945. Unfortunately Anne Frank had died there three weeks earlier..

The museum at Bergen-Belsen is being redesigned and the new building is very impressive. The official opening is October 2007. Redesign pdf with schematics

In today's image a visitor is laying a tribute stone at the first memorial at the entrance of the camp..

"And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, ....."