Majdanek observations

I asked Sol..."where are we?" He replied "Majdanek". His voice was subdued as he reflected on his father's time here in disbelief. He said it was..."beyond the pale".
What he eluded to was the fact that the camp was so visually obvious, out in the open for local residents to see, hear and smell. Until you are on this sacred ground you will never understand the gravity of the atrocities these nazis and their Polish collaborators actually perpetrated.
Sol was standing directly in front of the concrete memorial which was shaped like a large urn. It contained huge volumes of human ash from the souls that were brutally murdered in this place.
This place was incomprehensible from a movie, a photo or a documentary. You have to stand here to fully just begin to appreciate what happened here. Even then, for those of us visiting it will never be totally real. We can only imagine and feel the spirits of the lost souls because we did not live this as they did.
Nevertheless, we were here to be on the sight of our families fate to let them know along with all the others that we care and that we will never forget this happened.
Today the Polish Government maintains these camps because there is a large demand by past generations to visit and do as we were doing. There is also a viable tourist trade in offering tours of places like Majdanek. In reality they are good money spinners for the local economy.
I'm afraid my cynicism does not bode well for all of Europe, the Americans and the British. Time and time again they had been told what was being done in these camps. Their reply was most commonly one of disbelief despite the fact they all knew the truth.
Those Governments were all complicit by tacitly refusing to take any steps to disrupt any of these mass murders.
If you were a Jew like both Sol and I who were directly affected by this inaction, you will need to forgive our complete mistrust of these Governments, even to this day and beyond.