back when i was in high school, i was obsessed with the stories of world war ii. it all started when my teacher asked us to make a short biography book (not like a book, but something longer than just an essay) and somehow i chose to write about hitler. from there i went crazy. back then the internet wasn't as advance as today. so i would read all the books i could find about the war in my school library. i remember i made copies of elie wiesel's books borrowed from the library because i couldn't find them in any bookstore. i went to read at the bookstore about all the conspiracy theories, not just about the war, but about the jewish, about israel, about the zionis movement, about palestine, and even until the wars in lebanon, i don't know how. i watched too many movies and tv series about the war. i even had an email named after the russian aircraft used during the war (yeah, it was when it's not cool to have your name as your email address, duh).
years and years later, who would have guess that i was here at one of the major nazi concentration and extermination camps. it surprised me though in a sense that i didn't feel as disturb as i expected i would be. probably because we didn't manage to join any tour provided and we had no audio guide so all i can sensed from is just the place and the stories i knew from years before. it felt quite the contrary with what i experienced in sarajevo when i was very disturbed after visiting a small exhibition about srebenica massacre and it really bothered me even until weeks later i still tried to read and find out about what actually happened because it's just too recent to be true and all the story i knew about it was the fainted memory about bosnia as a conflicted country when i was still a kid.
however, it did feel really surreal standing here, i can't even describe it now. and i was there on january in the middle of snowing winter so it felt even more harrowing. specially when it was getting darker and darker in the evening, it terrified me to even peek into one of the camp buildings.
