Views Spike on My Photostream - But Why?

I had a pretty big day over on my Flickr Photostream Tuesday, but I'm not sure why.

Total picture views for the day were 162, and that's about 100 more than I get on an average day.

Most of the views yesterday were of pictures I took when we visited the grounds of the former Nazi concentration camp called Auschwitz in Poland. Those were clearly the views that spiked the daily total upward. But why?

Why all the views of Auschwitz on April 13, 2010?

Four guesses:

1. Poland is in the news right now because of the airplane crash that killed its president and other high officials. So...maybe there are people out looking at pictures of Poland and saw my pictures that way? That's a stretch, but maybe.
2. A few of my pictures were posted somewhere without my permission and whomever is looking at those pages online are also clicking through to see my pictures in larger format at my Photostream.
3. Random. As in, for no particular reason there just happened to be a lot of people in the world looking online for pictures of Auschwitz yesterday.
4. There is an anniversary of some sort associated with World War II, the Nazis or the Holocaust that I am not thinking of or don't know about, and that's driving views.

I'm gonna guess that it's either #3 or #4.

If anyone has any other ideas, let me know.

Photos From Our Poland Trip - Auschwitz

I've uploaded the next batch of photos from our trip to Poland and Prague.

This time, the focus is on our solemn visit to the grounds of the former Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Certainly, it's an unsettling subject for photography, but I firmly believe it's important to document...even all these decades later...the reality of what happened in places like Auschwitz so people will not forget, so they won't repeat the travesties and so still other people will not so easily be able to deny such a thing as the Holocaust happened.

You can see the pictures at the top of my Flickr Photostream by clicking HERE.

Or, you can see them as part of the now growing set of pictures from the trip by clicking HERE.

Taking the train from Krakow, we arrived in the now named Oswiecim - the Polish name for the nearest city to the Auschwitz camps. Yes, there were actually two Auschwitz camps - the original one usually referred to as "Auschwitz I" or just "Auschwitz," and the massive second one called "Auschwitz II - Birkenau" or just "Birkenau."

You can see for yourself from the pictures how huge, premeditated and deadly these camps were. Visiting these sites in person was extremely informative and also chilling - haunting to be in the place where so many people were murdered.

More of my thoughts on that experience are available from my post on the subject by clicking HERE.

Solemn Anniversary This Week

I did not realize it until Thursday, but Wednesday Jan. 27 was the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz death camp in Poland by the Red Army in 1945.

Diane and I visited the camp grounds in 2002 on our trip to Poland. We felt that it was important for us to see the camp - especially since we were staying in not-too-far-away Krakow, Poland. (Below: The entrance building of the huge Aushwitz II camp.)

You can see pictures I took at and a few other places in Poland by clicking HERE.

The primary reaction I had when visiting the site in 2002 was that this was ground where evil was performed, systematic murder. Seeing the site live, in person is such a overwhelming experience. I mean, the mere SIZE of the place just puts you back. The Germans spent a LOT of time, energy and money to create a way to kill off huge elements of their population - mostly Jews. And a large amount of that happened at Auschwitz.

Sure, you read about this place in history books and even get a glimpse of what it might have been like in important movies like Shindler's List. But, to actually stand in this enormous, sprawling, massive camp you know for sure evil was afoot.

The next thing I remember thinking as I walked through the prison quarters and viewed the ruins of the gas killing chambers was...how dare anyone deny this happened! It is here. It is real. It is tragic. It was genocide. We need to remember.

Related to that, another sensation I felt was that despite the big time problems and issues that the USSR had itself with totalitarian government (especially under Stalin) and anti-semitism...even THOSE GUYS realized this place had to be preserved for history and indeed did a good job of making sure the grounds were kept in tact for people like us to see and experience all these decades later.

Look, I am a firm believer in seeing things for yourself if you can. Want to know about China? Go to Xian, the Great Wall and Beijing. Want to judge Cuba? Spend a few days in Havana. Have issues with India or the third world? Go there. See it for yourself. Inform your view.

Visiting Auschwitz is the same. Yes, you know about it at some level. But seeing it in person drives. It. Home. Like nothing else. A lifetime experience. The suffering. The death. The evil. Premeditated mass murder. The location of scene of so much killing. The desperate perseverance of the survivors. The final liberation by the Russian. The elation of having survived. The sorrow of knowing loved ones were killed. All of things are surfaced in a visit...at least as much as they can be for someone who was not even alive when this all happened.

And on this solemn anniversary, I am here to tell you as someone who saw the remnants that for these reasons Auschwitz is a place that is well worth remembering.