The train compartment in which I leave Oswiecim/Auschwitz is warm and has been refitted recently with red velour seats. The Auschwitz arrivals saw a similar sight through the slits of the cattle car walls. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty ImagesOn the train back from Auschwitz, I wonder if we journalists today are any more far-sighted than Bruno E Werner and his 1930s colleagues. As we pull into Krakow, I wonder what talents, potential, inventions, music, books and sculptures were lost with those children? Auschwitz shames us, indifference dehumanises us, inaction impoverishes us – then as now.

Source: The Irish Times February 03, 2020 00:00 UTC