Better to glance at the six glassy towers from a distance. Sometimes the truth is what we hide best from ourselves. The Holocaust occurred in the marketplace. It happened amid daily life, busy lives. Sometimes they were locked inside warehouses before being forced into freight cars headed to the death camps neighboring other towns.
History happens in the center of things.
It happens when you are buying flowers. One bright Saturday morning, I stepped across the Memorial's boundary. Carved into paving stones, in Hebrew, one word, Remember. And then I was crossing a grate which made my footing seem insecure. I was aware of the airy vacancy beneath me, aware of the electric embers flickering beneath the grate.