The bombed gas chambers there are supported with iron beams that hold the ruins in place. Few buildings remain, and there are a couple of informative plaques, also in English, something that Auschwitz has not yet managed to implement. My guide at Auschwitz-Birkenau made it clear that the site at Birkenau will not change in the future. If it is not a site in transition, perhaps it should be. The site is not contained.
Locals use it to take short cuts as a quicker way of reaching their homes on the other side.
It is disrespectful. We would not do that, we say. For, if fences are not erected, there will be those who will choose the shorter path, cutting through instead of going around. In North America, the Holocaust Auschwitz has been taken up as a symbol. And although at one level understanding of this event eludes human comprehension, North Americans claim to understand, and above all, to remember.