Over twelve years ago a work colleague and I were driving through Poland, when we popped into Auschwitz, the former concentration camp for a look round. The fact that we could 'pop' in to the sight of one of the ugliest chapters in human history seems rather strange in itself. We wondered sound the huts, looked at the gas chambers, most of the time my colleague was speaking on his mobile trying to clinch a deal to sell soft drinks to someone or other.
The ordinariness of a mobile phone conversation in the context of an extermination camp seemed bazaar to say the least. The most poignant moment for me was to see a display board with a photograph of, soon to be gassed Jews, disembarking from a railway carriage onto a platform. There in front of us was the very platform where they had stood
My colleague Slavomir, who was Polish, had a different perspective on Auschwitz than I did. I found it hard to know how to respond, how to act, wanting to behave 'properly' in this concentration camp. Slavomir continued to be the person that he was, not trying to fit in with others' expectation, but carrying on his normal life in this abnormal place
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