These pictures feel somehow so much more haunting and dramatic- felt shockingly guilty when I realised that I was 'enjoying' the harshness of the cold and the aesthetic effect of the snow. When I was here in the summer I was surprised by the colour, especially at Auschwitz 1- there were trees and grass and it was hard to reconcile what was in front of my eyes with the reality of 60 years ago. Birkenau still had the scale and austerity about it even in the sun. Classic images of both are monochrome so I guess it was always going to be difficult to perceive it in colour for the first time. As one of the kids on the trip said: 'you forget that they had colour in the olden days.' This time though appreciation of the severity that nature layered on top of that imposed by the SS was that much easier to grasp.
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