Auschwitz, 70 years later

The Nazi death-camp complex at Auschwitz, where at least 1.1 million people (roughly 90% of them Jewish) were executed by order of the Third Reich, was liberated seventy years ago today.

As the son of a man who participated in the liberation of the extermination camps at Mauthausen and Gusen — the last of the concentration camps to be taken by the Allies, on 5-6 May 1945 — and who was marked forever by the experience, I grew up hearing the message over and over that such things ought never, ever, to be forgotten.  I believe that.  Deeply.  I’m trying to do my part.