Auschwitz and Its Monsters, an excerpt from Twisted Travels
On a gorgeous spring morning, so early in the day that the hotel hasn’t started serving breakfast, my guide picks me up for a long drive to the suburbs. It is the perfect day for a field trip. The sun is shining, but there is a cool breeze. The trees are a lush green and the flowers are in bloom.
Everything is bursting with life, and until I stand before the iron gate with its monstrous motto, I am trying not to think that we have come to a place of death.
Writing this piece took the longest time—not the actual writing, but working up the nerve to sit down and write it. You have to do justice to the subject, but you cannot be sentimental. I apologize for my failures.
December 14th, 2018 at 21:17
I was able to visit Yad Vashem in Jerusalem this spring where the whole story of the Holocaust was told in the museum.
Middle East politics is inescapable. However, with our guide telling the story from the point of view of a grandchild of survivors, it became more personal.
My favorite part of that emotionally heavy tour was the end where the view was the hills of Jerusalem, showing that out of this horrible time in history there is redemption.
December 16th, 2018 at 00:19
Hi, Jessica! I see that you wrote this essay in present tense, why? I asked because staying in a single tense is one of my weaknesses. And do you even care about active and passive voice? Many publications are very particular about this nowadays.
December 28th, 2018 at 12:06
kotsengkuba: I chose the present tense to emphasize that this horror may have happened in the past, but it still happens today. The present tense adds a sense of urgency, I think.
The active/passive voice depends on the POV. I like the active voice myself, but if I’m discussing something beyond my control passive might work.
Newspapers tend to require the active voice and past tense.