Reflection by Gracie Amburn, after our visit to the KL Natzweiler-Struthof in the Vosges mountains, the only Nazi concentration camp built on French soil.
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The Poppy flower symbolizes remembrance and death.
Creeping Buttercups symbolize childish joy. The Germander Speedwell represents the tears of Mother Mary. Stitchwort is traditionally used to aid in pain. The Scotch Broom bush represents strength, the Cinnamon Fern new beginnings. White daisies are purity, mint brings a warm welcome. The mountains themselves, even, show eternity, stillness.
These natural beauties litter the mountainside in Struthof and I hate them. It is beautiful. And it should not be.
It should be ugly and wet and cold. No one should ever want to go there, nor take pleasure in being there. But they did. And they do. And I did.
Did they know how beautiful it is, it was? Could they see it? Did it give them any pleasure, any joy?
How would it feel to see such beauty after hours at attention, holding the corpse of the man next to you who had died hours before?
Would they have enjoyed to see it before the war? How many of them had hoped to one day visit? To ski? To swim?
A guard swims in a pool. It is sunny, and warm, and green. And the flowers are thick. And bright. His belly is full and his face is shaven. Surely he sees it, if only he looks beyond the barbed wire imprisoning thousands of rotting, starving people.
And I hate how beautiful it was.