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In July of 2002, Hans and I travelled by train to the Czech Republic and on to Poland. One of my principal interests in travelling to Poland, was to see the German WWII concentration camp located about an hour's drive from Krakow at the town of Oswiecim or, as the Germans called it, Auschwitz.

During the journey from Amsterdam, I had contemplated what my reaction to Auschwitz might be. Would Auschwitz be immediately recognisable as an evil place? Or perhaps it would be so abstract as to be relegated to the history books? Were the atrocities safely - comfortingly - sealed in a particular time and space?

What I discovered was something which made a very deep, disturbing impression upon me, which left me in awe of both the timelessness and the relevance. Disturbing contradictions were everywhere: of a collective effort and inhumanity, of determination and indifference, of the beauty of the location and the sinister things which took place here.

I had an overwhelming sense that the souls of those who had suffered were lingering here, as the depths of coldness and cruelty to which such apparently civilised people could sink became apparent against the backdrop of ordinary bricks, mortar and machinery.