'The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.'

Ignoring the whipping wind which ripped through my waterproofs, I crouched lower, huddling around the tea light which sought shelter in my palm. No life was meant to exist here. The ease with which the barren vastness met the stagnant dark paid testament to that; yet, with the memory of an afternoon of Yiddish hymns still reverberating rhythmically in my ears, I pressed on.

Gently placing another fragile flame on the war wearied wood, I followed the train tracks towards their unavoidable conclusion leaving a fiery trail in my wake, but as I plucked another candle from my pocket, my heavily swathed fingers failed and the candle tumbled to the ground. Another hand appeared out of the darkness. It was Josef, our tour guide, stooping to scoop up the fallen candle and musing, 'cold fingers?'

I noted the shell of the 'little red house' looming over his shoulder. There were no white picket fences there; only barbs. I hesitantly asked how he could bear to come back- most of his family never returned from this place. He told me the last thing his mother said to him: 'Don't forget. Tell all.' A soft smile parted his well-wired beard, but the candle light betrayed his pain, 'We knew history would not forget, but history remembers the
story of our existence not the stories of our lives. Only I can remember my day to day.'

As I trudged on, I thought back on history lessons reproduced from text books; numbers and facts carved into blackboards. Atrocious facts. Startling facts, but chalked statistics still. That afternoon with Josef I spoke Yiddish, saw the simplicity of the synagogue against the rich tapestry of the Torah and bore witness to lives lived. No classroom had ever given me as much.

Consumed by thoughts of Jewish pastimes, I was surprised to find my pockets lighter. My task was at an end. Turning to observe my handiwork, I stepped back, overwhelmed by the fiery flakes of a thousand tea lights rising from the ashen ground. The train tracks were transformed. Illuminated against the smoke that once again fills the air of Birkenau, but this time was different. This was resurrection. Remembrance.

That image of the train tracks has stayed with me, as luminous in my mind as on the day that I first saw it and the lesson that I learned that day, that remembrance teaches better than history ever could, has stayed with me too. Now, when I travel, I let memory guide me. I let the walls and the others who were there do the talking.