Monuments to Horror

Every time that I say that I'm going to Paris, Berlin, Marseille, London... someone will say: "again? but if you've been there many times". Well, it's a reasoning that I can not understand. If I like a place, I like to go back again and again, both because I want to repeat the experiences and because these experiences are never the same. If you like a certain food or music you want to taste it again, you don't get tired of it unless you taste it too often, the same happens to me with places. Furthermore, cities like the ones I've mentioned have so many things to see and do that I bet you could spend several lifetimes visiting them and you would not get tired (and in this kind of dynamic, ever evolving cities, you'll always find something new).

Last weekend in Paris I came across just by chance with a beautiful sculpture paying homage to the victims of racism and antisemitism during WWII in France.

The words on the monument read:

"The French Republic in homage to victims of racist and antisemitic persecutions and of crimes against humanity committed under the authority of the so-called 'Government of the State of France.'"

You can read more about this topic here. Obviously the different French governments have never had any problem acknowledging and condemning the disgusting role of the Vichy fascist and collaborationist government in WWII, pretty far from what happens with Spanish governments when it comes to admitting and denouncing the horrors of Franco's dictatorship. France is France, and Spain is ...

This monument reminded me a lot (particularly the small girl playing with a toy located right in the center) to the monuments in Berlin's Friedrichstraße Station and London's Liverpool Street Station to the Kindertransport to rescue kids from Nazi occupied Germany. I have particularly fresh in my mind the one in Berlin:

A plaque on it reads: "Trains to Life, Trains to Death". Its portray of kids with their baggages and toys marching towards hope or horror is devastatingly powerful and emotional, and ever that I pass by it I can't help but stopping for a while and plunge into some moments of reflection. You can check these pictures to get a better idea.