I’ll write more about this soon. I’m still processing what we saw there. It was harshly jarring for my sense of what human beings are capable of doing – not one or a few troubling individuals, but a coordinated secret police force. Truly sobering. The experience was visceral.

The gate door to the camp reads “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which translates as “Works makes one free,” or “work makes you free.” The message was a horrible lie, as were the fake shower heads in the gas chamber there. More on that in a follow-up post.

Learning about the camp is not for a weak stomach. I’m still processing. I think I need to return to my Viktor Frankl and Elie Wiesel books.

With all I’ve known about the camps, I nevertheless experienced a shaking feeling of deep sadness that came from actually being there. At the same time, this is an experience extremely worthwhile, which should never be forgotten or whitewashed. People need to see it and to remember.

It is easy today to find examples of things that are simply marvels of human invention and brilliance. The everyday cellphone today is a pretty amazing instrument, considering all that one can do. This past week, I had a chance to see an exhibit of replicas of the items that were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

What I find remarkable are the incredible effort, skill, and resources that were put into respecting Tutankhamun. At so early a period in history, people gathered and used a simply massive quantity of gold, masterfully designed and adorned, to pay homage to a ruler who died quite young, Tutankhamun. Tut’s tomb featured countless treasures (ok, there were a little over 700), besides the multiple nested shrines, each of which protected yet another shrine of gold-leaf covered wood. Ultimately, inside the larger gold-covered shrines there was an incredible whole piece of carved alabaster, which contained several solid gold nested sarcophagi.

When I try to imagine the skill of the craftsmen of Tut’s day, I marvel already at what people were able to do so many thousands of years ago. There are periods in human history when people were capable of simply amazing feats. The entombment of Tutankhamun is a great example of what people were capable of doing back when tools were at their most limited in recorded history.

On the one hand, the objects and artworks surrounding Tut are enormously enjoyable to look at and think about, given their beauty and the craftsmanship that had to go into them. For instance, it was amazing to see in the furniture included in Tut’s tomb some dovetail joints, that are still woodworking methods that we use today.

On the other hand, when you think about historical artworks, it is important to remember how many people died in their creation. Or, how people were taxed enormously without any kind of representative government, so that the people in power could fund wars, monuments, and solid-gold sarcophagi. It is hard to imagine such times — even if England does still have a queen.

Thousands of years ago, people were capable of creating outstandingly beautiful golden artworks, paying respect to a deceased ruler. It is hard not to marvel at what human beings were capable of accomplishing, even so long ago and with such modest, early tools.