Concrete and barbed wire. (Click picture for larger view)
"You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil." ~ John Ruskin, English essayist
"Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it." ~ Baltasar Gracian (pseudonym Lorenzo Gracian)Barbed wire and concrete remind me of penitentiaries, keeping the evil IN; as well as that of secure installations, where it keeps the evil OUT. This picture reminds me of the concentration camps in Europe, in particular Mauthausen, near Linz, Austria. Beautiful rolling hills, lush with the green of growing crops and dotted with small farm houses; in sharp contrast to Hitler's labor camp sitting on the hilltop with dank and cramped wooden barracks, dark cellar gas chambers and crematorium, and that deep water-filled quarry where so many died. Covering the walls of the crematorium are pictures of hundreds who perished here; brought over the years by family members seeking to find the final resting place of fathers, mothers, grandparents and other relatives. Mauthausen would be considered an "equal opportunity" camp today as individuals from 30 different countries died here; prisoners of war, Spanish resistance fighters, university professors, gypsies, Polish and Hungarian Jews and anyone who failed to pledge loyalty to Hitler. How did Hitler manage to bring such evil and terror to a beautiful countryside? People find it far easier to compromise; to overlook the evil, than to resist it.
Submission to PhotoFriday for topic "evil". (end of post)
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