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For most of my life I have known the numbers: 6 million Jews killed; 1.5 million children killed.

For most of my life I have known the names of towns: Auschwitz, Birkinau, Łódz, Treblinka, Terezinstadt, Warsaw ghetto.

For most of my life I have known the names of the vilest men to walk this earth: Hitler, Goring, Mengele, Eichmann, Himmler.

For much of my life I have seen the pictures of emaciated bodies, cattle cars, deportation platforms, barbed wire, raw barracks with inhuman conditions.

I have also known some of the names of the heroes who fought for the right to live, who rebelled in any way they could. And the names of those who tried to enlighten the world to the horrors and methods used to perpetuate the horrors: Elie Wiesel, Hannah Senesh, the ghetto fighters, the Partisans, the Righteous Gentiles.

For much of my life I have been privileged to know some of the survivors — I listened to their stories if they wished to share, offered friendship if they didn’t.

For the past two weeks I walked in the steps of those whose very existence was questioned, whose hopes and dreams were shattered, whose talents, skills and knowledge were thrown away. I saw firsthand the unimaginable, the brutality and the remains of a people: piles of shoes, braids of human hair, clothes, pots and pans, the gas chambers, a crematorium, mass graves, unmarked graves, desecrated graves. Rail cars, deportation stations, the end of the rail lines.

I also saw evidence of that which defines civilization: art, music, poetry created by people whose world would soon be no more! In the face of the greatest evil they continued to create, to do good, to have hope! To document their history so that hopefully the world would know.

Elie Wiesel exhorted us to bear witness, to shout out to the world what happened and how! To share the horrors. To never forget!

Yes, I took pictures, and I will share my pictures, my memories, my impressions. Yes, I was uncomfortable, sick to my stomach, enraged. Yes, I cried. And I continue to cry.

But I won’t go “softly and safely!”

I will speak out when I see, hear, know of other evil men focused on  human rights violations and genocides: Pol Pot (Cambodia),  Darfur, Myanmar, Pinochet (Chile). The atrocities in these places must also not be forgotten.

I will not go softly….I will not stay safely in my own world. I will continue to say Kaddish in memory and in honor of those who left no descendants.  I will yell, I will fight and I will ensure that my vote counts.

As Jews we must be the vanguard of hope, of decency and morality. If we don’t fulfill these roles, who will? So my friends, my fellow travelers who shared this journey, bear witness to what you saw. Relate the horrors, make people uncomfortable so that they too may be enraged and willing to fight for mankind!

It is our responsibility. Only then will we all be safe.