Forgive me: I didn't sleep much last night. Something has been weighing heavily on my heart and I need to share this. I can not let it rest.

Over the last 10 years, my cousin Matt has been researching our family tree. Yesterday, Matt sent an email about one of our family tree's limbs.

In the 1880s, our mutual great-grandparents emigrated from Bohemia to New York City. They left behind a very large family concentrated in a small area of what is now known as the Czech Republic.

In the 1940s, 190 of those relatives - our great grandparent's brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews - were murdered in Auschwitz, Belzec, Buchenwald, Chelmno, Gross Rosen, Kaunas, Izbica, Lodž, Lublin, Maly Trostenets, Nisko, Opole, Piaska, Raasiku, Riga, Sobibor, Theresienstadt, Trawniki, Treblinka, Warsaw, and Zamošč.

More than a third of these 190 had photos. Matt found those photos in Holocaust.cz’s online database. This is what he sent me.

I have no words... just deep, deep sadness.

#Holocaust