Placed:  4-18-09
Placed By: WWW
Location: Colchester, Connecticut, New London County
Rated:  Easy, About .3 of a mile one way. Large box, HH friendly.

The subject of this letterbox is the most meaningful I have made to date. I have no joy in it’s planting; just a somber contemplation of the horrors of the Holocaust of 1933-1945. You may not want to think of the atrocities and the murder of 9 to 11 million innocent people in concentration camps by the Nazis. It’s too disturbing, too horrible to think of, just too unpleasant. The fact is, it happened. To forget or turn away would be unconscionable.

The primary victims were Jews of which over 6 million were killed. Others included were ethnic Poles, Gypsies, Soviet citizens, Soviet Prisoners of War, mentally or physically disabled patients, homosexual men, communists, socialists, trade unionists Jehovah's Witnesses, pacifists, vagrants, prostitutes, freemasons, mentally ill, criminals and religious and political dissidents. Do not forget them. Do not stand silent. Remember them, honor them, and vow never again.

The United States has a special day devoted to the remembering of the Holocaust.  It is on the twenty-seventh day of the Jewish month of Nissan called Yom Hashoah, This falls on a different date each year, in 2009 it is on April 21, and that is the day this letterbox was posted. No matter what day you visit this box, please spend at least a few moments to remember the victims.

The Clues:
Bring Black ink. The rest can be colored in at home.

Planted at the Ruby & Elizabeth Cohen Woodlands on McDonald Rd in Colchester, CT. Coming from Hebron on route 85, drive through Colchester Center until you come to a Y which is the intersection of routes 85 and the beginning of route 354 also known as Parum Road. Bear left at the Y and go onto route 354. Travel .7 of a mile to McDonald Rd. Turn right onto McDonald Rd. Go .7 of a mile up McDonald Road to the Ruby & Elizabeth Cohen Woodlands. Park on the right. This is the same starting point as
“The Old Foundation - up and running, again” letterbox.

Follow a line of trees along the side of the pond. When you get to the woods, go a little to the right to a trail.  The trail is wide as it heads into the woods. Pass a few information signs along the trail. You then come to a Y in the trail. This is a loop trail. Bear right, following the path through a tumbled down stone wall. Continue until you come to a spot where the trail is about to go through another stone wall. The stone wall runs roughly North-South. Follow the wall on the south side of the trail 27 steps to an opening at the bottom of the wall on it’s east side. There is a rose quartz rock on the ground in front of the wall’s cavity. If you come to a hunters tree stand, back track 7 steps and you will be there. Remove the wood from the opening and find the Holocaust Remembrance letterbox.

You need not move any rocks. After you are finished return the way you came or follow the loop back to the intersection.

Coloring and information about the stamp: In the early stages the Nazis made prisoners wear colored triangles to identify why they were placed there. Jews were required to wear a yellow star. The order in which the triangles are colored does not matter but the colors you use do.

The star has to be yellow.

The triangles: Red, Green, Pink, Purple, Blue, Black, and Brown.

Red Triangle - Communists, socialists, trade unionists, political prisoners, liberals, freemasons, anarchists, and enemies of the state.

Blue Triangle - foreign forced laborers, immigrants.

Purple Triangle - Religious dissidents, Jehovah's Witnesses.

Yellow Star – Jews

Brown Triangle - Gypsies

Black Triangle- asocial elements that include: mentally retarded, mentally ill, alcoholics, vagrants, beggars, prostitutes, aristocrats, intellectuals, pacifists, conscription resisters, and the habitually "work-shy".

To learn more about concentration camp badges and colors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges

There are thousands of sources to find information about the holocaust. Here I’ve listed two.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia

http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/tp/holocaust.htm About.com: 20^th Century History, The Holocaust

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