On not forgetting: Auschwitz by drone.

I've been to Auschwitz. It is important to remember that while what one sees there is horrible enough, the most hellish part of the complex at Birkenau was demolished -- and these both were mere cogs in a much larger murderous enterprise.

The Holocaust now has slipped from active, living memory. That's why you should take the time to view the documentary film Shoah. When it was filmed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it had been only four decades since war's end.

Lanzmann, Shoah, and a persistence of memory.

The drone clip is suitably chilling, It appeared at the BBC on Tuesday, the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation. I decided to wait a few days to post it. A guy needs time to think.

Views of Pripyat and Chernobyl from a drone.

We've all been here before.

From Chernobyl to Fukushima Daiichi in no easy lessons. (2011)

Though not with drones. Pripyat was a purpose-built "nuclear city," and now lies in the center of a man-made dead zone.

A drone's-eye view of CHERNOBYL: Eerie footage reveals a city left to decay after devastating nuclear disaster, by Ellie Zolfagharifard (Daily Mail)

• Pripyat was just miles from the Chernobyl plant which exploded in 1986
• Drone footage was captured by Devon-based filmmaker, Danny Cooke
• He used a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter, a Canon 7D camera and a GoPro3+
• It shows haunting views of abandoned fairground rides and buildings
• 'There was something serene yet disturbing about this place,' said Cooke

... Tourists may obtain day passes, and some workers who are rebuilding parts of the site are allowed in for limited hours only each month. Scientists say the area will not be safe to live in for another 20,000 years.