It's strange to say the state celebrated the opening last week of the Michael Klahr Center at the Holocaust Human Rights Center on the campus of the University of Maine at Augusta.

For many of us, "commemorate" seems a much better word for a building whose purpose is to provide a home for the operations of a center dedicated to teaching about the Holocaust, one of the greatest crimes in human history.

Yet who are we to argue with Holocaust survivor Gerda Haas, who spoke at the center's opening. "In celebrating this beautiful building," said Haas, founder of the Holocaust Human Rights Center, "I want to say to you, Hitler did not win."

The building is, indeed, a stunning example of the ability to translate feeling into concrete form. And the feeling the center's supporters wanted to convey was of hopefulness, not despair.

"We were very definite on the fact that we didn't want Holocaust architecture -- no barbed wire and no smokestacks," said Sharon Nichols last year. Nichols is the former executive director of the Holocaust center. "We didn't want to concentrate on the darkness of the Holocaust."

There are, of course, dark and terrible images conveyed in the presentations and items housed in the center. For all the uplifting qualities of its architecture, for the beauty it brings to the city of Augusta and the state of Maine, we are grateful.

But behind that beauty lies a horrifying reality that can never be erased. And despite our gratitude for the center and those who made it possible, there's a small but undeniable voice saying that we wish the center had never been built -- because we wish the events it transcends with its soaring and inspiring architecture had never, ever happened.