Dachau

[swab]

Visited there on my trip, and it was strange as well as moving. Its a small town about 10 miles from the center of Munich, probably the equivelant of Uxbridge to central London (not to put a slur on Uxbridge). I had to pay to park, and this led me to think that they were making money out of the place, but entrance is free, and my faith restored. It takes a bit of getting used to a place of mass death being a tourist attraction and full of tourists(like myself). It was mostly buried under mud at the end of the war, but has been excavated and renovated since. The SS office and quarters are out of bounds and buried to deter interest. The whole place is very moving, and it takes a long time to get round and see it all including the exhibitions. The crematoria (old and not so old) are still there with the gas chamber which was not used very much (only 2 or 3 people at a time), as shooting was the chosen method there. The place has 3 churches and a nunnery now, so religion is hard to avoid. I would recommend going there to understand mans ability to be inhumane, a bit like those that preach against recreational drugs without ever having taken any, to speak against war/violence you must understand the full horrors. It was the same seeing the mass graves of Ypres and visiting the passondale museum. How people survive these things is beyond me, but how people feel comfortable living in Ypres/Dachau/Hiroshima is even more strange. Still I would recommend it. A prayer left by a jewish women in the protestant church, whose grandparents had died there, had been written just before I got there moved me to tears.
Munich was one of the main areas for the beginnings of naziism and Hitler made a lot of his speaches there, it has so much relevance to the third reich they do a tour of Hitlers early days there. It was also strange flying out of
Munich airport, the same airport one Neville Chamberlain flew out of with a piece of paper which was suposed to mean peace in our time.

[SP]

Sounds like an incredible place! ... well worth a look, but if I went to see it, I'd like to see it all! ... not just the nice bits.

Be careful with that religion thing though ... Organized religion destroys who we are or who we can be by inhibiting our actions and decisions out of fear of an intangible parent-figure who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says "No, no!"

[DerOberst]

The saddest place I ever did see was oradour in france!Basically the nazi's destroyed the whole village killing everybody women children men the village is still in ruins and is a testament to those who died!Its a sad and quiet place
and really puts the shivers up your spine when you walk through there

[Blink]

I have visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, near Berlin, and that was a fascinating/eerie experience. Having been there, I definitely want to visit Aushwitz.

I have also just finished reading If This Is A Man and The Truce by Primo Levi, which are well worth a read.

[Guy13]

The saddest place I ever did see was oradour in france!Basically the nazi's destroyed the whole village killing everybody women children men the village is still in ruins and is a testament to those who died!Its a sad and quiet place
and really puts the shivers up your spine when you walk through there

Yes, I've read about Oradour. The Waffen SS (Das Reich) burnt the women and children in the church.

Am I right in saying that they actually rebuilt the whole town to the side and left the old town as a monument?

[kylon]

I've never had the time and money in any kind of combination to do a tour of these sites... These kind of threads make me regret that enormously. Sincerely, thank you for taking the time to write.

[DerOberst]

Yes, I've read about Oradour. The Waffen SS (Das Reich) burnt the women and children in the church.

Am I right in saying that they actually rebuilt the whole town to the side and left the old town as a monument?
yep you are correct it is a really solem place!!

[ecclecticbb]

I was wondering...

What makes you people go and visit or want to visit a place like Dachau or similar? I want to understand...

[Blink]

I was wondering...

What makes you people go and visit or want to visit a place like Dachau or similar? I want to understand...

The whole history behind the places, both the good and the bad is just fascinating. I can't think of anything more extreme that a human could go through, on either side, the captors and the captives.

So to go somewhere where it actually happened, to try and get a feel for it.

To try to imagine what you would do in that situation.

If you were a German at the time, would you go along with it, would you fight it, would you think it was right, or would you think it was wrong.

If you were a prisoner (not just jews, but others as well). Would you survive it, could you survive it? Would you survive it by selling out your fellow prisoners, as many did, or would you cling to your principals, even if they could kill you. I have already mentioned Primo Levi, who survived Auschwitz-Berkenau. He wrote a book called "The Drowned and the Saved". Would you be the drowned or the saved?

For me, that is why I went. I have no ties to the event, no family who served or were prisoners (Other than an uncle who was a jailor for Rudolf Hesse at Spandau), I just wanted to experience a part of what is, quite possibly, the biggest "event" in human history.

Or it could just be morbid curiosity

[ecclecticbb]

Interesting points, Blink, thanks!!

Extreme situations happen everyday and they can be really overwhelming. Last week(yes, only last week) I learnt about that book based on a real story: The perfect Victim.

Scary. Extreme. And on a one to one basis.

Human being can be so cruel...

[DerOberst]

Human being can be so cruel...

Yeah we can! we are all but herd animals

[ecclecticbb]

Yeah we can! we are all but herd animals

We are human beings and that makes us cruel!!

[swab]

4 legs good 2 legs bad

oscar wilde

[drunkmonkey]

4 legs good 2 legs bad

oscar wilde

No it was George Orwell Animal Farm

[Blink]

No it was George Orwell Animal Farm

Maybe they were saying that Oscar Wilde is bad!!

[swab]

No it was George Orwell Animal Farm

DOH

Homer Simpson

[Goblino]

Ooooh, another clown! *wacks him with a piano* :D

[snoww_wwhite]

DOH

Homer Simpson

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/stageclothes_1907_9265211

[snoww_wwhite]

back to topic...

i used to live near Dachau.... not surprising as i used to live near everwhere.

anyway, i just did not want to join the tourist treck feeling all of a sudden sad and guilty about the german past.

its like you go there and have to feel touched to order.

when i went to Belsen i felt - nothing

nothing at all.

i just dont do guilt on command anymore. i felt more touched going to the reichstag in berlin than to look at a stone trying to feel really sorry about a bit of history i know bugger all about.

some day i shall make it to Auschwitz and we will see how i feel there.
guess i would love to see a goulac sometime too... who knows maybe the russians could get a bit of bashing their history over their heads and made to feel guilty about what Stalin et al did.

no, hold on, they won the war, they are above criticism.. sorry i keep forgetting.

one thing left to say:

try not to become too extreme or youre quicker like the nazis in in history than you can say "KZ" and that includes fanatical liberalism dear friends.

[Blink]

anyway, i just did not want to join the tourist treck feeling all of a sudden sad and guilty about the german past.

its like you go there and have to feel touched to order.


I agree about not being "touched by order". I have realised that I have probably been through Kings X a couple of dozen times since the bombing, and it never even occurs to me to stop and think about what happened there. Isn't there a memorial somewhere as well?

It just doesn't "move me".

And as for feeling guilty about the German past, I don't think any German that wasn't there at the time should feel guilty about the past. The majority of the british certainly don't feel guilty about their colonial past, and I resent being told that my generation needs to make ammends for things that were nothing to do with us!

I think I can picture myself being involved in a war, which is why I feel some empathy towards people involved in them, whereas I can't picture myself being involved in a bombing, so it doesn't affect me.

[ecclecticbb]

And as for feeling guilty about the German past, I don't think any German that wasn't there at the time should feel guilty about the past. The majority of the british certainly don't feel guilty about their colonial past, and I resent being told that my generation needs to make ammends for things that were nothing to do with us!

Are you surprised if I tell you that a huge amount of South American people hate Spanish people and still tell us that we stole their gold? It has happened to me and to friends on countless occasions.

My answer is always the same: "I wasn't there 500 years ago. Should I have been maybe things would have been different. Who knows? Now, how are you today?"