concentration camps

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counterclockwise's using her promoting-power for good
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
Everything about the Third Reich leaves me torn...one of my grandpas barely survived Auschwitz and the other one was part of the SS. Of course there is a longer story to all that, but when I see such a picture I always feel weird and cloistered away for days.
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clevernamehere
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
I went to Auschwitz when I was 21 and that was the only concentration trip I ever need to take.

I know a lot of people are deeply moved visiting concentration camps, but the whole thing felt really surreal to me. There were people taking pictures of the big pile of shoes and it felt like some of them were just ticking off part of the itinerary. It was an incredibly sad place to visit, but it just felt kind of wrong to be there. I felt similarly when people started visiting ground zero while they were still looking for body parts, like it was somehow voyeuristic.

I'm not saying people shouldn't go, but I don't think it is a must do. I think learning about the individuals who died in the Holocaust can be a better testament.
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JinxyMcDeath
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
I too went to Dachau as a child and it was horrifying. I will never, ever, forget it. And FYI, Dachau concentration camp was in the middle of a town. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING TOWN. Like, you know, Central Park.
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bluebears
06/05/09

@JinxyMcDeath: ya. I have never bought the whole, ordinary Germans had no idea, line of thinking.
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marshmallory
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
I really, really want to go to one of these sites, because I have always been fascinated by World War II and everything to do with it, but I'm concerned that I'll never be the same afterward. I feel like the pain and horror and death in a place like that would seep into my bones and never go away. But I also feel like it would give me a new perspective on life and a new appreciation for everything my ancestors went through.
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leesie
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
I have never been so moved as when I visited the Holocaust Museum in DC many years ago. I actually had to leave the building and compose myself several times.

Not sure if they still do this, but it used to be that you would receive a person's name when you started your tour and at different station you would follow this person's life. It made the experience so real.

OK--crying again....
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NellMood
06/05/09

@leesie: Yeah, I thought that was a really brilliant element of the museum.
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thesciencegirl
06/05/09

@leesie: That is an absolutely brilliant museum. The hardest parts for me were 1. walking through the boxcar, and 2. the pile of shoes.

They also have a really well done exhibit where you walk through a young boy's home and read pages in his diary.
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Mmmmkay (gellin' and Jezebelin)
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
I had a memory this morning about visiting Dachau when I was 6, which is: when I was in Germany with my family and my parents told me us we were going to visit a "Concentration Camp" I thought we were going to see how orange juice was made, because on cartons it said "Not from Concentrate," and that was the only context I'd ever seen the word. Of course I figured out quickly that it was a bad place and we were there because it was important, and I'll never forget the jarring reality of it against my childish expectations.
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bluebears
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
My dads best friend from high school (who he's still friends with) has two survivors as parents. His dad was 16 when he went the forced "death march" he was with his father who was in his 40s at the time but of course totally starved and ill. His father just sat down at one point and said I can't go on, you have to go on, they'll shoot you, go. and he had to walk away from his father, 16 yrs old.
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sequined
06/05/09

@bluebears: My dad had a prof in college who was a survivor; his family had hiked out over the Alps, Sound-of-Music-style. The man was really young at the time--like four I think. My dad said that one day a student went up to him all whiny about how he couldn't finish a paper on time because his life was so hard/busy/whatever, and the prof sat back in his chair and said, "Let me tell you a story about a little Jewish boy during World War II..." Puts things in perspective.
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NellMood
06/05/09

@bluebears: Oh my god. I cannot imagine. I have to stop trying to imagine, because now I'm crying.
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marshmallory
06/05/09

@bluebears: Oh my god. I cannot imagine. Stories like this really remind me how good we have it that we probably won't ever have to make a decision like that.
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bluebears
06/05/09

@NellMood: I know. If it makes you feel better that 16 yr old moved to the US, got married, had 2 sons who are successful and happy, and several grandchildren and he is alive to see all of that. I think that his father who couldn't go on would be happy about that you know? The Nazi's couldn't "exterminate" them completely.
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NellMood
06/05/09

@marshmallory wants to gobble and prance.: Whoa, jinx.

@bluebears: I'm glad he was able to have a full, happy life. I just can't imagine the actual walking away, you know?
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bluebears
06/05/09

@NellMood: I know. It's beyond awful.
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thesciencegirl
06/05/09

@bluebears: I'm imagining myself in that man's shoes, walking away from my father, and it makes me want to put my head down on my desk and weep. I've been reading Holocaust memoirs since I was a teenager, but it never ceases to horrify me when I hear stories like this. The image of him walking away... MY GOD.
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bluebears
06/05/09

You guys, I'm really sorry, I didn't want to make people cry!
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for.no.one.else
06/05/09

@bluebears: I'm weirdly glad to be crying right now... I feel like that anecdote gave me a tiny bit of insight into one of the millions of personal stories that make up the Holocaust. Thanks for sharing it.
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bluebears
06/05/09

@for.no.one.else: you're welcome.
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Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
Trigger Warning

I visited Dachau when I was 14. My father made me go. It is absolutely startling in its normalcy. Your feet crunch the gravel. You stare down rows upon rows of innocuous identical shacks. You constantly remind yourself what happened there, who stood in the courtyard before you. They have a tiny museum that you go through ,very sanitized and unoffensive, with the exception of one picture. This picture is of a man hanging by his arms (bound behind his back) from a 10 foot post, as punishment for stealing food. You step into the harsh daylight and see in front of you what looks like an army camp. You think, "This isn't so bad." Then you see the post in the middle of the courtyard and you think back to the picture and you start balling.
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sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit)
06/05/09

@Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.: I want to go very badly but don't have any money to travel. My grandparents, both of whom were born in America but lost family in the Holocaust, went about twenty years ago. They still cry every time they talk about it.
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deeemer
06/05/09

@sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit): I think this makes me different, but I really do NOT want to go. My grandmother was in Auschwitz nearly since its inception. And my grandfather was also in a camp until he escaped. My parents were "children of Holocaust survivors", which should be a category. I've read books, listened to everyone's true-life stories, gone to museums, and I sometimes I just don't want to give this more power by actually attending it. I feel like I've been saturated by it, and while I'm happy I have been, further immersion just makes me lose faith.

I think about it with regards to my own kids - how much do I want them to know about it? How much will it improve their lives to understand these concepts? I don't want to censor it, but how necessary is it to visit a site of evil, when you're intimately acquainted with it?
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Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.
06/05/09

@sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit): @VeryFancyBunny: It was, and continues to be, a defining moment in my life. I feel like, no matter what the emotional cost, attention must be paid. People died. The least I can do in my life is be a witness to their suffering. I will pass it down to my children and my children's children so that it will never be forgotten.
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MizJenkins
06/05/09

@Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.: I went when I was 16...I couldn't get past the parking lot. I just sat on the bus, overcome by the sheer weight and enormity of it all.
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sequined
06/05/09

@Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.: I actually really liked visiting Dachau when I lived in Germany. I think it's really moving, but very accessible and not (on the third visit anyway) so overwhelming that you can't do anything for the rest of the day. The museum may have been expanded since you were there; now there's a ton of information, but still not many graphic photos. I think that's deliberate. The video you can watch, however, is pretty awful; I felt like crying during most of it.

I was lucky enough on one visit to get a tour from a man who had grown up in (the city of) Dachau. He talked very candidly about the shame residents of Dachau (the city) felt about having lived in a place associated with such horrors (and for not doing anything, in retrospect). He said when his daughters were born, they went to a different hospital so the birth certificate wouldn't say "Dachau." Very interesting.

One of my favorite things is that at the back of the camp are three chapels--a protestant, a Catholic, and a Jewish memorial where people of all faiths can pray and remember. I think they're both interesting and powerful.

So moral of the story, I recommend visiting Dachau.
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MizJenkins
06/05/09

@deeemer: I feel you. This is why I have never had any interest in visiting old southern plantations/slave quarters.
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ImproperDancing
06/05/09

@Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.: I don't know if I'd be able to handle that. Although my great-grandparents left Europe a decade before the Holocaust, as a Jew and a human being with a heart, it still affects me very much.

Every year my local Hillel reads names of those who died in the camps and it destroys me every time.
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sportz.star
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
yit gaddal v'yit kadash sh'mei raba . . .

amen.
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JinxyMcDeath
06/05/09

@sportz.star: Amen.
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ImproperDancing
06/05/09

@sportz.star: amen
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Glitterbug (likes life shaken, not stirred)
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
Now I'm getting all choked up. My friend recently visited Auschwitz and I've never seen her so badly affected by anything, ever.
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starryeyd follows rustyrockets
06/06/09

@Glitterbug (likes life shaken, not stirred): The second worst day of my life was the day I visited Dauchau. It was, like Vivelafat said, totally normal-seeming. The video of the inmates playing on a constant loop amongst the huge pictures of starving people was unnerving. The back of my neck prickled the whole time I was there and my roommate threw up in the bushes. Just thinking about that place gives me the shakes again. I'm generally mistrustful of psychic phenomena, but I fully believe that some imprint of the suffering remains there.
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casi nadie (loves MCC forever)
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
Will we ever have such a memorial for Darfur? For Rwanda? In Armenia?

How about in Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile?

There's too much remembering to do.
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PaintedTrollop
06/05/09

@o português é muito sexy de Curly Crown:

Will we ever have such a memorial right here in the US for the millions of Indians slaughtered by the European invaders?
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Agent1BDI
06/05/09

@PaintedTrollop: There's the Crazy Horse Memorial in the black hills, South Dakota. About an hour drive from Mt. Rushmore and it was a moving experience.

[www.unitednativeamerica.com]
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thesciencegirl
06/05/09

@PaintedTrollop: I really wish we did. Are there any groups advocating for that? If you have links, please let me know.
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PaintedTrollop
06/06/09

@Agent1BDI:

The Indians are opposed to this monument - on their sacred Black Hills. White folks decided to build a big guilt monument, without their support, in what is essentially their church. Crazy Horse never had his picture taken - he had strong beliefs about having his image replicated - so in addition to everything else, it's a completely fanciful big guilt monument.
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brinkswomanship
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
Lest we forget.
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ImproperDancing
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
I just got chills.

Never again. Never Forget.
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sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit)
06/05/09

In reply to The Forest For The Trees
And now I'm crying. This is the most moving SJ I may ever see on this site. Thank you.
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
06/05/09

@sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit): Me too.
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luciolebizarre
06/05/09

@sarah.of.a.lesser.god (aka Mrs. BrutallyHonestHobbit): Yes, I really appreciate the snap judgments lately. I almost think they need a new name because Snap Judgment sounds a little bitchy and they have just been so beautiful and moving lately. Thank you, Jezebel editors!
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Ipomoea
06/05/09

@luciolebizarre: I second this. I'm sniffling at my desk. Thank you, editors, for going above and beyond whatever a Snap Judgment originally was.
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