O/T Auschwitz

[Gully]

Spain ?? Are you sure ?

Don't know about Spain, which has to be possible, but they definitely went as far as Italy as that is where Primo Levi was living.

 

[Bakesy]

I went to Poland a few years back and done the tours of both Auschwitz and Berkenau, i found it a very sobering experience but certainly glad i went.
Also i have been to Oradour Sur Glane in France, this was a village that was completely obliterated in one night by the SS following the killing of an SS officer by the Resistance.
Every man woman and child were brutally murdered.
The village has been completely untouched since that day and a new town built a few miles away.
This place is every bit as earry as Auschwitz and everything is so quiet...no birds in the trees, nothing.
Its like it all happened just yesterday.
Well worth a visit if you are near the Limoges area.

 

[SULLY COULDNT SHOOT]

The whole Polish experience of the second world war is totally moving. Anyone shoulf read the bestseller Warsaw which tells the tragedy of the Warsaw Uprising. Once you have read that you will never look at the the streets of Warsaw in the same way again. I have worked with a Polish-English author whose father fought in the Battle of Britain and whose mother escaped to North Africa via Russia and the near East, become a radio operator in the PoLish free army (as a radio operator) and fought at Monte Cassino.

As for Oswiecim, I had already been to Majdanek (in Lublin) before goign there so its effect on me was less. Majdanek completelty shook me, partly because it was so close to the town centre. The ovens werent hidden at all. I remember going to the toilet in the tyourist centre and I walked in and there were all white doors into cubicles and it looked just like the gas chambers... really really frightening. See Majdanek too if you get the chance.

As for those Polish trains... you just took the wrong gones. There are three types:

Osobowy - for the villaged and small towns and run locally... slow as snails.
Pospierszne - about the same speed as British trains
Ekspress - obvious.

So pleased Im going back to POland for a conference in two weeks....

 

[SULLY COULDNT SHOOT]

This little statue in Warsaw is so moving: Maly Powstaniec (Little Insurgent) - WW2Museums.com

 

[Lethargic]

I have not been to Auchwitz but I have been to both Dachau and Bergen Belsen and both will be experiences that will stay with me all my life. They are sobering in different ways but the silence around the mass graves amongst the woods is eerie. Seeing the evidence of mans inhumanity makes you look at the way you live your own life and gives you a different perspective on things.

I hope this comes across in the right way but I am glad I went (be better if the places never existed) and it is something I would recommend if you get the opportunity.


---
I am here: Google Maps

 

[The Rivet]

Thank you so much Hovagirl for so elequantly expressing what seems to be so much the same philosophy I have about society and education. I am not one to be able to concoct long concise arguments in forums, as you know, but I wholeheartedly concur with 99% of your sentiments. Bravo.

ATFC........are you a teacher per chance?

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I went to Struthof on a family holiday. Up until then, the time had been spent roaming around the glorious and scenic Alsace with not a care in the world.

I have never felt such an eerie feeling as I did walking around Natzweiler-Struthof - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It was hard hitting for an eleven year old (hard hitting for anyone, I imagine!).

Amusingly, two people were late for the tour and got locked out. A very loud and concerned German accent seeped through the gates saying "Let us in!".

I went round the Holocaust exhibition (twice) at the Imperial War Museum, a year ago. Again, very moving. I assume that has finished now.

 

[gruntage]

I went to auschwitz last year, and last month I visited S21 and the killing fields in Cambodia. Still taken aback by both of them. The scale of auschwitz was horrifying, and the asthetic innocence of S21 (a converted primary school) hiding some of the worst scenes of modern history was gut churning. Glad I visited all of them (i'm a bit of a history buff) but they were not pleasant days, and will stay with me for a long long time. Never again.

 

[daveinprague]

They have Terezen here, Its a fortified town they used. Its also the transit camp for children on their way to the death camp further east. The nazi film of jews enjoying life in the camps was filmed there. Also Lidice that was wiped off the face of the earth, all males over 16 shot. Women transported to Buchenwald. Children fostered to German families If 'german' enough, otherwise, also to Buchanwald.
Similer at Another
village whose name escape me right Now. Its incomprehensible and how people can deny it is just weird

 

[catfish]

Some years ago I spoke to David Irving (not out of choice) who told me that Auschwitz was only a slave labour camp. He really believed it and shouted me down when I tried to argue with him.

 

[HovaGirl]

Thank you so much Hovagirl for so elequantly expressing what seems to be so much the same philosophy I have about society and education. I am not one to be able to concoct long concise arguments in forums, as you know, but I wholeheartedly concur with 99% of your sentiments. Bravo.

ATFC........are you a teacher per chance?

Hi, Rivet. Forgot to greet you earlier. Thanks for your comments. As I said in one of my posts, I intended to train as a history teacher, but as far as I was concerned, the curriculum comprised current affairs (as I, personally, term the two World Wars!), when I would have loved to have inspired students to relish the lives of some of the people who shaped our country and some of the events which contributed to making our country what it became. Of course, the wars are important, but there are more colourful and almost romantic events to teach children before they can accept the reality of war and all its horror.

 

[Blackadder]

I will always remember a trip to Dachau in Southern Germany in 1980. Total emotional overload. Will stay with me forever.

I was there in 1980. September, short trip from Munich. It was grim, but Auschwitz was on a different level. 1 is more intact than 2 (where most of the extermination took place). The room with human hair was grim, along with the suitcases. The execution wall was as well. For some reason, one of the hut corridors with pictures of inmates, with date of entry and date of death will stick with me.

As mentioned earlier, if you get a chance to go to Krakow, which is a marvellous city. Go!

 

[bhafc99]

Have been to Bergen-Belsen on a cold December day, and – like SULLY COULDN'T SHOOT – to Madjanek, where it felt like I was the only person there. Both were eerie and moving.

I've also been to Auschwitz/Birkenau twice. Once in 1993, and once again in 2009. The difference really struck me. In the early 1990s, people mostly went to Auschwitz only, and you could walk round ALL of Birkenau pretty much on your own. Now 90% of Birkenau is closed to the public, to try and preserve it as much as possible. Even in the 15+ years between my two visits, the place had deteoriated, and from what people were saying, it may not be around for that much longer – another decade or two at best.

That for me drove home the importance of people visiting these places while they still can.

We should not forget. Ever.

 

[house your seagull]

Spain ?? Are you sure ?

you're right, got confused because there's a sephardic memorial there.

 

[Racek]

I went to Poland a few years back and done the tours of both Auschwitz and Berkenau, i found it a very sobering experience but certainly glad i went.
Also i have been to Oradour Sur Glane in France, this was a village that was completely obliterated in one night by the SS following the killing of an SS officer by the Resistance.
Every man woman and child were brutally murdered.
The village has been completely untouched since that day and a new town built a few miles away.
This place is every bit as earry as Auschwitz and everything is so quiet...no birds in the trees, nothing.
Its like it all happened just yesterday.
Well worth a visit if you are near the Limoges area.

I went to the that village in France a few years ago. They put all the woman and children in the church and torched it? Stranger place to walk around but again glad I went to see it.

 

[crasher]

Interesting thread. I've never been to Auschwitz or any of the other camps and to be honest I don't want to. It's not because I'm blind to the horrors that took place there but because I think I'd find it too upsetting and because I believe I don't have to go to remember and try to understand what happened. For instance, Primo Levi's books (there's a sequel to If this is a Man called, I think, The Truce, which describes the aftermath of the war) are as horrifying as they are insightful.

I don't in any way criticise those who do go - just that it's not for me.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

They have Terezen here, Its a fortified town they used. Its also the transit camp for children on their way to the death camp further east. The nazi film of jews enjoying life in the camps was filmed there. Also Lidice that was wiped off the face of the earth, all males over 16 shot. Women transported to Buchenwald. Children fostered to German families If 'german' enough, otherwise, also to Buchanwald.
Similer at Another
village whose name escape me right Now. Its incomprehensible and how people can deny it is just weird

Lidice, that was a reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich .

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Lidice, that was a reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich .

Intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the town of Lidice, and Ležáky. In retaliation, Himmler ordered a series of deportations and executions in Lidice, including the execution of all male residents over the age of 16 (192 in total).

 

[Bakesy]

I went to the that village in France a few years ago. They put all the woman and children in the church and torched it? Stranger place to walk around but again glad I went to see it.

Yes, that's the place.
A few people managed to hide or escape, but not many, and over 600 were murdered that night alone.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

it's still going on : 28th jully 2011, 97 year old Hungarian Sandor Kepiro cleared of murder charges against Jews and Serbs in Novi sad in 1942 ONE OF THE BIGGEST ATTROCITIES NOT INVOLVING A DEATH CAMP