OT......Auswitz Birkenau Tour.......

[B.M.F]

To change the subject to a bit of a happier note, Did you find the cheap minibuses to the Salt mines etc Bakesy?

 

[Northstander]

I have seen Dachau as a child of approx 10 and didnt know what it was.

I will never forget it, no birds singing, just a feeling, to a 10 year of child, of horror!!

I agree this should be a compulsory visit to all children in the EU, after seeing that, I am now even more angry when I meet ignorant racists!

Left there truly distressted but in a funny way, pleased I'd seen it.

 

[Bakesy]

To change the subject to a bit of a happier note, Did you find the cheap minibuses to the Salt mines etc Bakesy?

Pm sent.

 

[Gully]

I know it can't compare to going to a concentration camp, but I have visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam a couple of times. On the second occasion it was quite busy and we had to queue to get in, think it must have been on a Saturday. While we were waiting to go in everyone was chatting away, not a care in the World, at least in our small group we were. In total contrast the majority who were leaving just filed out in silence.

I would recommend that all who visit Amsterdam, for whatever reason, take a little time out of their schedule to visit the house. I am sure they will find it a valuable and informative experience, a window into the life of a family and their ultimately futile attempt to evade the Nazis, a scene repeated in countless different homes across Europe during WWII.

 

[clapham_gull]

I found myself there about 17 years ago.

The huge cases of glasses and personal belongings that were confiscated will stay in my memory the most.

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

I have just finished reading a book called "If this is a man" by a man called Primo Levi, on the recommendation of someone on NSC I might add. It is about his experience as an Italian Jew in Auschwitz, it is a truly moving and graphic portrayal of what life was like in the camp and the way that people behaved just to survive until the next day. I would recommend the book to anyone who has an interest in history, particularly one of the darkest times in the recent past, it certainly moved me.

I had previously read a couple of books by Levi, the Periodic Table, the Wrench and if not now, when? I can't think of any writer, either alive or dead, whose literature has made such an impact on how I view history and the horrendous way that one human can behave towards another. I don't know if it would make any difference, but I would love to force every small minded bigot who believes that the Holocaust was misleading propaganda to visit Auschwitz and read books like those by Levi, then go away and think long and hard about their opinions.

What he said

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Quite right too. It is only 50-odd years ago,

Indeed. It's why the low-IQ white-trash Nazi right wing should be given no kind of platform whatsoever on any message board or anywhere else. Cos this isn't some kind of medieval mass-hysteria throwback. This is FIFTY YEARS AGO. Your mum or your nan was alive when it happened. It'll happen again in fifty years or maybe less if these ****s are given the opportunity. Let them know they're the lowest form of scum whenever they crawl out from under a stone

 

[Loft23]

It might not be an ideal visit for many but ever since I saw the programme on BBC2 a year or so ago about Auschwitz i've wanted to visit the place just to see the true extent of the horror of the nazi regime.

 

[Bakesy]

It might not be an ideal visit for many but ever since I saw the programme on BBC2 a year or so ago about Auschwitz i've wanted to visit the place just to see the true extent of the horror of the nazi regime.

I had one of the guided tours and it was well worth a fiver.....the information that was given out as you went around the site certainly helped you understand the severity of the treatment dished out and the terrible conditions the prisoners endured.

 

[Gully]

It has already happened again, admittedly on a far smaller scale, in the Balkans in the early 90's. The Serbs ran what amounted to concentration camps in the former Yugoslavia and slaughtered a fair number of men, young and old, in the process.

 

[Gwylan]

I have just finished reading a book called "If this is a man" by a man called Primo Levi, on the recommendation of someone on NSC I might add. It is about his experience as an Italian Jew in Auschwitz, it is a truly moving and graphic portrayal of what life was like in the camp and the way that people behaved just to survive until the next day. I would recommend the book to anyone who has an interest in history, particularly one of the darkest times in the recent past, it certainly moved me.

I had previously read a couple of books by Levi, the Periodic Table, the Wrench and if not now, when? I can't think of any writer, either alive or dead, whose literature has made such an impact on how I view history and the horrendous way that one human can behave towards another. I don't know if it would make any difference, but I would love to force every small minded bigot who believes that the Holocaust was misleading propaganda to visit Auschwitz and read books like those by Levi, then go away and think long and hard about their opinions.

Marvellous book - I have all Levi's books on my shelf in front of me as I type. A writer who really brings out the full horror of Auschwitz. Sadly, he committed suicide in later life, still haunted by his experiences.

There's a marvellous poem by the Romanian-Jewish poet (and death camp survivor) Paul Celan called Todesfuge that's well worth reading (find it here: http://www.ralphmag.org/celan.html). Sadly, he too committed suicide some years after the war.

I've never been to Auschwitz but have been to Belsen - it's a memory that I'll never forget. I was warned about the lack of birdsong but until you experience it, you don't know how eerie it is.

 

[Mr Blobby]

This is part of the report I did for 365Englandfans after our trip to Poland.............................................



Thursday and we had booked a trip to Auschwitz. We left at 9.30 and arrived just after 11am. Well I am not sure what to say about the place. There were a fair few England fans about and it was good to see everyone being 100% respectful. You start by entering the gates with the infamous "arbeit macht frei" words above the gate, meaning "work makes you free". You then move on to various accommodation blocks that have been set up as a tribute.

The place that got to me was the room of 150kg of women's hair that was cut off once they had been gassed, the next had 44,000 pairs of shoes, the next 20,000 suitcases with names and where they lived written on them, the next baby clothes. Makes you feel strange, difficult to explain. Quite a few on our trip found it difficult to cope, but there are people on hand to talk to. After that it was on the punishment block. They had starvation cells, suffocation cells, standing 4 in a bricked up cell 90 x 90, many died standing/squashed up. Once cell contains a shrine to a religious man who took the place of another prison to die of suffocation. The man who he replaced survived the Holocaust and lived to be 94 and died just a few years ago.

Outside of this was the death wall, where prisoners were stripped naked and shot in the back of the head. There were a few flowers left in tribute, pride of place was the St George's carnations left by Mark P and others (excellent and tasteful gesture) Other Jewish prisoners had to move the bodies before they were then shot. The last bit we saw was the only remaining gas chamber. We stood in a spot where they estimate 77,000 were gassed and the "ovens" where they were cremated. Next to this gas chamber was the gallows where camp commander Hoss was hanged once the Soviets had liberated the camp.

Most of the atrocities took place in Birkenau our next
visit. Birkenau became the main death camp. They gassed on average 5,000 people a day (took 20 minutes to kill 1,500 people). They exterminated 400,000 Hungarian Jews in 1944 in just 2 months. It was still hard to believe that the Jews had to pay for the train to the camps, still believing they were going to a better place! 900,000 they believe were gassed without
even being registered. They still do not know how many died in the camp, they estimate between 1.5m and 2m. It was very humbling, but I am glad we went.

 

[Icy Gull]

, no birds singing, just a feeling, to a 10 year of child, of horror!!

I was struck by that at Belsen, I was told it was something to do with the amount of lime in the ground put there to speed up decomposition? No idea if that is true but the eeriness of Belsen and the lack of wildlife when I visited in the late 60's, as a kid, made a lasting impression.

After I got married I found out that my wife's father was one of the 1st into Belsen at the end of the war, apparently the locals denied any knowledge of what had been going on there, so the inhabitants were "route marched" up there by the soldiers to have a look at the horror.

 

[Bakesy]

I was struck by that at Belsen, I was told it was something to do with the amount of lime in the ground? No idea if that is true but the eeriness of Belsen and the lack of wildlife when I visited in the late 60's, as a kid, made a lasting impression.

When i visited Oradour Sur Glane in France last year, there was no sound of birds or wildlife at all, yet the surrounding countryside is full of them.
For those who don't know, Oradour was the village in France where an SS Officer "disappeared" and the SS stormed the village, rounded up all the men, stood them up against various walls in the village and shot them.All the women and children were taken to the church where they were machine gunned and grenaded.Then the church was torched, along with every building in the village.I forget the exact number who died, but it was over 600.The village is exactly the same today as it was on that aweful day......everything has been left as it was a memorial to those who perished.
Walking round there, it feels like it only happened yesterday.

http://www.oradour.info/

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I find it interesting that we have a thread about this and another thread dehumanising Gypsies at the same time. Sadly it illustrates to me just how easy it is to set up the conditions which create such appalling places as the concentration camps of central europe.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

I posted this back in 2005.

Last Week In Poland and a visit to Auschwitz- not pleasant reading!
Went to Krakow in Poland on Thu/Fri/Sat and Sunday last week and would just like to say, that if anyone wants a cheap few days in a very beautiful city, with rediculously cheap drink and good food, then Krakow is the place.

I will post a link to my yahoo photo's site tonight if anyone fancies a look at the place.

Went to Auschwitz/Birkenau on Friday and anything you see on the telly or read in books etc cannot in any way prepare yourself for what you witness with your own eyes.

Auschwitz 1, the main one you see on the telly ( big prison blocks etc) is very much like any prison you could imagine and in most of the blocks there was an "exhibition " of chattels etc from people shipped there from alll over Europe...suitcases, shoes, hair, glasses, clothing......pictures of "inmates" children who had been experimented on by Mengele...you would not believe such things existed. One poignant row of photos of local women ( mostly Jews) who on average lived just 10 to 20 days!.

After visiting the gas chamber and furnace rooms, I could not believe people taking photo's of each other sitting on for example the mechanism for fushing bodies into the crematorium ovens!

Birkenau was something wholley different. It is vast...I mean absolutely huge...I would have imagined the size was that of say Mile Oak. From the train tracks where the Jews were brought in, on the left was 100's of brick barracks for the women, on the right only abou 50 wooden huts remained, the remainder burned by the Nazi's. At the top of the camp were three gas chambers all destroyed, but you could imagine with ease what they were.

What was so sad, was picures of children going to have a "shower" and smiling thinking that their ordeal on the trains was over and they were to be settled there...little did they know that the shower was in fact a Cyclon B Gassing Chamber and they were about to die.

The literature showed, Jews, Homosexuals, intellectuals, black people, arabs, asians, gypsies, disabled people, deaf people, political prisoners....anyone who basically did not fit the arian look was killed. The only children to survive ( if you could call it that) was twins, which Mengele thought he could capture the gene that created twins so the arian race could be replicated.

When you come away from there, your whole view of life and mans inhumanity to fellow man totally changes

 

[Bakesy]

I find it interesting that we have a thread about this and another thread dehumanising Gypsies at the same time. Sadly it illustrates to me just how easy it is to set up the conditions which create such appalling places as the concentration camps of central europe.

Talking of Gypsies, i was never aware until a couple of days ago that over 50% of Europes Gypsy population were killed at Auschwitz

 

[Northstander]

I was struck by that at Belsen, I was told it was something to do with the amount of lime in the ground put there to speed up decomposition? No idea if that is true but the eeriness of Belsen and the lack of wildlife when I visited in the late 60's, as a kid, made a lasting impression.

After I got married I found out that my wife's father was one of the 1st into Belsen at the end of the war, apparently the locals denied any knowledge of what had been going on there, so the inhabitants were "route marched" up there by the soldiers to have a look at the horror.

They were also made to dig the graves!

 

[seagully]

As a Modern History student I've always wanted to visit. After reading some of these posts I'm determined to go at some point this summer. The horror of what happened to the Jews and other minorities in the Second World War really puts things into perspective, and the fact that it happened so recently never ceases to amaze me

 

[Publius Ovidius]

As a Modern History student I've always wanted to visit. After reading some of these posts I'm determined to go at some point this summer. The horror of what happened to the Jews and other minorities in the Second World War really puts things into perspective, and the fact that it happened so recently never ceases to amaze me

can I recommend this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...-1441251?v=glance&n=266239&s=gateway&v=glance


It will give you a totally different view of poles, and other eastern europeans and how they were supposed to be "sympathetic " to the plight of the Jews.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. It also explains why the Jews were displaced and also The Madagascar Project, which had been talked about in the British parliament at the time