Have any of you ever visited Auschwitz, or have relatives with WWII camp history?

[Slaymoar]

I've watched several documentaries and movies over the years about the 6million or so victims of the holocaust. I would really like to visit Auschwitz one of these days, I think it would be a powerful experience. I'm not sure how I would feel, but I think I would be overwhelmed. Although I am a huge douche on here sometimes, I also am very empathetic and feel strong emotions where people have died/suffered. I don't meant that I cry, just that I feel something inside, almost like the energy/pains of the souls that have passed, or something. I don't think it is actual souls I feel/perceive, but that's just the way I can explain it I guess.

 

But anyhow, the fact that this happened has had me obsessed with research and more information about the victims, and the criminals responsible (Nazis and anti-semites). 3.5 Million polish Jews at the pre WWII sensus, and almost none left at the end. All accounts seem to point to different numbers, but the final number seems to be around 40000 left in Poland post-war.

 

I would love to hear accounts of descendants you might have that witnessed or heard anything, whether on the good or bad side.

 

Have any of you been or considered visiting Auschwitz one day?

[-Assy-]

no {censored} that

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i deal with my own immense depression issues enough, last thing i need to do is visit a place like that.

[Cougar Hunter]

My bro's Grandpa was in Auschwitz. He has the id tattoo on his arm and everything. I've never had the nerve to ask him about it.

 

It's weird, this is a German town, and I always feel strange mentioning anything about Germany around my pal or his Grandpa.

[Cirrus]

If you're interested in the war, you've got to go to where it happened. One of the most interesting days of my life was when me and my parents took a day trip over to Berlin. Actually seeing the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, The path of the Wall, bullet holes in the facades of old buildings on the east side... it makes it very real, reminds you that all these things we read and hear about actually happened, it's not just some fairy tale world or a story.

 

With the people that actually remember these things happening starting to die off at an increasing rate, I think this sort of thing becomes even more important.

 

On a partially related note, a couple of weeks ago my Gf sang the "war requiem" with her choir+orchestra etc in Coventry Cathedral. Through the huge windows behind the performers you could see the ruins of the old cathedral, destroyed by German bombs during the war (Coventry was a big industrial centre then).

 

The setting made for a pretty emotional performance. When it got to the end there's these lines that really got to me;

 

"It seems that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.

"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."

"None", said the other, "save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

For by my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something had been left,

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Or, discontent, boil boldly, and be spilled.

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Miss we the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even from wells we sunk too deep for war,

Even from the sweetest wells that ever were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now..."

[Slaymoar]

 

My bro's Grandpa was in Auschwitz. He has the id tattoo on his arm and everything. I've never had the nerve to ask him about it. It's weird, this is a German town, and I always feel strange mentioning anything about Germany around my pal or his Grandpa.

 

 

Interesting. You think he'd talk to you if you'd ask? Some don't want to talk about it, but most do. Its almost like they make it their duty to share their experience to inform and remind others that it happened, to make sure this lesson has been learned.

[Slaymoar]

 

With the people that actually remember these things happening starting to die off at an increasing rate, I think this sort of thing becomes even more important.

 

 

That's what I am thinking. Not many of those left today! WWII vets are almost completely gone, and that includes any war survivors as well.

[Phrophus]

One of my friends visited either Auschwitz or Dachau. The only thing he told me about it was that he will never drive a volkswagen after seeing a VW emblem on one of the ovens or something.

[sleewell]

that stuff freaks me out big time. went to the holocaust museum in dc and couldnt sleep right for weeks. there is this one section that is a huge room with a monster pile of shoes and just pics of people on the walls, that still haunts me. cant imagine actually going there.

 

 

how could people do that to other people? i just dont get it.

[timmyfirst]

I've never done the camps, but i've done a lot of the Battlefields across France, Belgium and Austria. Those kind of trips are hugely morbid and really put things into perspective, i'd say do it, its certainly an experience you'll never forget.

[100 watt]

It's somewhere I'd like to see, but doubt if I'll ever get to go. No relatives that I know of were there.

 

An elderly Jewish lady who used to run a liqour store here was at one of the camps, but not sure where. She had the numbers tatt'd on her arm.

 

 

It's horrible enough seeing all the footage on T.V., but I'd still like to visit it. Ive had many who've been there tell me that they thought they could handle seeing it, but it got to them & they broke down.

 

Just mere pictures of what that place looks like today, gives me the creeps.

[Cirrus]

 

That's what I am thinking. Not many of those left today! WWII vets are almost completely gone, and that includes any war survivors as well.

 

 

I think this is something that lots of people feel. I wrote this song for my band called "Patch" about Harry patch, who was the last British person alive who fought in the first world war. It's hardly a great song but we invited some people to our lockup to hear it and when we were finished I was shocked to turn round and see them all crying - three grown men and four women. Like I say, I don't think it's a great song, but I think the idea that we need to make sure the suffering and deaths actually mean something to the modern world is shared by a lot of people.

[Aibric]

I think it would be interesting to visit, and it is terrible what happened there but I think we have a warped perspective about it. The holocaust isn't some singular, unique event in history or even unique in that particular war. Mass killings, forced labor and even outright slavery have been pretty common components of large scale conflict throughout history, and many peoples and cultures have suffered from it and in turn inflicted that same suffering on others - including the hebrews. The individual human element is what is most important in the end, and in war people on all sides are suffering and dying. War is a mix of life's greatest glory and misery.

[MattACaster]

My bro's Grandpa was in Auschwitz. He has the id tattoo on his arm and everything. I've never had the nerve to ask him about it. It's weird, this is a German town, and I always feel strange mentioning anything about Germany around my pal or his Grandpa.

 

Don't mention the war. I mentioned it once but I think I got away...

[Cirrus]

 

how could people do that to other people? i just dont get it.

 

 

What's that quote about evil? Something like "All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

 

When you're in the middle of something, it's hard to keep perspective. You have to remember that by 1943 Germany had been under Nazi rule for ten years - By that point, children indoctrinated into Nazi ideology would have been old enough to have jobs and be going about in society believing what they'd been taught at school, in Nazi controlled youth groups, and in the popular media which was controlled by the Party.

 

I'd also make the point that at heart we are animals, blind to our own faults the same way you're never going to convince a rat that it's stupid because it can't build a wrist watch. We're pack animals, we think we know what "normal" and "acceptable" behaviour is but all we have to base it on are the actions of the people around us.

[Phrophus]

 

What's that quote about evil? Something like "All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". When you're in the middle of something, it's hard to keep perspective. You have to remember that by 1943 Germany had been under Nazi rule for ten years - By that point, children indoctrinated into Nazi ideology would have been old enough to have jobs and be going about in society believing what they'd been taught at school, in Nazi controlled youth groups, and in the popular media which was controlled by the Party. I'd also make the point that at heart we are animals, blind to our own faults the same way you're never going to convince a rat that it's stupid because it can't build a wrist watch. We're pack animals, we think we know what "normal" and "acceptable" behaviour is but all we have to base it on are the actions of the people around us.

 

 

You ever see the movie, "Downfall"? One of the things I got from the movie was similar to your point about for young people entering into society and having only known nazi germany as the reality, it seemed normal.

[Cirrus]

I've not seen it, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Slaymoar]

I think it would be interesting to visit, and it is terrible what happened there but I think we have a warped perspective about it. The holocaust isn't some singular, unique event in history or even unique in that particular war. Mass killings, forced labor and even outright slavery have been pretty common components of large scale conflict throughout history, and many peoples and cultures have suffered from it and in turn inflicted that same suffering on others - including the hebrews. The individual human element is what is most important in the end, and in war people on all sides are suffering and dying. War is a mix of life's greatest glory and misery.

 

The holocaust happened at a time where everybody knew it was horribly wrong to do it. Its not really about what happened, its the era, how close to today, and how modern that society was. Germany was a big power and feared by EVERYONE. Its was done in pure "power trip" mode and to think that smart modern people came to the final solution is just mind-blowing. And throughout history, nothing beats the shear volume of deaths caused by direct assassination (gasing). This one is the one final biggest human attrocities ever directly caused. Nothing beats it in that regard either.

[Slaymoar]

 

I've not seen it, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

 

 

Its the one that youtube has made hundreds of "Hitler says" meme with.

[Cirrus]

 

This one is the one final biggest human attrocities ever directly caused. Nothing beats it in that regard either.

 

 

Let's hope people are still saying that in a hundred years!

[Slaymoar]

 

Let's hope people are still saying that in a hundred years!

 

 

That's a good point, as we are not immune to such re-occurance... sadly. War is always a possibility.

[100 watt]

How many Nazi death camps were there in all back in those days ?

[Charlie_Sheen]

 

that stuff freaks me out big time. went to the holocaust museum in dc and couldnt sleep right for weeks. there is this one section that is a huge room with a monster pile of shoes and just pics of people on the walls, that still haunts me. cant imagine actually going there.

 

 

this. there's a holocaust museum across town and i can't bring myself to go. i get choked up and feel sick just reading about the place.

[Slaymoar]

I think there were 4 or 5 main ones, and then a bunch of make-shift ones. Depended on what the higher command ordered.

[mcmurray]

 

Its the one that youtube has made hundreds of "Hitler says" meme with.

 

 

Yes. Recommended viewing for anyone interested in the war. Also check out "The Pianist" - powerful stuff.

[100 watt]

 

this. there's a holocaust museum across town and i can't bring myself to go. i get choked up and feel sick just reading about the place.

 

 

Yeah. I figured it would be similar to seeing the stuff they found at the WTC site. Seeing the pictures of people jumping out of the towers, didnt bother me as much as seeing the peoples personal effects that they'd found (I.D. cards, stuff like that. Those things make me peer deeper into it & start thinking the "That's some little boy's dad" or "That woman had kids" kinda stuff, and it makes it seem more personal. Horrible stuff, but at the same time, an eye opener.