Auschwitz-Birkenau

Frank Bullitt wrote:

Elias wrote:

you aint trivialising anything, every face/body featured was an important person to someone.  

At Auschwitz a lot of the barracks are now used as a museum. On the walls are the mug shots of many of victims. Incredibly, the SS took photos of everyone who arrived. They also kept meticulous records - a lot of these were destroyed but enough survived to show what was going on.

I found walking past all these photos incredibly distressing. There were so many of them (but of course they were just a fraction of the people that went to Auschwitz). I felt that it was my duty to look at as many of the faces as possible so that they are not forgotten. I found it really difficult - underneath the photo is the name of the person, their date of birth, their crime (ie being Jew, Polish, Gypsy etc), their arrival date at Auschwitz and the date of their death. Most of them only survived a few months and if they arrived during the winter it was considerably less.

It was only after being at home for few days that I was able to get some sort of closure (if that's the right word). Despite these poor souls dying 70 years ago, I am was one of thousands of people that see their picture every year and think about them and what they went through.

In Bonn (and I suspect many other German cities) there are brass plates on the pavement outside houses, commemorating those who were "taken away". They have names, dates and details of what happened to those concerned.

I always make sure I never tread on one. I'll photograph one and put a pic up.

I don't think I could handle visiting any of those camps.

I think it's important that students are still taught about what happened because some schools don't teach about WWII anymore and I know some youngsters who have no idea of what the holocaust was, but I personally couldn't face being there.

I've read lots about Jews and what happened to them before, during and after the war and it's difficult enough to read about never mind visiting Auschwitz.

Dont forget the Japanese treatment of Chinese, Koreans and other prisoners.

Greenjock wrote:

I don't think I could handle visiting any of those camps.

I think it's important that students are still taught about what happened because some schools don't teach about WWII anymore and I know some youngsters who have no idea of what the holocaust was, but I personally couldn't face being there.

I've read lots about Jews and what happened to them before, during and after the war and it's difficult enough to read about never mind visiting Auschwitz.

i found ann franks house quite upsetting dont think ive the courage to go to treblinka or any of the others.

pepsipete wrote:

Dont forget the Japanese treatment of Chinese, Koreans and other prisoners.

our treatment of the poles after WW2 was very poor