Auschwitz

From memory of my visit wasn;t the life expectancy on an inmate just over 6 weeks? This was due to the awful conditions and slave labour. I mean how many people would survive freezing temps cleaning out a lake of debris wearing just pajamas?

I even said to my mate I think I might have wanted to be taken straight to the gas chambers and have it over quickly rather than die slowly over 6 weeks. I am amazed that anybody lived and survived that place especially when you see the photos of the survivors who just looked like walking skeletons.
 
J-FRO said:
Not really the sort of thing you look forward too, if you get what I mean.
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True. And it is very sobering and I still think of it several months on. But there are certain things you really ought to see in life and that's one of them. Nor plesant, far from it but a must see all the same.
 
I am looking forward to it in the same way that I am looking forward to seeing the beaches of D-Day and Dunkirk etc. They may be grim, but I'd say looking forward to it is the right way of describing it for me.
 
BUMP

I've been today and my post is going to sound heartless but believe me it isn't.
I have always expected going to the 2 camps and choking back tears all around but it didn't happen.
In fact there must have been 5000 people there and Mrs Dimple commented that she hadn't seen one tear.
After 3 days of touring Schindlers factory and other Jewish museums we did our tears in those places but going to Auschwitz I & II today we were just numb as though 'it never happened'.
THAT IS NOT WHAT I THINK I'M JUST CONVEYING THE HORROR.
Imagine standing by train tracks being told that over a million people got off the trains there and were led to their deaths.
Imagine being inside a gas chamber in Auschwitz I and being told that's where 100s and 1000s died where we're standing and they would be in a mountain reaching the ceiling then dragged into the next room where the ovens are - it's just hard to take in.
It really hasn't sunk in yet.
 
dmpoole said:
BUMP

I've been today and my post is going to sound heartless but believe me it isn't.
I have always expected going to the 2 camps and choking back tears all around but it didn't happen.
In fact there must have been 5000 people there and Mrs Dimple commented that she hadn't seen one tear.
After 3 days of touring Schindlers factory and other Jewish museums we did our tears in those places but going to Auschwitz I & II today we were just numb as though 'it never happened'.
THAT IS NOT WHAT I THINK I'M JUST CONVEYING THE HORROR.
Imagine standing by train tracks being told that over a million people got off the trains there and were led to their deaths.
Imagine being inside a gas chamber in Auschwitz I and being told that's where 100s and 1000s died where we're standing and they would be in a mountain reaching the ceiling then dragged into the next room where the ovens are - it's just hard to take in.
It really hasn't sunk in yet.
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I think what you've found is, as you've alluded to, a difficulty comprehending the sheer numbers involved. Sort of like when you hear the US has a national debt of $14 trillion - you know what a dollar is and you know what a trillion is, but the quantity is so large it cannot be easily imagined, visualised or taken down to a level that's personally relevant. However, if a friend was to say he'd gotten himself in to £50,000 of debt, the empathy would be immediate.

At various points as I walked around Auschwitz, I decided to stop and stare and do my best to imagine what was going on there 60 years ago. It's hard to separate your mind from your life and the tour you are on, the people around you also on the tour, the weather, your own feelings and everything else that occupies your mind. With some effort I'd be able to start imagining the plight of the individual, but shortly after the emotions of such horrific suffering, death, disease, waste, abuse and disregard for human life manifested themselves I'd find myself quickly crying, and I'd have to move my thoughts back in to reality to avoid quite a lot of tears.

I came away from Auschwitz knowing and feeling that it was so bad, that even if you multiply that bad by a million or a billion it just can't get any worse. It's one of, if not the lowest moment in the history of our species that we should forever hold as an example of why we should always be suspicious of ourselves.
Dr House said:
To be honest I am surprised that only 50 years later everyone has forgiven the german nation for what was done.
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It's not really possible to blame the German nation for what went on. There are so many incredibly complex factors, many of which we only have the most basic understanding of (such as human psychology), that it's really just best forgiven. What happened was not a failure of one man or of many men, but of 'man' itself.
 
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PMKeates said:
It's not really possible to blame the German nation for what went on. There are so many incredibly complex factors, many of which we only have the most basic understanding of (such as human psychology), that it's really just best forgiven. What happened was not a failure of one man or of many men, but of 'man' itself.
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"you don't like them, you don't know why you don't like them you just find them repulsive"

 
The scale is always difficult to comprehend. I saw a program on WW1 recently and it listed the bodycount, per foot of the advancing line, as 20,000 men.

20,000 men per foot taken.

Still unable to comprehend that.
 
Dr House said:
To be honest I am surprised that only 50 years later everyone has forgiven the german nation for what was done.
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To be honest I haven't and whenever I hear a German accent I go into Basil Fawlty thinking.
There has got to be something in the genes of the German nation to be able to be controlled like they were by a repulsive ugly disabled small Austrian man who kept talking about the perfect Arian race.
 
This and Chernobyl are on my "educational visit list" :p

LINK

- Comfortable A/C minivan transportation with licensed driver
- Museums entrance tickets
- Documentary film screening tickets
- Guided Tour of Auschwitz Museum in English
- Guided Tour of Birkenau Museum in English
- Transportation between both camps
- + FREE lunch package
- + EXTRA 30min free time in Birkenau
- Price: £ 34 / € 39 / 160 PLN (per person)
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That is a cracking price. Good value for money imo.
 
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dmpoole said:
To be honest I haven't and whenever I hear a German accent I go into Basil Fawlty thinking.
There has got to be something in the genes of the German nation to be able to be controlled like they were by a repulsive ugly disabled small Austrian man who kept talking about the perfect Arian race.
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Yeah, it's not like concentration camps are an english invention or something...:o

edit:wrong smiley
 
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What I'm trying to point out is that you seem to blame all germans for the atrocities of their ancestors. But do you do the same with your OWN (english) people?

Me, personally, I don't think any nation is morally more right than others that is all
 
genan said:
What I'm trying to point out is that you seem to blame all germans for the atrocities of their ancestors. But do you do the same with your OWN (english) people?
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I don't think you read a word of what I wrote.
I never mentioned atrocities, I said:

dimple said:
There has got to be something in the genes of the German nation to be able to be controlled like they were by a repulsive ugly disabled small Austrian man who kept talking about the perfect Arian race.
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Please stop making things up
 
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