Remembering the Holocaust

When I learned about the Holocaust in history classes throughout middle and high school, I learned vague details that made it seem as if the Holocaust was just one simple point in history.

 While teachers would sometimes cite death statistics, the version of the Holocaust that was presented to me felt very abstract and distant. After visiting Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and the Holocaust Museum, the Holocaust feels much more real and horrifying to me. Reading and listening to the personal testimonies of those directly affected caused me to empathize with them more than I previously did. In addition, physically being at Sachsenhausen allowed me to gain a more powerful understanding of how brutal of a life the inhabitants led.

While I wish I was taught a more personal side to the Holocaust in my previous schooling, I understand how my middle school and high school teachers did not want to dwell on such troubling topics for long. I can only imagine how hard it must be for German people to remember the horrible actions of some of their ancestors. While the monuments dedicated to the atrocity of the Holocaust that we visited are not displayed prominently in the center of Berlin, it is evident that they still serve as a symbol to the events that happened. It felt like many of the visitors at both sites were from other countries, but I am confident that the German people spend plenty of time in and out of school remembering the transgressions that occurred.

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