Tag: blogQ3

We visited the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp on Friday, July 21 and it was just as bad as you think it would be. Walking up to the main gated entrance to the camp was one of the worst feelings you can experience. Everyone has seen pictures of the gates of concentration camps like Auschwitz, but seeing the gates is something different entirely. When you look at a picture, your brain doesn’t always interpret it as an actual place. It could be something from a movie or a drawing because you aren’t there. Only when you see it in person do you realize it’s a real place and all the horrors you heard about happened here. The feeling of standing before the entrance is the closest thing I can think of to standing before the gates of hell. Once you get in you get to see how the people there lived and how they were treated and it’s hard to believe that people did this to each other. 

The impact of the war is very evident in modern day Germany. Most of the buildings were destroyed in the war so the buildings you see are the ones built after the war. They have the same design language and all look like blocks made out of concrete. It is rare to see an old building in Berlin or other major cities. There were many Cathedrals such as the Cologne Cathedral that survived.

For me, the visit to the holocaust museum was a harsh reminder of what happens when the wrong person gains too much power and the extent of the consequences of that. It’s really scary to think about how one person can take advantage of underlying angry sentiments in a populations to commit genocide on millions of people and attempt to take control of an entire continent. It’s very important for people to be reminded of this event and remember it so that nothing this horrific ever happens again. 

The way they laid out the museum starting from the beginning of the holocaust to the end, quotes from people, and explaining how everything happened leaves a big impact on whoever takes the time to read through everything and look at all the photos. Hearing about all the ways the Nazi’s developed to covertly exterminate the Jewish people in Europe left me with a pit in my stomach. It’s a reminder to me that it’s important to be hospitable, kind, and open-minded toward everyone I meet. I think it affects Germany as a country in a similar way. Walking around Berlin, you see a lot of recent WWII history. For example, in front of homes of Jewish people that got sent to extermination camps like Auschwitz are square metal plaques in the ground with their names and other information. Things like these and the holocaust museum are kept in Germany as a reminder of what happened, and to prevent it from happening.

The second great war was not one of humanity’s most glorious moments. You always hear people fantasize how history would be different if it didn’t have to happen. It wasn’t just Hitler that ordered to the third Reich to murder those multimillion people. In fact, I didn’t hear much mention of his name during the walk through the exhibits we visited during the trip. It was brought to light that anti-Semitism existed quite a ways before Hitler even came to power. Hitler didn’t become the villain because he convinced people to hate and kill the Jewish people. He grew the already brewing hatred against the Jews to such a great weight that it created social tensions even tighter than America’s social injustice. During the visit to Sachsenhausen, the tour went into great detail about the prisoners experience, how the guards treated the prisoners, how citizens on the outside viewed the prisoners. It was very graphic. The Holocaust memorial represented the memory of all the real people who were murdered under the order of the third Reich. Hearing the voices of all of these people who are now dead is very heartbreaking. Today the German government has given up the privilege to govern outside the view of the people. The glass dome atop the capitol building represents the lost trust that will most likely never be regained.

Our visit to WWII memorials and historic sites have been very impactful. The silence in these places is tangible, like you can grab it, but it feels right. When we were at Sachsenhausen, it served to amplify the open space there that showed the absence of the buildings and things that used to be there. It was hard to comprehend the actual amount of death and horror that happened there. I took a photo of the ovens, because there are still burn marks on the stones, one of last actual remnants of the people that suffered. Its obvious that the would remove the actual ash and everything that was left there, but some things cant be washed clean. There was part of the audio guide that said that to repair the roads and paths, they would use the ash from the cremation ovens, and it struck me that every square foot of that compound was death, whether someone actually died there or their bodies remained there in one form or another.

The holocaust memorial was a bit less emotional, though still very somber. It served as a more removed way of interacting with the history while not being present. It was still very valuable and impactful. It mostly was reading the stories of those who passed away and it definitely served to instill the sense of fear that these people had, because they were people, however long ago. I hope that this is something I can bring my kids to, but also that humanity chooses to memorialize. It is a testament to all things that human nature can twist and use for evil.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve visited both the holocaust museum and Sachsenhausen Concentration camp. Both were extremely sobering experiences, and I was really struck by the recency of everything. I’ve always felt like all of that was so long ago, but in reality it was still fairly recent. Being at Sachsenhausen also gave me a new view into the scale of the holocaust. The size and even the planning that went into creating the “perfect” concentration camp really gave me new eyes to it all.

At the holocaust museum, what really hit me was all of the personal stories of so many victims. It was so sobering to read story after story of families torn apart.

Another thing I’ve noticed is how these things are treated here. At home, it is treated as history – something that happened a while ago- but here it is far more, and is still really touchy and hard. There are signs of it all over – such as brass plates in the side walk where those killed in the concentration camps used to live. Overall, these experiences have been very sobering, but has been a good perspective to experience.

Visiting Sachsenhausen and the Holocaust Museum was an experience. While looking around and reading the information provided was interesting, the thing that struck me the most was how recently this occurred. In my head, the Holocaust happened a really long time ago, and so it was surprising to hear about the stories of people that are still alive or died only recently. I was stunned by the vast collection of personal stories shared in the camp and the museum. These events affected so many people, and it is so cool that they could share their stories for people to hear about years after these events happened.
Additionally, something that struck me was that many of the guards were the same age as I am. I read that the average age of the concentration camp guards was about 20. It is crazy to think of myself or my friends in a situation similar to the one they experienced and what drove those guards to act in the ways that they did. It was also interesting yet saddening to read stories about children in particular who experienced in the concentration camps. Their stories are more tragic than others because it is hard to imagine any child having to go through that.
What I learned most from this is the importance of sharing stories to help others to empathize and understand the events that occurred and greatly affected so many people.

Sachsenhausen was designed by engineers to be the “perfect” concentration camp. The triangle shape with guard towers on the corners made escaping the torturous environment nearly impossible. For me, walking around such a space was fascinating and terrifying. People had suffered there only decades ago; not in a different era or millennia. The hardest part to grasp was that such evil is possible and can be carried out on such a large scale to hurt so many. I was walking on the ashes of people who were murdered during the war and nothing I or anyone else can do would ever make up for that.
Later we went to the East Side Gallery, murals painted on the still standing segments of the Berlin Wall. While the wall was erected post-WWII, it is another indication of the suffering that occurred in Germany. What it led me to realize is that art can be a powerful coping mechanism not only for the painter but also for the viewers. Some of the murals were positive, hoping for peace in the future. Others were macabre and portraying painful deaths from the previous decades. Across such a spectrum, the paintings were more than colors on a wall. They showed pain, love, hope, fear, anger, and above all, people trying to make sense of the world around them.
Overall, Germany does a better job at acknowledging its history (and therefore working to learn and grow from it) than the United States ever has. I’ve seen a burned book memorial in an otherwise empty courtyard, museums dedicated to the survivors and victims of WWII, and a modern Parliament building representing transparency. Germany, while having a painful, sorrowful, and deadly history, also shows signs of strength and growth.

Visiting Sachsenhausen was very somber experience. The museum was a strong portrayer of the horrible things that happened during WWII. It was very humbling to walk around the place where so many people had once walked, and many of which only walked in, and never out. Even though there aren’t many buildings left, the markings of where the buildings once were gave a view of how large the terrible operation of concentration camps were. Things that happened during the war were a very dark time in German history. Seeing the preserved remains of the small gas chamber and incinerators gave me chills, just thinking of the things that once took place there. I think that it is good that the German people are willing to talk about their past and remember the tragedies, so that it might not happen again.