Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of liberation of Auschwit

[bekkah]

I was going to post this yesterday but forgot. Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. This month, I went on a trip and had the opportunity to go to the concentration camp. After I went there, I thought of all the fundies who would never go there but use it for their own political agendas. The memory of those who lost their lives during the Holocaust does not deserve to be used as a political agenda. The people who survived and lost their lives are the ones that matter 70 years later.

[LadyCrow1313]

Exactly. My mother went to Dachau 20 years ago (when she'd gone to Europe), & said it was the most sobering/depressing place she'd ever gone to. May the world never forget the atrocities that happened there.

[bekkah]

Yes, I get the question why I went there all the time since getting back from my backpacking trip to celebrate turning 25 and finishing student teaching! We need to remember what happened there so that we can hopefully prevent that ever happening again. It was one of the most difficult places I have ever been but I would also put it in the top of the museum category for me. More people need to go there and experience it.

[Vivi_music]

Thanks for the thread, it's important to talk about it. When you hear the some kids are ''tired of listening to another witness of the Holocaust'', it's doubly important to talk and talk and talk about it some more. And it's also important to make sure the memories of the dead is not used and twisted by fundies.

Apart from negationism of course,(nothing can beat that), using the memory of all these victims is in my mind, one of the biggest disrespect anyone could do them.

[apple1]

Agree that it is so important to remember.

If anyone is interested, Wolf Blitzer has a one hour special about Auschwitz on CNN tomorrow evening at 9PM EST.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Listening to witnesses is important, especially now, because there are relatively few of them left.

I saw Auschwitz and Majdanek in 1993, accompanied by a woman who had survived both camps. We needed her testimony. Majdanek is pretty stark, but Auschwitz feels more like a museum. It was hard, on a beautiful day in May, to really get a sense of what this vast, empty camp would have been like filled with inmates during the peak of the horror.

I saw a booklet while I was in Poland about the Jews, entitled "They Lived Among Us". To me, it was chilling to read that in the past tense. It was like reading about dinosaurs - once they roamed the earth, now we just have their bones. It's important to see the physical evidence of what happened there, but it's not enough. It doesn't give you a real sense of the people who lived there during that time, or those who were killed. It made all the difference to have that survivor, Anna Heilman, with us. She was able to look at buildings that all seemed alike to us, and say "THAT is where they held my sister before they executed her", or "that was the cremetorium that was blown up with the gunpower that we smuggled". Here's some more information about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Heilman

Girl 1 will be going this spring, and it was important to me that she go while there are still survivors left who can go with them.

As for misuse of the memories, it's obscene. It was an actual historical event with real people, not a convenient backdrop for someone else's agenda.

If some fundies want to do actual historical research, they'd learn about:

- why unquestioning obedience to authority is not a good thing

- how there were homosexuals sent to Auschwitz, identified by a pink triangle

- how many women engaged in resistance and acts of heroism and self-sacrifice (for example, see that link on Anna Heilman)

[bekkah]

I unintentionally went during the 70th anniversary month. I would be really interested in watching the specials but I just cannot bring myself to at the moment, I still have a lot of processing to do.

Oh and the day I went to Auschwitz, it was very cold like -8 celsius and it was eye opening because they talked about the clothing they wore. If I went in May, I don't think I would have had the same experience.

[crazyforkate]

I went last spring (in fact, in May, bekkah), on a bright sunny day full of tourists. It was very strange. Incongruous. I felt completely detached. I guess my mind wouldn't really wrap around it.

You could feel the ghosts, though. Especially in Birkenau. I never believed other people when they said that, but it' sure felt that way.

[whoviana]

You could feel the ghosts, though. Especially in Birkenau. .

The bolded one, it sent chills down my spine. And gave me goosebumps.

I once visited a synagogue in a Jewish quarter in one of Eastern Europe's capital cities and there was a dark little small section of the basement where I could feel vibes touch my skin and actually, totally go under my skin. I rudely stopped and asked the tour guide "what happened here exactly""here, right here!". He looked at me surprised and told me that there were a handful of people practically walled in for months until they were discovered in the end and executed on the spot.

We're visiting Katowice in a few *weeks, not days to place our flowers and marble signs somewhere - anywhere. I'm extremely sensitive to vibes, the imprint that past events leave at certain places. I'm prepared to be quite shaken.

[Aurora rising]

You could feel the ghosts, though. Especially in Birkenau. I never believed other people when they said that, but it' sure felt that way.

I have this (nearly) every time I´m close to a murder scene. And in the concentration camps it´s sickening, there are so many of them. :cry:

[16strong]

Leaving this here. It is one of my favorite pieces of music, and this is by far my favorite performance. It gives me shivers and makes me tear up every time. For the record, this was the first time music was allowed to be played in Auschwitz since WWII.

[bBvideo 560,340:3snyc6oq]

[/bBvideo]

[whoviana]

So we're leaving for Krakow late next week.

We're visiting (alongside with SO's relatives) Katowice and Auschwitz. I know it's a touchy subject but I'd be more than happy to place flowers/rocks/notes for anyone who cannot be present.