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Auschwitz


Matty89
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Decided to have a long weekend in Krakow and earlier today we visited Auschwitz to pay our respects.

A very surreal feeling and couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for the families involved.

i guess the same can’t be said for a lot of people these days, all ages to mainly young but some also older.

Honestly they should ban any selfies at these camps, hand out an on the spot fine. All I saw today were groups of girls and boys posing for their selfies with beaming smiles upon their faces and showing no respect for their surroundings. More interested in getting the best angle and filter for their photos than taking anything from the day.

Only yesterday some survivors met up at the museum, I do hope it was closed to the public so they didn’t have to witness such disgusting etiquette.

A lot of Americans and Brits seemingly the main culprits!

Felt very ashamed to be tarred with the same brush today! Time and place and that is not it! 

That’s my rant done with! 

Edited by Matty89
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Mmmm, tricky post to reply to without emotions effecting any sensible conclusion or excuse for behaviour that seems par for the course these days. Sadly the Human race seems adept at forgetting the heinous crimes that our civilised World commits with alarming frequency. That such an event as the Holocaust has been turned into little more than a  photo opportunity for some is unforgivable.

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9 hours ago, Matty89 said:

Decided to have a long weekend in Krakow and earlier today we visited Auschwitz to pay our respects.

A very surreal feeling and couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for the families involved.

i guess the same can’t be said for a lot of people these days, all ages to mainly young but some also older.

Honestly they should ban any selfies at these camps, hand out an on the spot fine. All I saw today were groups of girls and boys posing for their selfies with beaming smiles upon their faces and showing no respect for their surroundings. More interested in getting the best angle and filter for their photos than taking anything from the day.

Only yesterday some survivors met up at the museum, I do hope it was closed to the public so they didn’t have to witness such disgusting etiquette.

A lot of Americans and Brits seemingly the main culprits!

Felt very ashamed to be tarred with the same brush today! Time and place and that is not it! 

That’s my rant done with! 

Was there some years ago. Someone some idiot had left a Tin of baked beans on the feeding ramp to one of the ovens.

 

 

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It’s a place I’d like to go and visit. Like probably isn’t the right word. Like everything nowadays there’s a lot of disassociation with younger people. To them it happened a long time ago so it’s as real as roman ruins and castles. I’m not sure what would happen now if an atrocity like WW2 was to ever become a reality. Probably a Facebook campaign against it!

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I think I'd prefer not to visit.  It was Churchill who said of Hitler (and I may have the quote a little wrong, but the jist is right) ".... every trace of his infected and corroding fingers shall be cleaned, scraped and if necessary blasted from the face of the earth".

Now I'm not suggesting this is the right thing to do for Auschwitz, certainly not now that it has become (or at least should have become) a place of solemn remembrance, but it was a view at the time.

On a brighter note, it is amazing how places retain an atmosphere, two that spring to mind in that I have visited the UK being Bletchley Park and the Cabinet War Rooms.  Another place where history 'was made'.

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5 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Been there, its one of those places that either hits you or it doesn't. If it does hit you its like a para normal experience, the place feels totally evil, its something I have never experienced before.

I guess if it doesn't hit you its a bit like a back lot at Universal Studios

I went many years ago with Leon Greenman a survivor. And I have to agree with Vince on how it can effect people in different ways. It left me feeling totally shocked and saddened. I honestly felt like I was in mourning. Having Leon as a companion really brought home the true horror of the place.

 

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I've been, I seen a group of girls taking pictures with selfie sticks in front of what they called the 'death wall'. Embarrassing. I said something to them but I didn't want cause any trouble out of respect for the place so kept it sensible.

After visiting, I'd say I was disappointed that I'd went. I felt like in a way I'd been disrespectful by going. And when people have asked me since I've been whether I'd recommend it I'd say no. I feel like it's a gawping session for most. How some of the other visitors composed themselves in such a place made me sick, no respect whatsoever.

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9 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Been there, its one of those places that either hits you or it doesn't. If it does hit you its like a para normal experience, the place feels totally evil, its something I have never experienced before.

I guess if it doesn't hit you its a bit like a back lot at Universal Studios

Exactly this, went there in 95 when we were on HMS Invincible. I dont do religion, ghosts, mediums etc but I was shaking like a ****ting dog all the time I was in there. As soon as we were out of there though it felt like an oppressive force had been lifted from over us...very weird feeling:unhappy:

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Perhaps an indication of how remote the horrors of WW2 have become as time slips by and, as a result, perhaps less relevant to those at an age where there is no living memory connection to the war.

That to me suggests that places like Auschwitz, that demonstrate the evil that humanity is capable of, are more important than ever.

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Your average teenager's knowledge of the holocaust is most likely based on a few lesson in their history classes, most of which would involve watching the heavily sanitised 'Boy in the striped pyjamas'. 

I don't imagine many of them have a true understanding of the horrors that occurred in Europe only 70 or so years ago. Watching the documentary 'Night will fall' should be essential viewing. 

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I dragged my kids to Sachsenhausen, one of the less well known camps, that has memorials for Jews, Gypsys, Homosexuals, Russian political prisoners and British commandos. All victims of Nazism. I wanted them to understand at first hand about man's inhumanity to fellow man.

Later on the trip we saw the 1936 Olympic stadium, and witnessed German teenagers on a school trip displaying that most vile salute.

Disappointing.

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my sister in law went recently,i couldn,t even imagine why,the horror/sadness that hangs over it,but way back in the 60,s i was in hospital [just in my teens]and a guy was on the ward,ziggy he was called,a polish guy,had a tattoo on his arm dachou with his number on xcuse spelling,he had amputated leg that happened in the camp when he was a teenager,but wouldn,t go into details,but i still remember him after all those years,cant imagine what that man went through.wouldn,t want to visit that place ever.

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My wife and I went exactly a year ago end of Jan beginning of feb. I also believe it takes people in different ways.  Some of it has been recreated they told us. But a very weird place to walk round knowing so many died there and were killed there.  I’d like to think even the selfie taking people will have taken something of how bad the atrocities were and the suffering. 

I have some photos I took when we visited told by the guide we could take photos as it’s hard to to fully take in what your actually seeing. With all the shoes hair glasses etc. the size of some of the cells.

Visited  both camps and Berkenau I thought was more shocking. The long railway in and then the sheer size of the place. 

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Can you believe that there are some out there that will say that it never happened and it was a put up job . My late uncle was one of the first allie troops to liberate the poor souls in there . He was a young man at the time and it had a profound effect on him for the rest of his life .

harnser

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On 30/01/2018 at 22:12, figgy said:

My wife and I went exactly a year ago end of Jan beginning of feb. I also believe it takes people in different ways.  Some of it has been recreated they told us. But a very weird place to walk round knowing so many died there and were killed there.  I’d like to think even the selfie taking people will have taken something of how bad the atrocities were and the suffering. 

I have some photos I took when we visited told by the guide we could take photos as it’s hard to to fully take in what your actually seeing. With all the shoes hair glasses etc. the size of some of the cells.

Visited  both camps and Berkenau I thought was more shocking. The long railway in and then the sheer size of the place. 

We walked from Auschwitz to Berkenau, I didn't want to be on the shuttle bus full of overly excited school kids. Myself and my partner barely spoke as we walked we were both sinking in what we had saw and read.

As soon as we got to Berkenau it just felt like another wave, on how big a scale this was. Walking from the platform down the side roads between the buildings knowing some groups would have unboarded the train only to be lead immediately to their death.

The hair shaved from dead victims really hit something with me just seeing the vast amount of hair, shoes, glasses and possessions at the camp just from the liberation era.

We went around on our own, I don't think the group tours allow you to take things at your own pace, and they seem to avoid a lot of the factual exhibitions in favour of the 'display' areas where shoes etc. could be seen.

Noticed this article since posting, sums up the problem imo.

I can understand taking a picture of the camp or a building ruin for something to reflect upon or share when discussing with friends and family, just not smiling like your on a night out and taking a selfie.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/11/28/is-it-ever-okay-to-pose-for-selfies-at-auschwitz-7114547/

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I am watching a programme about the place on tv as I write. 

What I never knew was that the Nazis tried many other ways of mass murder before the gas chambers. These included the obvious like firing squads but that took too great a toll on the shooters so they tried blowing Jews and the insane and infirm up in bunkers then poisoning by carbon monoxide from car exhausts.

The race to find the final solution was on an industrial scale.

 

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7 minutes ago, winnie&bezza said:

The more you think about it the more it hits you how incomprehensibly insane it was. Beyond shocking.

The question that never really got answered was how many people in Germany really knew about it. After the war, predictably, nobody knew nothing, "we had no idea"

The US let a lot of the old Gestapo back into the new administration to run things because only they had the ability to do so. It would have all got swept under the carpet if they had their way 

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A few years ago we went to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem.  Everyone was told on arrival that the taking of pictures was discouraged (inappropriate was the word used) unless of the outside, and that all visitors were expected to show due respect to the place and what it commemorates.  I didn't see any disrespectful behaviour, and there was almost total silence. I got the distinct impression that anyone showing disrespect would have been given a talking to.  We both found some of the exhibits harrowing yet powerful, and the coach was largely silent on the way back to the hotel.

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On 1/30/2018 at 08:56, guzzicat said:

Surprised at Americans, on their own turf I have found the opposite, I have visited Ground zero,Vietnam, 38th parallel  memorials Etc. & never saw anything like this

I found the opposite to that when we visited Pearl Harbour and the USS Arizona memorial. Having been to both  WWI and WWII sites in Belgium and France, the solemnity of the places hits straight away. On the boats taking us out to the USS Arizona, the atmosphere was almost theme park like.

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