Anyone been to Auschwitz?

[e-rider]

I've been in summer - I think that it is bleak there whatever time of year. Be prepared for your mindset to be severely altered in the short-term and it will have a long lasting effect too.

 

[clarion]

My eldest son went to Auschwitz, and has given talks on it in schools.

He was very deeply affected by it. That, and being at Gallipoli on ANZAC Day, have done a lot to shape his outlook, and make him more thoughtful and respectful.

 

[hotmetal]

Went there many years ago in April/May time, was the only place on my eastern europe trip where there were no bird sounds whatsoever, very noticeable given the time of year.... Overall a very humbling place.

I have heard about the absence of birdsong before. That is very weird, and must add to the heavy weight of the atmosphere considerably. I have never been to these camps, but I went to the war cemeteries in northern France on a school trip and remember to this day how I felt on seeing the endless rows of white gravestones. I recently went back on a motorbike trip with a guy whose uncle was buried there. Very sobering, especially when you read some of the inscriptions. There are also some German soldiers buried in some of these cemetaries, like Tyne Cot. It should be said (despite the BBC's comments in their Dark Charisma of Hitler series) that many German soldiers were just as reluctant to be involved in one man's vision of Hell.

 

[rich p]

A friend of mine went a year or so ago and got pissed off at some people taking photos as if it were a tourist attraction. Just a thought.

 

[Doseone]

No not Aushwitz, but I have been to Yad Vashem. Be prepared for it to affect you for the rest of your life but don't let that put you off going. Just to see the gates with Arbeit macht frei will be chilling beyond belief.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

I went to Bergen Belsen....frighteningly quiet and absolutly HUGE.

 

[slowmotion]

I have never been, and personally, I don't see the point. The detail of what went on in those places is for all to see in lots of films and documentaries, and random film clips, and books. You can form an opinion about it without the "Grief-Lite" tourism. I queued to visit Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam ten years ago and hated the faint requirement to display a solemnity in public.

I do not wish to criticise your experiences, BTW.

Happy Christmas.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

It was the quietness that got to them...and the platforms at the end of the lines... where the trains stopped.

I visited during the summer a few years ago. That's a no no - go when it is quieter and isn't over run with tourists with little kiddies, etc etc.

and hated the faint requirement to display a solemnity in public.

I agree, but people need to control their children more when visiting these places, Saschenhausen (sp?) near to Berlin was the same, full of nothing but German families with obnoxious little brats who thought it was all a big joke.

If you wanted to go for quiet contemplation (as a pose to 'grief lite' as you say), then that was not the time to be there!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

And yes, ok, someone said that the Germans seem to have gotten over their past more than we might have. That might be, but still.... and I am not one who gets terribly moved by these things, actually, the places weren't massively busy, but really, it was enough that I just wanted the kids (and some parents who really should have known better) to SHUT UP!

No no, go any time except for Summer...... the middle of winter actually to avoid the idiots..... which sounds exactly what is planned anyway!


By the way, talking of Auschwitz, I do remember bird song, although it seemed to be from outside of the camp confines, but I do remember the Butterflies and other insects were quite happy to call the place home, so it wasn't somewhere completely devoid of life as some would have you believe.

 

[Beebo]

I went to Bergen Belsen....frighteningly quiet and absolutly HUGE.

My Grandfather was one of the first troops into Bergen Belsen. He died last year but could never bring himself to talk about the place in any detail. He could talk quite openly about D Day landings, and my dad took him back to the beaches at Normandy about 10 years ago to visit the war graves and he enjoyed the trip but he never wanted to go back to visit the camps.

 

[PaulB]

And yes, ok, someone said that the Germans seem to have gotten over their past more than we might have.

I think that became apparent when the film Schindler's List was released in Germany, only over there, they re-titled it, 'The Good Old Days'.

 

[Black Sheep]

A friend of mine went a year or so ago and got ****ed off at some people taking photos as if it were a tourist attraction. Just a thought.

we took photos in the grounds of Auschwitz (the former barracks that formed the original camp) but not inside, we also took photos in Auschwitz-Berkenau of the site including one looking through the gates looking down the railway tracks and you can't see the other end of the tracks.
what we didn't do was pose in any of them, they were taken to reflect what we'd seen and felt on our visit, to have in memory for ourselves and when one day we explain to our children etc.
At no point did we feel it to be a tourist attraction and we were there in the early summer.

If you're planning on going, don't bother with the organised trips, they charge the equivalent of £40 a head to get you from Krakow (pronounced Krakov) to Auschwitz and around the place.

We got a regular service bus which dropped us almost outside then bought our tickets on site and paid about £12 and got the same tour as people who'd paid for the organised trip - your guide will speak whichever language you've asked for at the desk, iirc choices were Polish, German, French, Spanish, Italian and English.

 

[Paulus]

My Grandfather was one of the first troops into Bergen Belsen. He died last year but could never bring himself to talk about the place in any detail. He could talk quite openly about D Day landings, and my dad took him back to the beaches at Normandy about 10 years ago to visit the war graves and he enjoyed the trip but he never wanted to go back to visit the camps.

Sounds like your grandfather and my dad were together. He was at Belsen when it was "liberated" he told me many harrowing stories of the people they couldn't save and the ones that they could, and the thousands they buried in the mass graves before the army burnt the buildings down with flame throwers.

 

[Globalti]

Not been to a concentration camp but I have visited the Menen gate in Ypres, which was a very emotional experience.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

we took photos in the grounds of Auschwitz (the former barracks that formed the original camp) but not inside, we also took photos in Auschwitz-Berkenau of the site including one looking through the gates looking down the railway tracks and you can't see the other end of the tracks.
what we didn't do was pose in any of them, they were taken to reflect what we'd seen and felt on our visit, to have in memory for ourselves and when one day we explain to our children etc.

Yes I took pictures inside the place as a record of what I saw. I don't like posed pictures anyway (unlike my parents).

At no point did we feel it to be a tourist attraction and we were there in the early summer.

I wouldn't have said that it was a tourist attraction as such, but by mid/late summer, the place was teaming with coach trips, and no, you couldn't take a picture of the entrance devoid of people or, in fact, buses.