Auschwitz, saddest Museum in the world

@CoachME I would not call it fascinating. I would call it very sad. 6 million or over that were murdered in the Holocaust. People lost whole families. We lost 1.5 million children. Children what could they have done to the Nazis? They did not want any Jew left with their Final Solution Plan. I read that they did not want Jews left in American and Canada. I am glad they did not win. Our enemies like to murder children here too because children grow up to be big Jews and can have families. Hate is not a pretty thing. I have lived with it all my life but now I live in our one and only Homeland and prefer here to anywhere else. I love t his country with all my heart. So much of our history is here.

The link does not work on my PC for some reason Hanni

@Hannihar It sounds fascinating. I have been to NYC and LA and both have a remarkable Holocaust Museum. The one in LA you pick a picture at random and as you walk thorough you are also shown the life of the individual in your picture during various event of the war.

I took an interest in the Holocaust after watching a little known TV Series in the 70's titled the Holocaust. (Even though it is not well known, it had few mega stars including Meryl Streep and James Wood). I have also seen most movies, documentaries and read many books on Nazi Germany so to visit was quiet and experience. The closest Major town in Poland is Krakow, around 300km away. The Camp is split into 2 sections about 1km apart. The original camp was used to house Russian POW's and consists of a series of brick buildings which have not been touched since liberation except for the few that housed cases, glasses, hair neven prosthetic limbs etc taken from Jews after they were killed. These items have been encased behind a glass shield. It also has a mini gas chamber and 2 or 3 ovens from memory. The much larger Birkenau is much, much bigger than I imagined. Rows upon rows of timber barracks, surrounded by barb wire fence. Some destroyed but about half still standing. It must be around 5 acres (not sure) and you are free to wonder both sites, leaving you with chilling images that bit with more intensity than the cold polish winds of winter (when I went). Again nothing has been touched. There is a pile of rubble near the woods where we were told was the gas chamber, destroyed by the Nazi's before liberation. You are asked to step carefully because among the rubble are still plenty of bones belonging to the chamber victims.

@CoachME It may be something I need to visit while still on this planet. We drove by (but didn't visit) one of the camps in Germany (I can't remember what it was called), and all I really remember was how much the scenery there reminded me of Michigan, USA, where I went to Summer Camp. There's a message there, and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is.

@CoachME Sorry but I cannot like Aushwitz and the camp information. I see you saw a lot of it. So what do you feel after experiencing that? Have you seen The Piano or Schindler's List?

@CoachME So since that was new to you, did you hear about the Holocaust and what happened during that period of time?

@Hannihar Yes, After having kids, for some reason the holocaust took on a strange fascination. I spent 2 or 3 years engrossed in research, I think I was fascinated because I found it unbelievable that a modern first world society, no different to the one my kids are growing up in, could convince themselves on mass to turn against their fellow human beings. The more I researched, the less I could understand learning that many Jews before the holocaust just saw themselves as Germans, had and ancestry in German that went back further than they knew, that their friends and neighbours, their work friends could just turn on them in such an inhumane way. We learnt about it at school but having kids, put it in such a different perspective. I find now any form of discrimination and prejudice so intolerable.

It's certainly a moving experience John. I wish I had more time. I was staying in Warsaw and had no idea how far it was. I checked with the hotel concierge and he said he they had a tour leaving at 5am the next morning so I booked myself on it expecting to be one of may tourists on a bus. I was met by a young student who drove me to the train station in his Toyota, gave me a train ticket and showed me onto the train to Krakow. 3 hours later A student meets me at the Krakow station and we drive another 2 hours or so to Auschwitz and then I join an English speaking tour around the camp. He waited for 3 hours in the car park and then the same routine back to the hotel. I was the only one on the hotel "tour". Never experienced anything like it. The hotel was the SHeraton in Warsaw.

The closest I could describe it as was the way I felt after watching Schindler's List.

I was there in October. Freezing cold and bitting winds on the day. Walking along the tracks you could almost hear the trains, see the SS soldiers with the German Shepards screaming at people getting of the trains. There was no trains or soldiers of course but everything else you see in the movies is there, your mind just fills in the blanks.