Feeling very humbled

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Well today was an interesting day.... I am not going to say a happy day, but it was one of great reflection on the information and locations we witnessed. We took a tour out to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp just outside of Berlin. This is one of the first concentration camps that the Nazi's built completely fresh at the beginning of their reign. This camp was to be used, and was used, as a model for all other concentration camps put up by the Nazi's. I don't really know where to start with describing this camp, it sort of takes your breath away. Honestly, the conditions were so terrible, its tough to think that any human could inflict that much pain and suffering on another human being.

I'm a bit conflicted about the whole experience. On the one hand it was really depressing and doing something a bit lighter may have been a nice thing. However, on the other hand, I do believe it is important that I saw and experienced the camp. Seems like a tribute to the victims and survivors to learn about their plight at the camp and to try to grasp on to what they went through. Trust me books and pictures really do not give you the full picture of these camps.

There wasn't much left of the original camp, however there were replications of a lot of the buildings. Lots of museums with pictures and tributes to the people living in the camps. Time is running out on the internet but I'll just say that there were places for torture, there was an infermary where prisoners with no medical training were made to do terrible things to the other prisoners, medical experiments were done, even the foundation and ovens were still left from the gas chambers and cremitorium. It was very sad. Quite ominous to be right there where all of it happened. Such a different feeling to seeing pictures. Lots of barbed wire around, that is all original. Mass grave sights have been found in the 90's and have been marked with cement markers. There are a lot of them.

Apparently after the camp was shut down, the government tried to hide the evidence of this ever happening. They wanted to make a clean break for the future and leave the past behind. But the survivors refused to let this happen, however needless to say a lot was lost and many graves were not marked at that time. The 90's brought in a group which have been working to make the camp memorial objective and worthy to commemorate the travesties against mankind that happened there. They have found graves since and done an excellent job of giving the victims the respect they deserve. They are still working on this as a lot was lost in the 1950s. Also when East Germany was its own entity they used the memorial as a propaganda campaign to tell the people that only communists suffered in this camp, this is certainly not true - they were not the only ones to suffer. So this memorial group is uncovering the past as well as undoing the damage of the propaganda campaign of East Germany. Big big job, but I think they are doing a good job. Lots of work left to do, however we learned a lot and left there very humble and happy to be Canadian.

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