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Published: January 11th 2013
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Today started off as a very emotional day and continued to be one. I woke up from a dream where I was crying in the dream and I am pretty sure that I was crying while I was sleeping. It was very upsetting and I just couldn’t shake the feeling.
We visited our first camp today: Sachsenhausen. It was a sad experience but not as sad as I had imagined. Our group ended up joining up with a walking tour and had a tour by an older man named Nigel. He was a Scotsman that enjoyed making fun of the Americans and was able to keep the experience from being extremely depressing, although he told us some things that were very depressing.
To get to the entry gate, we walked down a path that many victims had walked down before on their way to their deaths. (As we were leaving to grab our bags and catch the bus to the train station, we ran along this road and it was eerie to think about how many people had probably hurried along that path to get to their meeting points or while trying to avoid punishment). Entering the camp, it
was weird to see a lot of open space with just a few buildings. Because most of the buildings were destroyed, there are now just outlined gravel areas of where the buildings once were. While we were standing there, Nigel told us about the guards that trained in a building at the entrance to the camp. They trained there to work in the camps all over Europe, so the people in the camp were treated even worse because the soldiers were trying to prove their worth. Special officers were advanced to work with dogs and spent 6 months training. At the end, some of the dogs were not aggressive enough so the soldier had to stand over his dog and pick it up and strangle it. I could not imagine doing that to my little Sammie. After his graphic stories and information, we went into one of the last standing prison barracks. Seeing how small the beds were was a bit of a shock; I don’t even know that I could lay down in it without my shoulder’s touching the sides and there were three people at least to a bed. Walking down the hall and seeing the bathrooms and
washrooms were a bit depressing knowing that they only had fresh water once a week and that people died in the bathrooms because soldiers would dunk them in (usually to poop and such) until they drowned. It was a depressing start.
Walking around the museums was a little better. We saw the devices that killed and tortured people but with all of the other information it wasn’t too bad. I saw my first pit where mass shootings took place. Even seeing all of the photos of the shootings my brain would not let me picture itin the moment, which I am thankful for. Next to the pit were four mass graves what were filled with ash 10 feet deep; I can’t even imagine how many people have their ash in there. The memorial around the corner was really sweet and a nice representation of the people that lived at the camp. The only thing I didn’t like is that the hospital surrounds it. Looking at what is left of the hospital you can see the various rooms where they experimented on the people and found new ways to execute them. The thing that surprised me the most about it
was how small the incinerators were; they were only big enough for one body at a time. I expected them to fit quite a few people at a time to speed up the process.
Overall it was a sad experience and I know that they will only get harder because this wasn’t even a death camp.
Dinner was not a very good experience. It started out with horrible Chinese food followed by fries with some kind of cinnamon ketchup. That didn’t fill me up so I ended up going with a group and getting a salad which was nice because I have missed healthy food.
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