Confronting truth

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Today was a day of mixed emotions, I told you earlier that Pete and Nicole were keen to fly to Poland to go to Auschwitz but the flight connections made it impossible to do that. I personally was content to see the memorial to the holocaust in Berlin, I thought that would be the end. Well I have learnt not to give Pete a travel book to read and amuse himself while I am at my conference. He read of another infamous concentration camp Bergen-Belsen where among 100,000 people including Anne Frank died. So we set off on our mission to find it. We often joke about "don’t mention the war" but today I realised this generation of Germans are truly embarrassed and ashamed of their history. It was almost impossible to find out how to travel there. Our last resort was the internet, and after negotiating 2 trains we arrived at Soltau about 2 hours south of Hamburg. The next step was even more difficult. After travelling 2 hours to Soltau, they told us there is no connection for the remaining 30 miles. No train, no bus...just a taxi, but after coming this far we had to complete our journey. It cost almost AUD200 to convince the taxi driver to take us and wait for the return trip to the station. Bergen-Belsen is more than your imagination could conjure up. The cruelty was horrific and there was a definite sadness to the air. I was glad we made the trip but it somehow makes me feel so grateful that we live in Australia and how we should not take everything for granted.
Nicole has moved on to Norway and she just rang to say she has been throwing snow balls at Dean its so, so cold. Only one more day in Hamburg then off to Frankfurt.
I will add my photos when I have a user friendly computer in Frankfurt - so much to show you.

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