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Avram Grant + Dan Walker Visit Auschwitz - Worth A Read


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I tell you what really brings home the enormity of it, its not the size of the place, its not the ovens or the gas chamber shower blocks. It is the rooms where you walk in, and behind glass you see thousands of shoes, suitcases and human hair of those that perished. That really bought it home to me.

When you are outside, it is true, you hear very little, no birds, no traffic, just the people giving guided tour.

If you get the chance, go. I have been to both auschwitz and Dachau near Munich. They certainly do change your perspective on life.

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Fantastic piece, I can't watch anything about the death camps without tears in my eyes. It's all beyond comprehension.

The parents seperated from there children and knowing there going to be murdered,ordinary people being treated like cattle by possibly the most evil beings who ever walked this planet.

The scarey thing is that it's only 70 years ago this was all happening.

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I tell you what really brings home the enormity of it, its not the size of the place, its not the ovens or the gas chamber shower blocks. It is the rooms where you walk in, and behind glass you see thousands of shoes, suitcases and human hair of those that perished. That really bought it home to me.

When you are outside, it is true, you hear very little, no birds, no traffic, just the people giving guided tour.

If you get the chance, go. I have been to both auschwitz and Dachau near Munich. They certainly do change your perspective on life.

I would like to go, but I honestly don't think I could.

Im mot afraid to say that I think I'm to scared to see it with my own eyes.

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Thanks for posting that. I don't think many of us can begin to imagine what any of that was like. Sadly, evil does exist and we can still see it in so many places. It does need to be remembered....sometimes we need to see the 'down' side to realise how lucky we are.

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I would like to go, but I honestly don't think I could.

Im mot afraid to say that I think I'm to scared to see it with my own eyes.

I thought the same. But once there it is all a little surreal, like you are looking at it but you are not really there.

Certainly brings home the scale of what happened, far more than any book or documentary ever did for me.

What really struck me, is how many people on this conveyor belt of death, there must of been from the *unacceptable word* side. The ovens they used, they were not massive incinerators, the held a body at a time. Shocking , truely shocking. And to think there were Nazis out there who's job it was to endlessly work these ovens. It beggars belief. There are some truly warped people out there.

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The Martin Samuels article made me sigh.

"My driver lost his uncle at Birkenau. He was a local teacher whose political views did not square with National Socialism. His nephew knew his prisoner number and his fate.

‘Some men are still like this,’ he sniffed, as Oswiecim gave way to farmland. ‘The names change. That is all.’

We continued in silence and common humanity for a while. My driver announced he had visited England twice. He liked Worcester more than Birmingham. ‘No Pakistan people,’ he said."

Good to see the lessons have been learned...

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I would like to go, but I honestly don't think I could.

Im mot afraid to say that I think I'm to scared to see it with my own eyes.

I went to the one near to the Ukraine border about 5 years ago, called Belzec. It is one of the less well known camps. Entirely the same things went on as Auschwitz. The place is immaculately kept by the local residents, there is an eternal flame, and all the same gruesome reminders on display. Everyone who comes out of one of these places, having seen what went on, sobs from their heart. I think everyone should see it I really do not least multi millionaire footballers who need to feel how incredibly privileged and lucky the world is now compared to that dark period in Eastern Europe... you never know, it might help them bond better as a team and get some surprisingly good results.

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Went to a transport museum in Berlin there was an original wagon used to transport people to the death camps couldn't even go inside it ,was so sad and upsetting that human beings can do this to each other even had Hitlers personal steam train on display was horrific to think he had used this for travel and you could touch and get on it....

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I went to the one near to the Ukraine border about 5 years ago, called Belzec. It is one of the less well known camps. Entirely the same things went on as Auschwitz. The place is immaculately kept by the local residents, there is an eternal flame, and all the same gruesome reminders on display. Everyone who comes out of one of these places, having seen what went on, sobs from their heart. I think everyone should see it I really do not least multi millionaire footballers who need to feel how incredibly privileged and lucky the world is now compared to that dark period in Eastern Europe... you never know, it might help them bond better as a team and get some surprisingly good results.

have visited Belzec a couple of times - i'm not sure if this was just before or after your visit, but in the last few years it has been turned into an absolutely fantastic museum - all very multimedia and modern. the fact that it's so remote and so few people make it all the more poignant. frankly i find hot dog fans outside auschwitz and coachloads of visitors leave me a bit uncomfortable. places like belzec, sobibor and treblinka mind are pure high impact. painfully sad.

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did my dissertation on the Holocaust, studied about all of the camps and Hitler's motives, the train lines, visited some when I last went to Germany. Very moving.

You do get the Holocaust deniers, some of the books are banned and it's a crime in most countries, but the books do make interesting (use this word lightly) reading.

One thing which I have not seen so far, they have not made reference to Chernobyl (which is in the Ukraine but right on the Belarus boarder) yet, mind you it is a bit out the way. But maybe i have missed it.

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I spent a week in Kracow last year, the trip to Auschwitz has affected me for life, I'm part Jew but that is irrelevant, it was the sheer inhumanity of it all.

Anyone that could work was worked to death, young children, their mothers, who were murdered even though they could word because the Germans worked out that the children when quuieter to their deaths if there mothers were there to keep them calm, older people, anyone infirm, they were all dead within 30 minutes of arriving in the camp.

In Kracow you can follow the expulsion trail as the Jews were hurded into the Ghetto, basically the story of Schindlers List, there is a museum in the original building. The quarry where it was filmed is still there, as is the site of the death camp.

Can't watch the film and can find tears welling up whenever I hear or see mention concentration camps, the images of the childrens shoes, hair, suitcases, will haunt me forever.

Don't go if you don't have a strong constitution.

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I went to Krakow a few year back and took a trip to Auschwitz I belive everyone should go there really makes you take a totally diferent view to life and other peoples beliefs, you really dont hear a bird sing the place has a feeling to this day that horrid things went on. But what really gets to you is the rooms after rooms of hair, clothing and shoes and how they dont look very old at all. Makes you relise in history terms how recent it all is and shows you how humans can do such terriable things to each other.

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