Concentration camps......?

Question

anybody from germany been in/knows someone that was in a concentration camp.....did you/they ever get over it

and what was it like?

im very interested in this topic...and i think its awful about what happened...

from an irish lassie!!!

Answer 1

You are right, what happened is awful and I am sure that nobody who has experienced a concentration camp never got over it. My mom was an abandoned child of 6 years in Gdansk and Berlin during the war and her best friend with family was deported into a camp. The big cities must have been hell for kids on their own and till mom my mom starts crying when she talks about her experiences then. e.g. dead bodies floating in the same river she drank water from, russian soldiers that she begged for food saying that Hitler is bad an Stalin is good, her aunt that told her to jump from the bridge into the ice cold river (January) as she had to take care about her own kids and can't feed an extra mouth, friends that die next to her and and and... If someone can't get over those experiences, for sure they cant get over the camps!
To get a better picture of the camps watch 2 movies:
- Schindlers List (you'll probably have seen it already)
- Das Leben ist schön ("La vita é bella" is the original titel, an italian movie directed and with Roberto Benigni! It brilliantly deals with the topic.
I also don't understand that there are still people who deny that the holocaust happened. It's a part of our past and we have to learn how to deal and live with it. But as I said - it is the past. My generation must make sure that things like that will never happen again so that we can be proudly German again!

Answer 2

I'm native German and when I was in school, it was mandatory for us to visit a concentration camp near our town. (it's called Bergen-Belsen)
And about ~70 miles from my hometown was another one (small, but many people died there) And when I moved the last time in Germany I lived in a little village that had a camp, too.
I can tell you, that it is very depressing to visit such a place. It's really awful to see, what my ancestors did. That's the reason for me, not to say I'm proud of being German, like you Americans do. And I really admire that the American people are proud of the country and show the stars and stripes everywhere.
If you have the chance to visit Germany, try to visit a concentration camp, so the people who suffered there will not be forgotten.

Answer 3

When I was a young boy, living in Germany my family and I went to see Dachau. The first time I seen this it had not been touched since being liberated. You could still smell the gas in the "showers" and there were human skeleton remains in the ovens. Yes it was a terrible time in history,but we should see first hand what happened, least we forget.What bothers me is that there are those that say it never happened,well I for one know that it did.Don't skip the camps, see for yourself then tell me it never happened!! R.I.P to all that suffered,
Arbeit Macht Frei? BULL S.....

Answer 4

Yes, I lived in a neighborhood of concentration camp survivors as a child. Many of my relatives had tattoos on their forearms from their concentration camp experiences. They were not Jewish, just Germans who were political prisoners. I've visited the sites where they were held captive and was saddened by the overwhelming sense of loss that fills your heart as you wander the grounds. I don't think many of them ever got over the suffering, torture and brutality they experienced and witnessed there. All my Grannie would say about it was that it was beyond her comprehension what horrors humans are capable of perpetrating upon one another. RIP Oma.

Answer 5

I once had a client who had a tattoo from a concentration camp. She refused to talk about it...ever. She was from Hungary. When I approached her daughter about it, she said that her mother would not talk to her about it either. Sometimes it is easier to just never speak about something that horrible than to have to relive it over and over again. Maybe reading books would be a better approach to understanding this topic. It could help save someone the pain of memories that are better left buried in the shrouds of time.

Answer 6

Since this happened in 1939 to 1945 most people died in there but the survivors are pretty old and many have died of unrelated causes since the Nazis killed the young child in the ovens and the elderly the criminals the mentally ill Jews and other minorities disabled and religious

Answer 7

I strongly suggest you skip the camps. We all know what went on, and seeing them is ..... actually revolting.

Answer 8

Yes, yes, so-so, and the entire story has not be told but only segments of the whole.