I Was At Berger-Belsen This Week

Vanity | 10/30/2010 | RB

[Free America52]

I was in Hamburg Germany this week for business, and had the fortune (?) of visiting the memorial at Berger-Belsen, one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. By the time the camp was liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945, there were 12,000-13,000 Jews dying every day from starvation and disease.

It is one of the most notorious of all Nazi concentration camps for several reasons:

1) Anne Frank and her sister Margot died in this camp.

2) As the allied forces pushed their way into Germany, Hitler had prisoners from camps in the encroachment areas moved to other prisons. Berger-Belsen received many of these prisoners and severely overloaded an already overloaded camp. Deaths became staggerlingly high.

Here are two historical clips that will make your hair stand up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzdtPcNwRtM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUxSxQlwR6s&feature=related

Several things really stuck out to me:

1) In a very eerie way, the Berger-Belsen grounds were very quiet. There were no birds, no animals, no insects or any sort of non-plant life although the prison was surrounded by thousands of acres of forest. According to local lore, no living thing exists.

2) This was not a re-enactment with buildings, etc., this was just a solemn walk through a beautiful place where some very horrible things happened. The area is simply breathtakingly beautiful.

3) They have a fabulous museum on site that tells the whole story. I could spend 1-2 days just in the museum.

I am 54 years old, and this was the most emotional experience in my life (outside of life / death issues). I will forever be touched, and plan to make a German vacation visiting more of these camps.

It is impossible to describe ...

[Free America52]

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzdtPcNwRtM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUxSxQlwR6s&feature=related

[Gay State Conservative]

I've never been there but I *did* see the Dachau Museum near Munich about 30 years ago.It was a dreary,cold,rainy March day and “spooky” and “unbelievably unnerving” only begins to describe my experience.I'll never forget it.

[HospiceNurse]

Did they misspell it?

[Tuxedo]

I suppose as far as concebtration camps go, you have some points - however the death camps in Poland you may find considerably more disturbing. Those would be: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno, and Majdanek.

[hellbender]

Never let a chance pass by to remind people that "Nazi" is nothing but a contraction of National Socialist German Workers' Party. National Socialist doctrine was basically Marxist. All forms of statism are threats to human life and freedom. Certain groups may be victimized at first: the unborn, the handicapped, the old and infirm. But the idea that the state is superior to the individual is a deadly threat to everyone alive.

[whitedog57]

I visited Auschwitz on a trip to Krakow. I visited Auschwitz I (the administrative HQ) and Auschwitz II Birkenau (the entrance is often used in films like Schindler’s List).

Like Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz-Birkenau is most destroyed with mostly the foundation left. It was Auschwitz I, the old Polish Cavalry base, that is horrific.

I almost passed out in the building where they took the children’s clothes, shoes, hair, etc and put them in piles.

I worry about the Left taking over and this type of thing happening. They have the will, just not the support, ... yet.

[Gapplega]

I was at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland on Tuesday. I’m still processing it. Terrible place, like looking into the pits of hell.

Plus I’m jet-lagged.

[ShadowAce]

I visited Dachau in the 80s. I will never go back to a camp. Even after the "cleansing", the atmosphere there was disturbing.

I had never before believed in haunted places, but Dachau was just evil.

[SkyDancer]

I had the chance to visit Hiroshima when I was 17 ... read about it before going ... saw the A-Bomb building, the temple at ground zero. Spooky.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Thanks for sharing

[Past Your Eyes]

Twice.

[ExTexasRedhead]

Never Again has been forgotten and is ringing hollow. Too many have already forgotten 9/11 and the Holocaust. How can anyone forgot such evil? I can close my eyes and still see the Towers burning and people jumping to their deaths. These camps of horror and evil were left to remind the world yet the world has forgotten.

Evil is on the march again, IMO.

[arthurus]

Bergen-Belsen

[Free America52]

“Bergen-Belsen “

You are correct, thanks for correcting. I flew for 12 hours today after being out of town since last Saturday. We made the visit yesterday. With the 6 hour time difference and a long day of flying, it seems forever ago. But you are correct, I had the name wrong.

[Vermont Lt]

No kidding. It is 1939 all over again. Or worse, 1914.

[Talisker]

Did they misspell it?

Past Your Eyes: Twice.

Someone tries to express their profound experience of visiting a former Nazi death camp, and you mock a misspelling?

"Hospice Nurse" eh? Figures. From the hospice nurses I've known, you're par for the course. Fill any useless eaters with morphine lately?

And as for you, Past Your Eyes - your own tagline sums you up perfectly.

[hellbender]

It’s too bad that people can’t also visit the many sites where Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and other communists murdered millions of people outright, or worked them to death. Neo-Stalinist and career KGB assassin Vladimir Putin wouldn’t allow that kind of tourism.

[Tucker39]

You may have been at Bergen-Belsen, but I’d bet money you weren’t a Berger-Belsen. FWIW