Is this too Morbid????
Sep 24th, 2004, 06:29 PM
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Is this too Morbid????
We are going to Austria over Thanksgiving. Will go through Munich - thanks to your advice. After looking at it on the web, I am really interested in a side trip to Dachau. My everlovin refuses to go and says she will stay in Munich and shop while I go. Has anyone visited the memorial or whats left of the camp? Would it be worth the 30 minute trip from Munich? In spite of the horrors it represents, I really would like to visit the site. Any thoughts??
Shrink
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Sep 24th, 2004, 06:38 PM
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What's morbid about remembering history and honoring the victims? Would your beloved not visit Pearl Harbor, Ground Zero, etc.?
I visited Dachau and although it wasn't a happy place, I am very glad to have done it. Someone once said something like, "Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it." It is important that we never forget what we learned from this experience so it will never happen again.
I guess if this would really shake him up, it's best not to press him. But if it interests you, I think you should go with or without him.
I visited Dachau and although it wasn't a happy place, I am very glad to have done it. Someone once said something like, "Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it." It is important that we never forget what we learned from this experience so it will never happen again.
I guess if this would really shake him up, it's best not to press him. But if it interests you, I think you should go with or without him.
Sep 24th, 2004, 06:49 PM
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Go. I visited it 38 years ago on my first trip to Europe; it is something that will stick in my mind and heart forever. One of the persons I travelled chose not to go, and that was right for him too. So let your everlovin (?) shop, but go.
Sep 24th, 2004, 06:58 PM
#5
I visited Dachau and it is very much worth a visit. Although the originial barracks are gone there are reconstucted ones with bunks, baths etc. the way they were during the war. There are also the crematoriums and other out buildings including one with many captioned pictures of the camp during the war. Plan on spending several hours there.
Sep 24th, 2004, 07:09 PM
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My husband Tony and I visited Dachau on our June 2000 trip to Germany. We were there for about 2 hours. It was worth the trip, it is history! If your significant other doesn't want to go, that's fine, but do what you want to do.
Sep 24th, 2004, 07:27 PM
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Shrink, I would like to apologize for referring to your everlovin as "him" in my earlier post. Upon re-reading, I can see now that I should have said "her". I don't know how I missed that. Maybe I need a shrink. 
Sep 24th, 2004, 08:02 PM
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Yes, go on your own, but do try to get her to go as well, especially if you were too young or not born before WW2. The sculpture in the front of it speaks volumes. The museum and movie they show, even if you don't speak German, is so disturbing, but it teaches those of us who were not there why we must not let this happen again, and not to be silent.
Sep 24th, 2004, 11:03 PM
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My wife and I went in 2000 and we are glad that we did. It was a very moving experience. A local German lady on the bus expressed her disgust that all tourists ever want to know if how to get to the camp - "lest we forget". I also had a very good conversation with a Jewish man from Chicago who had family that died in Dachau. He wasn't angry towards Germans or the past - he just had to see the place.........
My background is German and I have a fascination with how it all could have happened in such an advanced, intellectual country.
My background is German and I have a fascination with how it all could have happened in such an advanced, intellectual country.
Sep 25th, 2004, 12:30 AM
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If you are interested in it then it is definitely worth the time, and easy to reach by public transportation, too. You will NEVER forget this experience, particularly when you walk through one of the "main" buildings and see the pictures of the very room you are in AND what went on there.
I really don't think you'll regret your decision to visit.
I really don't think you'll regret your decision to visit.
Sep 25th, 2004, 11:39 AM
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I've been to Germany close to 20 times and have developed a great love for the people and the country. My wife started bugging me a few years back insisting that we should visit Dachau. I kept finding excuses to avoid it. I was afraid it would be simply a monument dedicated to condemning and hating Germany. I had read often on this forum that the locals get upset that tourists tramp through their town just to see this "anti-German site".
Last summer she finally got me to go when she took a large group of her students (72 of them) to Europe and included a stop at Dachau. Seeing the sobering effect it had on these normally irreverent, boisterous teenagers will remain with me forever. Instead of spoiling my admiration for the Germans I found that Dachau is more a statement about mankind's inhumanity to man rather than an attack on Germans. It helped me temper my enthusiasm for all things German without turning me against them. If such a thing could happen in a nation with so much culture, art and intellectualism, it can happen anywhere - and it has.
The thing to remember when one visits Dachau is that this type of behavior has been going on for centuries all over the world. And while so many people echo the words "Never again", ten minutes later they are willing to bury their heads in the sand while the murders continue in our present world.
Last summer she finally got me to go when she took a large group of her students (72 of them) to Europe and included a stop at Dachau. Seeing the sobering effect it had on these normally irreverent, boisterous teenagers will remain with me forever. Instead of spoiling my admiration for the Germans I found that Dachau is more a statement about mankind's inhumanity to man rather than an attack on Germans. It helped me temper my enthusiasm for all things German without turning me against them. If such a thing could happen in a nation with so much culture, art and intellectualism, it can happen anywhere - and it has.
The thing to remember when one visits Dachau is that this type of behavior has been going on for centuries all over the world. And while so many people echo the words "Never again", ten minutes later they are willing to bury their heads in the sand while the murders continue in our present world.
Sep 25th, 2004, 11:47 AM
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Zeus, thank you for posting your experience. German culture, like most others, has always had its flip side -- Prussian militarism, etc.
As for man's inhumanity to man going on for centuries throughout the world, there have always been massacres and persecution. However it is only in the 20th century that organized genocide like the Holocaust was practiced with the efficiency afforded by modern technology. (Stalin and Pol Pot being two other masters of mass murder.)
As for man's inhumanity to man going on for centuries throughout the world, there have always been massacres and persecution. However it is only in the 20th century that organized genocide like the Holocaust was practiced with the efficiency afforded by modern technology. (Stalin and Pol Pot being two other masters of mass murder.)
Sep 25th, 2004, 04:10 PM
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If you go -- and I hope you will -- think of this. What you will see is a cleaned-up, sanitized, almost pristine place compared with Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Dachau is to mass murder at Auschwitz as a two-car garage is to Detroit. Auschwitz extends for miles, the barbed wire extends beyond sight, and the crematoria are big as basketball courts.
And when you have seen Dachau, you will come to realize how "the good Germans" who lived just over the wall were lying when they told listeners that they had no idea of what went on inside. The smell from the inmates and from the smallish crematorium there must have wafted for miles.
Dachau is to mass murder at Auschwitz as a two-car garage is to Detroit. Auschwitz extends for miles, the barbed wire extends beyond sight, and the crematoria are big as basketball courts.
And when you have seen Dachau, you will come to realize how "the good Germans" who lived just over the wall were lying when they told listeners that they had no idea of what went on inside. The smell from the inmates and from the smallish crematorium there must have wafted for miles.
Sep 25th, 2004, 04:48 PM
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By all means please go. I hope that you will take from it the lesson that evil grows when good men do nothing. The christian god ( and most others) want us to do something ( as opposed to nothing) and a trip there might help you to determine what that something should be. The christian god also wants that something to include the commandment " thou shall't not kill" , not an easy task.
Sep 26th, 2004, 05:22 AM
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I've been to both Auschwitz and Dachau, and USNR is correct that Dachau is the sanitized version. I still have nightmares from what I saw at Auschwitz, it was that emothionally powerful. However, Dachau also brings the horrors and atrocities of the camps home. I found the gate with "Arbeit macht Frei" very poingnant.
Go and let your significant other shop. This sounds like it is an experience you need to have for yourself.
Go and let your significant other shop. This sounds like it is an experience you need to have for yourself.
Sep 26th, 2004, 06:34 AM
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It is not morbid, it is history and sobbering and appalling as it is, it needs to be look at and dealt with, so that each and every one learns to recognize this evil because it is a HUMAN problem. I believe herein lies the present Germans's mistake-- burying their heads in the sand. The reason I say this is because IN MY EXPERIENCE, present day Germans don't care to talk about it. I made a brief reference to the holocaust one time to German friends and she reacted very, very strongly against this topic ever be referred to again, even if briefly. 
We asked for directions to Dachau and NOBODY would give us directions, opting instead to described many OTHER wonderful sights in Munich. Makes me wonder if the Holocaust had in some way become unknown to the rest of the world, would the Germans have ever admitted to it?
In a synopsis, if you have the opportunity, don't miss it.
We asked for directions to Dachau and NOBODY would give us directions, opting instead to described many OTHER wonderful sights in Munich. Makes me wonder if the Holocaust had in some way become unknown to the rest of the world, would the Germans have ever admitted to it? In a synopsis, if you have the opportunity, don't miss it.
Sep 26th, 2004, 09:08 AM
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You should go. Even though it is not a happy tourist spot, it is part of history that did occur. If I ever have the opportunity to visit that part of Europe I would go to the concentration camps. If for nothing else, out of respect for the victims and the survivors. Never forget.
