Visited a concentration camp during one of our days in Munich. For the uninitiated, concentration camps were where Jews, homosexuals, political prisoners & so on were imprisoned, tortured & put to death by Nazis in Germany. I believe one of the "worst" concentration camps is located in Berlin. "Worse" in terms of magnitude of torture & general depravity of humanity.
The Dachau Concentration Camp in Munich consisted mostly of political prisoners, so to that extent they were treated a little "better" than the Jews. Terms of comparisons all in inverted commas because well, it's a comparison of who suffered more where. Suffering is suffering.
The overcast grey skies that day suited the setting.
No captions because… what's there to say really?
I feel like here is where I'm expected to write a long dissection of how saddened or horrified I am.
It's sad, of course it is. No person in their right mind could walk through that place & not feel the air heavy with… misery. Misery, mistakes, people in superior positions drunk with the power to hurt & maim. A horrifying display of human nature unchecked.
But really, all I can say is that it's sad. I can't say I "felt their pain" or whatever politically correct thing it is to say. The fact is, I DON'T know at all the horrors of a life living in fear or pain, or even discomfort. I don't have the slightest inkling, & all the media has taught me my entire life is that gore & torture & murder need to get increasingly sadistic & creative to get reactions from viewers.
Frankly, the people who might have the slightly ability to empathise… are the ones who don't have the luxury of going to museums or exhibitions or to even be able to read a book. The people that know fear & hardship have far more pressing concerns than the pain of someone else so far removed from them. So who's left? Us, the ones munching popcorn in cinemas, taking planes & going to Starbucks.
On a completely politically incorrect sidenote, I don't even like beer but German fruit beers are yummy.
When are you gonna blog about current events lol :P
ReplyDeletesigh hopefully all these events will serve well to us as a lesson. i visited cambodia some time back and the killing fields/prisons during the war. the conditions they were in were horrible as well and for some of the prisoners, there were no such thing as beds, just rows of people lying on the ground with their hands and legs all cuffed up ><
ReplyDeleteI agree with your thoughts here Sophie, it is really quite sad. The inner flinching and bleak nausea that fills me whenever I visit such sites/museums. I think what's even more sad is that people feel bad, leave the sites, and then gradually forget.
ReplyDeleteI'm guilty of it too. I can't say that it is a fault, naturally, since we do have other things in life that will occupy our minds sooner or later, plus that fact that society should move on towards the future and not hang on completely to the past... but it is still ... sad.
An excerpt from Shooting Stars by Carol Ann Duffy completely conveys this:
After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn.
After the terrible moans a boy washes his uniform.
After the history lesson children run to their toys the world
turns in its sleep the spades shovel soil Sara Ezra…
I don't know what to say.
- Rachel
This shit still exists in Europe. Please find more interest in these kind of things rather than in fashion blogs blah..
ReplyDeleteVery nicely put, Sophie. Thank you. Thank you for visiting and your sincere feeling.
ReplyDeleteNice article. Have been wanting to go there but no chance/no time (=no gut lah). Thanks for getting a glimpse and sharing.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this entry and your thoughts, please keep this up! :)
ReplyDeletei wish to go there someday...
ReplyDeleteyou are pretty as allways!
thank you for putting the name of your cameras on the side! =D
I think you are right with your opinion that no one of us can say " i felt their pain" that's simply not true, no one can imagine what those people must have gone through. I was born and am living in Germany and visited the Camp Buchenwald once with my class when I was still in High School. At that time we had french exchange students here and they were truely devastated of the pictures. Some of them and some of my classmates couldn't stand it and cried the whole time.
ReplyDeleteAnd these kind of concentration camps are still existing in North Korea....
ReplyDelete