A Bloody Stain on a Nation’s Past
While Germany boasts a diverse history filled with cultural and intellectual development, there are parts of its modern history that some would rather forget. The visit to the city of Dachau, and more importantly, the concentration camp located there, was an important reminder of what happened not more than a few decades ago. While I am not an amateur historian by any means, nor do I dabble often in the field of European history, I doubt few people in this world who have some substantial educational background know not of the horrors of the Second World War and the crimes the Nazi regime committed towards much of humanity.
The tour of Dachau left most in the Plus 3 Group at a loss for words. Our tour guide, while friendly and professional, stressed greatly the severity of the situations that occurred in the concentration camp, simply through factual examples, with no need to delve into gory details to captivate the audience – the entire environment sufficed in dampening the understanding of these crimes. It is hard to express the sheer depth of grief when imagining the suffering of prisoners of the concentration camp, just by observing their living quarters and hearing of their rationing of food.
And yet, a significant note to remember that this concentration camp was not isolated from the rest of the community. Our tour guide made it an important note to remind us that these prisoners would daily be taken to factories during the day to work, no matter how sickly or weak. Large engineering and manufacturing industries, many of which still exist today, had these prisoners as workers. And the burning of deceased human bodies became visible in the form of smoke and noticeable in stench. The human race should not suffer again such calamities; such abject actions of disgust should never be ignored.