Conference taveng::bagels

    I don't think I could take it.  I cried for HOURS at Yad VaShem.

    I, for one, as a child of a Holocaust survivor, would visit such
    sites even if INconvenient (as I plan to do next fall) as a step
    toward completing the past.  Until I can share a small part of my
    father's experience, I will be limited in my emotional expression
    by the limits I learned from my father, without ever knowing why.
    My grandfather died in Buchenwald seven months after his son escaped
    to the US -- I feel that my visiting Buchenwald (East Germany),
    while difficult logistically and emotionally, will be an act that
    my father may have inwardly wished to do, but have been unable to
    do in his lifetime.
    
    As for those of you who may not have such a direct connection, it's
    entirely your choice.  If you would "let the dead rest in peace",
    then please note that my grandfather is privileged to have a surviving
    relative who can visit the place where he suffered and died, and
    thus can "put him to rest" by remembering him and ensuring that
    his death not be in vain.  Most of the dead of the Holocaust died
    together with all those who would have mourned and remembered them.  They
    need someone to visit them and dignify their suffering, if only
    so that we as a people can lay the Holocaust to rest.  You may never
    become aware of the Holocaust's effect on you personally, until
    you visit a memorial (as Charlotte did) or a concentration camp,
    and allow yourself to express feelings you didn't even know you
    had.
    
    Ed
      

    My parents arrived a few days ago for their annual visit. 
    Both are survivors.  Both were in Auschwitz (at different times;
    they were separated immediately after being captured).  We
    don't often talk about that period.  I ask regularly.  They
    often try but don't get very far.  I get only the occasional
    "anecdote" when it pertains to something else in a discussion.
       
    One comment that was made last night regarded friends they
    had made in Florida who were going to Israel and then to Poland.
    They asked my parents if they should visit Auschwitz.  My mother
    responded emphatically in the affirmative.  The resulting
    discussion ended the way most previous ones had and I cannot
    really explain why she felt so strongly that they should; only
    that as a survivor, she felt it important.
    
    One point that may or may not be relevant is that all members
    but one of both of my parents immediate families (the four
    parents and seven of eight siblings) died in the camps.  The
    eighth sibling was murdered by the Poles on returning home
    to Radom.
    
    Sid

    I have been to Dachau and Yad VaShem.  My father (who is a Catholic
    convert from agnosticism and ethnically Scots-English) made a special
    trip to Auschwitz one Christmas season after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
    He felt it was important, and I understand--but I am not sure I can
    explain exactly why.
    
    It's not just to remember those who died--it's also to make the
    past real, not just a horror movie.  Maybe that's another way to
    say the same thing--the Holocaust was about real people, individuals,
    not vague amorphous ethnic groups.
    
    I would go to Auschwitz if an opportunity offered itself, but I
    don't think I'd make a special effort.  Dachau was intense enough--
    at the time I was rather fond of an Austrian girl, and I came back
    from the side trip angry with German-speakers....
    
					-John Bishop

    Without a map, I have to ask; where is Auschwitz and/or Dachau
    in relation to Hamburg?

.5
    Auschwitz is in Poland
    Dachau ?

    L'hit,
    Gabi

    Right, but how far is it from Hamburg?  Not a hop and skip,
    i'm sure, but i'm wondering if from Germany, there would
    be trains to take.

    Auschwitz is in the Polish town of Oswiecim. There are trains, but
    it's quite a ways!
    Dachau is on the outskirts of Munich.

Shalom Motti,

    Auschwitz is in Oswiecim which is near Cracow (~400 mi).
    Dachau is near Munich (~300 mi).

    At least with Dachau you won't have to mess around with border crossing
    into Warsaw Pact countries.  If you are entering DDR or Poland, I would
    strongly recommend that you look like your passport photo.  This means
    if you have a beard or mustache in the picture, don't shave it.  If you
    don't, then don't grow one while on vacation.

L'hitraot,
Gavriel

Dachau is in a suburb of Munich.  Thus, it is an overnight train ride
from most of Europe.  I.e., you can leave Copenhagen around 8:00 pm
and be in Munich around 8-9 am the next morning.

I've read somewhere that there are commuter trains to the suburb.
I would imagine that a travel agent would be useful.

Martin.

    When I went to Dachau in 1977, it was an easy day trip from
    Munich.  A short train ride to Dachau station, then take the
    bus to the camp (it ran pretty often, as there are housing
    developments out in that area).  I got the impression that
    not very many tourists go there.  I was alone.
    
    Remember that Dachau was not a "Vernichtungslager" (extermination
    camp), just a prison camp: not many people died there.  But people
    did die, and the crematorium is still there.  The camp buildings
    are restorations.
    
    Just writing this has gotten to me.  It was an intense and moving
    experience, like I said before.
    
    				-John Bishop

    
    My parents visited Auschwitz 3 months ago with a group of 100 people.
    The trip was managed by a jewish organization of Paris. The trip
    last one day. They arrived in Warsaw. A bus took them to Auschwitz.
    There was a french speaking guide during all the trip in Poland.
    
    While visiting then death camp, the guide never used the words Jew
    or jewish ! Inside the camp, you find the british house, the french
    house, the poland house, the russian house ... except the jewish
    house ! The germans tried to kill the people and Poland is trying
    to kill the memory of the 6 millions jews. One can believe that
    not a single jew died in Auschwitz !
    
    So, I really think that it is very important to visit Auschwitz
    and to remember to everybody that 6 millions of people (among them
    1.5 million of children) were killed because they were jewish and
    to make sure that Auschwitz will remain a jewish memorial.
    
    I'll will visit Auschitz next year.
    
    Shalom.
    

    
    By the way, as I am using NOTES for the first time, I forgot to
    give my first name.
    
    Bye.
    HENRY-MICHEL
    

	Information on Dachau -

	How to get there;

		You can take the S-Bahn subway system from Munich to
		the Dachau stop.  Then it's a short wait (5-20 minutes)
		for a bus that will take you to "Dachau".  You can also
		walk, which takes about 20 minutes.

		You can also drive, but you have to look close for the
		small signs pointing the direction.

	I was just in Munich a few weeks ago and went to Dachau.  I found
	it very crowded with tourist.  It was quite an experience and during
	the visit I found myself unable to express my angry and sorrow.

	The town of Dachau has a multi page full color brochure about how
	great Dachau (town) is and all the things to do in town, there is
	only a small mention of the concentration camp.

	The purpose of my trip to Munich was to look around on a relocation
	visit, and going to Dachau was extremely important to me to answer
	my concerns about whether I could live in Germany.  There are only
	two synagogues in Munich and the one I stopped in at had a small
	congregation composed of mostly older people.  I was able to answer
	my concerns and am planning on relocating to Munich for the next 2
	years.

	/Howard

    Go.

    I visited Dachau a few years ago while on a business trip to
    Munich.  I found it extremely moving, despite the fact that
    Dachau was not one of the high-volume extermination camps.
    It was an experimental site.  Various techniques used in the
    other camps were tried there first.  I also recall that there
    were some very famous experiments regarding survival in cold
    performed there.  The experiments were notably cruel, usually
    resulting in the death of the subject, but the results are
    still highly regarded today!  (The purpose was to help
    safeguard Luftwaffe pilots shot down in the North Sea.)

    Be prepared for a very emotional experience.  I could not
    tear myself away from the reality of it all.  Up to then, the
    Holocaust was always some friend's father's story, or a film.
    But this made it quite real.  I can only imagine that
    visiting Auschwitz would produce a much stronger response.  I
    just think of the numbers, and the cruelty...

    As an aid to understanding the attitude of "modern"
    Bavarians, as well as for further enlightenment on how the
    German government managed to accomplish such an attrocity, I
    strongly recommend viewing the film Shoah.  Although few if
    any of the subjects of this film are Bavarian, the concepts
    are certainly applicable to any place which housed a camp.

    --Gary

    re: 345.12
    
    I just finished reading the book "Escape from Sobibor" in which
    the author also mentions that the words "Jew" and "Jewish" were
    not mentioned in a tour of a death camp (it may have been Sobibor
    rather than Auschwitz). Sobibor is in Poland.
    
    As the child of survivors, I have lived with the Holocaust in one
    way or another all of my life. I have many needs in terms of "filling
    in the gap" of understanding what happened and how it affects my
    family in particular. However, I'm not sure one of those needs is
    a particular need to visit Auschwitz where one set of grandparents,
    an aunt, and probably other relatives were killed. I seem to circle
    the issue by gathering understanding and information in other ways
    (reading books, watching documentaries and movies, talking, etc.).
    Maybe I'm afraid I would feel so much anger that I wouldn't know
    what to do with it (being a person who is usually very slow to anger).
    
    Several years ago I visited Belgium with my parents and sister (My
    parents are Belgian). We went to the Jewish cemetery in the
    Netherlands. It is difficult to describe the feeling I had of anger,
    sadness, and lack of comprehension when all the physical remembrance
    I could view of my grandparents and aunt was a plaque attached to
    the headstones of my great grandparents.
    
    Elisabeth

    How far is Dauchau from Frankfurt?

    I'm considering flying into Luxembourg and they provide
    a free motor coach to most German cities.

    I have never visited a concentration camp, though I did tour Europe
    the Summer of 83' after graduating from college.  I started in London,
    visited Paris, and then proceeded to Amsterdam.  I fell in love
    with the city; its peacefulness, the canals, the buildings.  I visited
    all the sights, two of which happened to be the Great Synagogue
    and the Anne Frank House (where she and her family had hid for almost
    two years).
    
    The synagogue was beautiful.  I had learned that before the War,
    Amsterdam had a Jewish population of over 120,000.  Currently it
    is barely over 1000.  There were still machine gun bullet holes
    left in the walls.  I was shocked at how the Jewish population of
    Amsterdam had been decimated.
    
    The Anne Frank house was even more moving.  It is located on a side
    street in a very peaceful part of Amsterdam.  I tried to place myself
    40 years earlier in the Frank families place and imagine Stormtroopers
    running down the street arresting, beating and taking people away
    to their death in this very peaceful town.  After visiting the hideout
    there is a small museum dedicated to the War, the history of
    Antisemitism, and antisemitism today (Yes, it still exists!!!).
    
    This visit had a strange effect on me.  I had originally planned
    to tour Germany, but after my experience in Amsterdam, I felt I
    did not want to go to Germany.  They did not want me or my people
    there, and I was certainly not going to spend any of my money in
    their country.  
    
    Though it was not a death camp, my visit to Amsterdam brought the
    Holocaust to life for me.  I had only been exposed via religious
    school or documentaries.  It made real the fact that in a very
    comfortable place, where Jews had been prominent citizens such an
    event occurred, and can happen again if we are not careful and allow
    this event to pass from our memory.
    
    I have no desire to visit to Germany or the camps, but it is important
    that each of us remember what happen and never let it happen again.
    
    My trip ended in Israel (only $125 from Athens via El Al)., and
    included a trip to Yad Vashem.  It was moving, but not as much as
    sitting on that bench in Amsterdam and imagining back only 45 years
    ago in this spot...
                                                    
    
    Regards,
    
    Aaron

    United Synagogue Youth conducts a yearly "Israel/Poland Pilgrimage."
    Attendees (high school age, usually 16 or over) visit several camps
    in Poland, as well as synagogue(s?), former ghettos, and other
    historical sites, before travelling on to Israel.
    
    I had the opportunity to see one of these "kids" speak about his trip.
    The thing that was most frustrating was the refusal of the Polish
    government to acknowledge the existence of the Jewish people in any
    way.  Although the Polish government saw fit to commemorate certain
    sites at which hundreds or thousands of Jews were killed, there was no
    mention of Jews on the site markers.  Plaques commemorated destruction
    of "people," or "Polish people".  The remnants of organized
    anti-semitism are clearly visible.
    
    

    It is worth noting that Poland was one of those places where
    Jews (such as my own Grandparents) were not granted
    citizenship.  I agree that even the labeling of the
    commemorative plaques tends to encourage and continue the
    anti-Semitism that has existed in that country for some time.

    In answer to our moderator, I believe that Frankfurt is quite
    some distance from Dachau, but I have not looked at a map of
    Germany in quite some time.

    --Gary

         In the summer of 1972  did travel  europe. I visited several
         sites. I remember the feelings I had at  Normandie as well as
         at the concentration camps and other locals like East Berlin. I
         would recommend the visits to place our religious history into
         a personal perspective. 
         
         One side note,  several weeks later I found myself as part of
         an anti-political demonstration in Germany. In front of me was
         the Olympic village with hostages, and behind me were german
         army tanks. 
                                
         People were talking about the "damn jews", etc.. Anti-semitism
         is still alive in this world. A visit to a deathcamp  might be
         a good reminder of how far it can actually go. 
                                                        
         
         Barry
         

reply to: < Note 345.21 by NOD::NEEDLEMAN "psychedelic relic" >

>         People were talking about the "damn jews", etc.. Anti-semitism
>         is still alive in this world. A visit to a deathcamp  might be
>         a good reminder of how far it can actually go. 

This is a little "off" the specific topic, but I think that this 
is a good time to give this piece of information:

	There was a � hour segment on National Public Radio's "All
	Things Considered" about 6 weeks ago, called "Children of
	Nazis".

	The interviewers selected five, now-middle-aged, children of
	Nazis -- specifically, committed Nazis.  Some of their parents
	were executed after N�renburg, some are still alive.

	The "children" spoke remarkably frankly about their experiences
	of the time (the mid-'40s), of the times since, and also of the 
	current political climate in Germany and Austria.

	Several of the interview-ees had nothing but distaste and/or
	hatred for their parent's generation and what it represented.
	The most remarkable parts, however, were: 

		1) The calm, open NONrepentance on the part of a couple of the
		   people interviewed.

		2) An unbelieveable level of candor on the part of others, 
		   indicting (without name) current German officials
		   whom they personally know to be virulent
		   Nazis, today  -  and incredible candor
		   in noting the amount of anti-Semitism
		   still alive and well in Germany and Austria today.

	When I heard this program, I was "riveted" to the radio.  I don't
	know how I avoided having an accident.

	I purchased a copy of the program from NPR, on cassette.
	I listened to it again, last night.  The effect was just as
	strong.  It was a lot like watching "Shoah".

	(And then, you pick up the paper and read about LePen, in
	France.)

	Copies are available from NPR for $9.95.  You can call NPR at
	1-800-253-0808 and order a copy (they are quite backed up with
	orders for this tape, and it might take a few weeks).

/don feinberg

    Re: .22
    
    Pardon my lack of knowledge about current events, but who is LePen?
    
    Anita

    Re: .22
    
>    Pardon my lack of knowledge about current events, but who is LePen?
    
    Anita,

    LePen is a French politician (sort of) who is associated with the far
    right.  He has recently been attacked by more mainstream conservatives
    for such statements as (paraphrased):

	If the gas chambers even existed, they were just a minor footnote
	to the war.

	France should kick out all the foreigners (Algerians, Jews, etc.)
	who have come in and screwed up the economy.

    The guy really sounds like he would have ended up as a high ranking
    official in the Vichy government if he had been older during the war.

    Gavriel

    It is nice to know that even conservatives have their limits   8^{)

       re Le Pen:
       
       Jean-Marie Le Pen should not be written off as a fringe
       politician!  In the most recent elections, Le Pen's Front National
       party got 10% of the vote in France.  Beware -- this guy has a
       good deal of support in France.
       
       Le Pen's support is especially strong in working class areas where
       there are lots of N. African immigrants -- he appeals to racism
       and fear among the caucasian French.  
       
       It would be a grave mistake to underestimate or ignore the support
       that Le Pen has attracted in France.
       
       --Mr Topaz