Auschwitz
I've stood in the gas chamber, in the punishment cells and against the wall where 20,000 received bullets to the skull.

No ghosts. Just silence.
(frankspencer, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:28, 11 replies)

Dachau
I went to Dachau and it's the same. Echoes. I'm not psychic in the least but it made me so sad it was physically painful to feel that silence.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:55, closed)

Taul Sleng/Hiroshima
oh man up, you fucking ponces. you weren't there when it mattered and you wouldn't have done anything to stop it if you had been.
(electricteeth, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 17:41, closed)

Congratulations Electricteeth!
You have just won the LIFETIME trip of your dreams to my ignore list!!!!



You tit.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 17:55, closed)

I just can't stand people romanticising genocide
It's not like it's a hing of the past. What have any of you done about Darfur/Dourados/Burma beyond tutting at reports in the Independent?
(electricteeth, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 18:08, closed)

Electricteeth
What I really object to is the sentence:

"oh man up, you fucking ponces. you weren't there when it mattered and you wouldn't have done anything to stop it if you had been."

How do you know what people would or would not have done had they been around at the time?

Moreover, even if we weren't there (and possibly because we weren't) it's important to know and recognise what went on in the past. That's why people visit those sorts of places. They're not kept standing for shits and giggles, you know.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 18:15, closed)

Fair point Bobfossil
But I meant that the vast majority of otherwise sane, right-thinking, decent people who were present for these events did nothing to stop them (whether as a result of fear, propaganda etc). However right on we are now,that's probably how we'd all act in those circumstances, like it or not. But yeah, I'm a cunt, you're right, I'll shut up.
(electricteeth, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 18:28, closed)

no ghosts?
That's because ghosts don't float around in sheets going "oooooo" and scaring the tourists: they live in newsreel footage, in photos, in the testimony of survivors, in history books.
(haberman is singing in the changes, Fri 29 Feb 2008, 15:55, closed)

Auschwitz
my workmate went there.. apparently its so quiet, no birds or anything :S
(Neomancer last looked smug on, Sat 1 Mar 2008, 20:26, closed)

yep, been there
Frank, been there and totally agree. did the guide do the door closing bit with you? having the door of a gas chamber closed behind you is the single most terrifying moment of my life. I can say that in all confidence after where I've been.
did you also notice - no birds in the trees? no animal life anywhere?
oh, and electricteeth - shut the f**k up and get you pathetic little emo arse off this website.
(The kneeling rifleman Is slowly getting there.., Mon 3 Mar 2008, 9:44, closed)

Auschwitz
I was taken there by my dad when I was 12. I saw him cry when his mother died, cry when his father died and cry when standing in Auschwitz. I have never seen him cry since. He lost a lot of his extended family there. Even though he never got to meet them all and he was probably too young to remember them fully, there is something very tragic which even 50 years can’t wash off. It does seem silent. And I hope it stays silent.

Every child should be taken there and see the horrors that civilised people can create - it’s the only way we will learn and the only way all those millions of people didn’t lose their life for nothing.

Oh, and Electricteeth, perhaps I wasnt there, and if I was I dont know how I would act - no one would. But. I have been brought up to accept all races, religions, sexualities and beliefs. I will bring my children up the same. That way this dark piece of history will not be repeated.
( KISS.ME.WHERE.I.POO Signed the sex offenders register on, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 10:15, closed)

I too visited that awful place...
Please tell me I'm not the only one who still feels bad for eating an ice cream in the grounds...
(wrigglesworth, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 13:50, closed)