Ghosts of the Past

I started this description as part of the last post- but I decided it should have its own. It has a much more somber tone then fashion shows and art museums.

A few weeks ago on a Sunday Hannah Rebecca and I went on tour of Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp northwest of the city. It was cold and wet and miserable, probably a fitting atmosphere for such a visit. My rain boots and 1 euro umbrella were pretty much the only reason I was able to stay there as long we we did- like 4-5 hours. Our guide was this sweet old man, but unfortunately he was pretty slow. The most interesting part was hearing little snippets of his personal story that would come up. He survived the Holocaust as a kid in a mobile children's forced work group. I would've liked to have someone else lead the tour, and just have him give a talk about his own experiences... but either way I'm glad I went. I've had an interest in stories of the Holocaust for a long time, read many books about it, took a class about it in high school, and of course learned about it as German major-- but for a long time really had no desire to visit a concentration camp. For some reason that changed, and I am glad I went. It was a very different feeling then I've had visiting other types of memorials. Last summer visiting Anne Frank's house was a very surreal emotional experience. To actually see the hidden bookcase door, see her room, her writing on the wall, and the diary was a very impacting experience- a strange intersection of the ideas and images you've built up in your head and coming face to face with the real place. I could feel the history of the place, imagine what had occurred there.

A different experience was visiting the Jewish Museum , as I wrote about earlier. While that museum wasn't exclusively about the Holocaust, rather Jewish people through out the ages- the most impressive parts of the museum had to do with that. The large empty space called the "Holocaust Turm" (or Holocaust Tower) is a corner of the building that's relatively small but reaches up all 4 or so stories, that is completely bare and unfinished, with the only lighting coming from a small slit high up in the corner. The feeling standing there in that silent, cold, and dark room is hard to describe- but somehow gave the impression of the vast magnitude of loss and absence, a very quiet sorrow and reflection. I was surprised to find that actually visiting the concentration camp gave my less of a direct feeling. While it was completely horrifying to see everything, at times I felt distanced, always held back a bit and numbed to what I was seeing. But similar to visiting Anne Frank's house, you could feel the ghosts of the past- just under the surface. It was a very haunting place. Tired, wet, hungry, cold, and sore matched the mood.

The gate. "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free)