The 21th January marks the day when the glorious Red Army freed the Auschwitz Concentration camp. Since 1996 it is also the national memorial day here in Germany for the victims of Nazi crimes and -what I did not know yet- it is also the International Memorial Day for Holokaust. It is worrysome that Putin's Russia did not join the mourning at Auschwitz, and that this gets politicised. Make this another thread.
The older I get the more angry I become angry about that. It is only 70 years away but still close enough that you ask yourself how was that possible? What mindeset have had those people that they felt they were „doing good“. It is that the way you treat people who you disagree with?
I did a cycle tour along the havel river a couple of years ago. What first draw my attention was a Russian tank monument. You find that often in Eastern Germany, a tank monument where the German People thank the Soviet Union for the Liberation of the German Peopme from the Fascists. Next to the tank was a sign that showed the direction to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for women,
So we decided to pay a visit. There the Nazis kept women from all of occupied Europe plus women from Great Brtain and 3 women from the USA. Wrong place, wrong time. There was a very telling photo album which showed pictures of the inmates. It is always two pictures of the same woman, one after the arrest and one picture after the arrival at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women. While on the first photo some of the women look shocked, angry, surprised, shy etc., on the second photo they all have then same dull face expression, they have lost all hope.
I visited the cells, there metall rings in the ground where the Nazis kept the watch dogs on the walk way between the cells, something like 8 German Shepard dogs for each block. Woof woof! I bite you between the legs.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein at „Parderborn“.
Whar gives one hope, it that you already at the parking can see that poeple from all over Europe visit those documetned Centers fo Nazi crimes, People from the Netherlands, Daanemark, Italy, etc, They are probably looking for their relatives, aunts, mothers, grandsmothers, great-grandmothers. It is good to see that Young People visit those places. At Ravensbrück the sleep-over is in the former SS-Barracks. And for the hard-cores take a shower at Ausch-Witz.
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