Letter From Amsterdam

[Gman]

Thanks for sharing your trip to Amsterdam and the Anne Frank museum for us. And I think you were wise to get banket directly from the dutch!! Watch out for those imitations...

[Cross.eyed]

PS...I have visited a Category III Concentration Camp on a previous trip. A Cat.III Camp is one where you entered by the gate and left by the smokestack. A chilling experience for all visitors.

I've been to the Auschwitz camp in Poland. Chilling indeed.

I'm not sure I could visit these places without being overcome.

Five years ago or so, The History Channel ran a series documenting the death camps complete with vintage footage of the Jewish people being persecuted in every imaginable way. There were so-called medical experiments, inventive torture, starvation, beatings, and horror beyond belief, all caught on celluloid.

When that series went into re-runs I watched again trying to understand how such evil could come about but it was, and still is, far past my comprehension. Children of whom were mere skeletons begging in the streets for a morsel of food were treated worse than as is if they were diseased rats. The adults didn't fair any better. I finally got to the point I couldn' watch anymore but those images are still very vivid in my mind.

If I were to get the chance to visit those camps I might try it, but... as I stated earlier, I'm not sure.

[Lufia]

How painful it must have been for God to see it all.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

If I were to get the chance to visit those [Concentration] camps I might try it, but... as I stated earlier, I'm not sure.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit a death camp, do so. Even if every fiber in your body says «Don't go!»...go.

I visited the small death camp Natzwiler-Struthof where «only» 60,000 died. This was a medical experimentation camp complete with dissection tables.

The camp was also an interrogation center for captured soldiers and resistance fighters. The interrogation room was about 15 feet by 15 feet with a chair in the middle. The floor of this room sloped to a drain in the center. When the interrogation was over, the prisonner was shot at the back of the skull and the blood spurted out. A guard could then hose down the room with water and it would drain out easily. No mopping up...very tidy.

I could say more, but you may be having lunch.

This struck me about a death camp: a lot of visitors yet everyone speaking in hushed tones - even outside - as if we were in a church.

Anyway...that's another story. The flight back from Holland went well! My wife even got bumped up to First Class! ...in a Boeing 747 no less... I stayed downstairs with the poor people!

FL

[zoegirl]

The Holocaust museum in D.C. is much the same....I;ve never been to a quieter, more somber place....I also saw the documentaries. The do make you physically ill.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

The Holocaust museum in D.C. is much the same....I;ve never been to a quieter, more somber place....I also saw the documentaries. The do make you physically ill.

Physically ill...yes. Psychologically ill as well, for sensitive hearts. After our visit to Natzwiler-Struthof, my wife told me she never wanted to visit such a place again. I thought this was only rhetoric until we were near Munich (two years later) and I suggested a visit to the camp at Dachau. She angrily refused.

FL

[Swamper]

The Holocaust museum in D.C. is much the same....I;ve never been to a quieter, more somber place....I also saw the documentaries. The do make you physically ill.

Physically ill...yes. Psychologically ill as well, for sensitive hearts. After our visit to Natzwiler-Struthof, my wife told me she never wanted to visit such a place again. I thought this was only rhetoric until we were near Munich (two years later) and I suggested a visit to the camp at Dachau. She angrily refused.

FL

I would probably visit one again, especially if I was with someone who had never been. These are things that should never be forgotten.

Our tour guide at Auschwitz said that Nazi doctors would inject chemicals into children's eyes in attempt to turn them blue, basically creating more Aryans artificially. Truly sick.

[obsolete]

The Holocaust museum in D.C. is much the same....I;ve never been to a quieter, more somber place....I also saw the documentaries. The do make you physically ill.

Physically ill...yes. Psychologically ill as well, for sensitive hearts. After our visit to Natzwiler-Struthof, my wife told me she never wanted to visit such a place again. I thought this was only rhetoric until we were near Munich (two years later) and I suggested a visit to the camp at Dachau. She angrily refused.

FL

I would probably visit one again, especially if I was with someone who had never been. These are things that should never be forgotten.

Our tour guide at Auschwitz said that Nazi doctors would inject chemicals into children's eyes in attempt to turn them blue, basically creating more Aryans artificially. Truly sick.

My Jewish relatives escaped Hamburg, Germany maybe a few years before WWII. I think it was around the time Hitler became Chancelor, think it was 1939.
I read a book called "Aushwitz: A Doctors Eye Witness Account". It was written by a Hungarian Jew who went to Aushwitz with his wife and daughter. Very good book. I recomend it highly.
I also did some readng on Mengele and Himmler to try to fully understand why they would do things like this. I thought I was going to be sick.

[cslewislover]

PS...I have visited a Category III Concentration Camp on a previous trip. A Cat.III Camp is one where you entered by the gate and left by the smokestack. A chilling experience for all visitors.

I've been to the Auschwitz camp in Poland. Chilling indeed.

I'm not sure I could visit these places without being overcome.

Five years ago or so, The History Channel ran a series documenting the death camps complete with vintage footage of the Jewish people being persecuted in every imaginable way. There were so-called medical experiments, inventive torture, starvation, beatings, and horror beyond belief, all caught on celluloid.

When that series went into re-runs I watched again trying to understand how such evil could come about but it was, and still is, far past my comprehension. Children of whom were mere skeletons begging in the streets for a morsel of food were treated worse than as is if they were diseased rats. The adults didn't fair any better. I finally got to the point I couldn' watch anymore but those images are still very vivid in my mind.

If I were to get the chance to visit those camps I might try it, but... as I stated earlier, I'm not sure.

I would probably visit one again, especially if I was with someone who had never been. These are things that should never be forgotten.

Our tour guide at Auschwitz said that Nazi doctors would inject chemicals into children's eyes in attempt to turn them blue, basically creating more Aryans artificially. Truly sick.

I kind-of would like to visit, but I don't think I could . . .

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

I kind-of would like to visit [a concentration camp], but I don't think I could . . .

Zoegirl spoke of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. ...that's closer for you than Europe! I will be in D.C. for 4 days next Easter and may trick my wife into visiting it!

[cslewislover]

I kind-of would like to visit [a concentration camp], but I don't think I could . . .

Zoegirl spoke of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. ...that's closer for you than Europe! I will be in D.C. for 4 days next Easter and may trick my wife into visiting it!

From the sounds of it, I don't think your wife would be tricked so easily!

A lot of great info here - thanks!

[AMC]

Haha, wow this was funny to read! How American's view the Dutch way of life, the differences, the culture-shock.
Things that are so normal for me but not for someone from abroad.
Thanks for the great read!
I would love to visit the US someday, but not on my own. I'm afraid I might die of culture shock myself

[B. W.]

Haha, wow this was funny to read! How American's view the Dutch way of life, the differences, the culture-shock.
Things that are so normal for me but not for someone from abroad.
Thanks for the great read!
I would love to visit the US someday, but not on my own. I'm afraid I might die of culture shock myself

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