Concentration Camps

June 3, 2010
Today we visited the former concentration camp in Berlin. Despite having been to Dachau many times – these camps never cease to move me. Thoughts of how I would react if put in such a situation flood me. I really believe I would choose death—perform some act that I know would lead to my execution so I would not have to endure the torture anymore. BUT if there was family present or friends- I would try to endure, not for my own sake but for theirs… I am sure the same thoughts ran through so many put in these AWFUL places and stripped of their humanity… I am sure they lost hope. I shake my head thinking about how such atrocities could have possibly occurred; how so much hate could consume someone. Then I think about HOW IMPORTANT it is to protect yourself from becoming a person filled with such hate and HOW IMPORTANT it is to teach our children (one day) how to love people: That all men were created in the image of God.
Today I also placed myself on the other side of the wall- what if I was that little girl who played in the backyard, protected and safe, friends with SS officers, while a few hundred feet away was a camp full of starving, tortured individuals- what if her family was my family? Certainly, fear would keep my family quiet as it did hers. I would rather like to think that there would be some grand plan to help those in the camp, to fight against the SS, to recover the town from Hitler’s control --- but these are naïve thoughts.
My ancestors where here in Germany through all this- although they are dead now, I wonder who they were during this time… Would I be proud or I would be ashamed?

Just some thoughts...