We ended our weekend at the Dauchau Concentration Camp Memorial. This is something I have wanted to do for the past couple of years, but we just didn't know how to do it with the kids. They discourage entrance to any child under the age of 12 but they won't turn you away. There is a museum that presents the timeline of the creation of the camp until it's liberation. Outside the museum you are able to walk around the complex which includes a reconstructed barrack, role call area, partially reconstructed guard towers and outer walls and the crematorium.
The entrance, called the Jourhaus includes the saying "Work sets you free".
We chose to split up, Mark and McKenna walked the complex outside, while Bailey and I went into the museum. After we finished, Mark went in alone. I thought Bailey would decline the museum but she went with me and even watched the documentary film. It is heart wrenching and I found myself feeling nauseated through the whole museum. But when all is said and done, I feel strongly that younger generations know what happened here, how else do we prevent history from repeating itself? I do understand that human suffering is ongoing and we have examples of it all over the world now. But as a mother, I feel obligated to teach my girls the truth of the world which includes compassionate accomplishments and horrible acts of inhumanity, I want to teach them history.
This picture of Bailey and McKenna is looking down camp road. The poplar trees are the actual trees planted by the prisoners during their imprisonment.
I still find it hard to reconcile the things that happened in this country during WWII. Germany has taken back their country and made it their own again. The German people are kind, hard working and like to have fun. They are very social, they do not sit in their houses, they are out in the walkplatz, out to dinner and mingling with each other. It is good to experience this while we have lived here, it shows resilience in their hearts. Germany has so many treasures, not only in their landscape but in the traditional trades that they have saved and passed down from generation to generation. I'm so blessed to have had the opportunity to live here and experience German life!
1 comment:
Sorry to have not commented until now. Never a minute to myself till midnight. So today I read this to Grandpa, it was hard to not cry as reading, he is part of that greatest generation that gave so much. Since he has been here little stories of the time he served has been coming out. He never talked about it till now.
I am so glad you are teaching the girls as you are , they will be forever enlightened w/ all there experiences.
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