M*W: I have not only read extensively about the destruction of the European Jews, I have seen first hand the concentration camps (also known as "work centers" of Dachau, Thereisenstadt, Mauthausen, and Mainz-Kastel. There is no way that these dens of horror were fake. I walked from one end of Dachau to the other, crying the whole way. I've stood where so many died in the "showers," and I could sense the last hopeful thoughts of mothers and children. I've stood in the "bunks" and touched the cold hard wooden overcrowded sleeping quarters. I saw the crematoria. The smell of burning flesh was still in the air.
Dachau was built right in the middle of a residential area near Munich. However, the civilians on the outside never acknowledged what went on on the inside. They thought it was a work camp for displaced persons during the war. The Germans are STILL in denial that the Holocaust ever happened. It removes the "guilt" from their souls.
Mauthausen was a place of heinous medical interment where they performed such experiments as filling a woman's uterus with cement to see how far they could stretch it before it burst. No one came out alive from these "experiments." Mauthausen was one of the camps where they tried genetic engineering to create the Aryan race. Today it is simply a kindergarten in a rural area with pretty flowers in the windows and children playing unaware.
Mainz-Kastel was a work camp, not too far from where I lived and just across the Rhein. Although labeled a "work camp," it had its usual floor plan and infamous smoke stack. Guard posts were at every corner. The floor plans of the concentration camps were for the most part identical depending on the area. Dachau was one of the bigger ones. Mauthausen was quite small for the experimentation going on. Mainz-Kastel was somewhere in between. Today, it is owned by the US Army who have turned it into a post exchange. The crematorium is now a toy store.
Near the town of Marburg, I don't recall the name of the place, they did experiments on human fat. Traveling through this town, the air had a strong odor of Johnson's Baby Shampoo. When I studied about Holocaust, I learned that this particular place is where they cut out chunks of human fat to make soap and shampoo.
In Southern Bavaria, there is a town by the name of Haar. It's local industry was mattress making. This is where they shaved the Jew's hair to stuff mattresses with it. Haar means "hair" auf Deutsche.
I lived in Germany when the film The Holocaust aired. To the arrogant German, The Holocaust was deemed a lie perpetuated by the Americans. Even today, they don't admit the Holocaust ever happened. When that film aired, certain people recognized their relatives from the file footage--not the Jews but the SS. Some believed it was a lie, but some didn't. For those very few folks who believed the Holocaust did actually happen, it was devastating to learn the truth about members of their own family. Everything that was wrong with Germany, Americans got the blame. The first year I lived in Wiesbaden, I got spit on three times by older folks on the street. Then by the time I left Germany, I had become one of them but only outwardly. I dressed like them. I spoke like them. I lived among them, but I learned the truth about them. They are a country in denial still refusing to take responsibility for their war crimes.
When I see what our American soldiers have done taking photographs while abusing Iraqi prisoners," I find it to be un-American and very stupid, but there is NO comparison with that to what the Germans did to the Jews.
Most Germans say the Holocaust didn't happen. That's what they teach their children in school. They teach their children that everything that is wrong with their country is the fault of the Americans. (How many times did we save their asses in wars?) We occupy their country, they say, because they "are having to take care of the lazy Americans!"
So, for those of you who don't believe the Holocaust ever happened, I am sorry for your ignorance. Unless you've been there, you simply don't understand that it's the truth. It did happen. I've been there. I've seen what was left of this terrorism. I've sensed death. Thank God the Americans finally ended this tragedy and saved those they could. Thank God the Americans freed the Iraqis from their terrorist, Sadaam Hussein and his henchmen.
On the gates of the concentration camps are the words "Arbeit macht frei." "Work makes you free." That good old German "work ethic" still rings true. I've been there. Have you?
