Should Nazi Extermination Camps Be Demolished ....

[naomi24]

.... and holocaust memorial exhibitions abandoned?

Is visiting these places just sick - or is it important to maintain them along with all the evidence they preserve ... lest we forget?

Have you visited such a place and, if so, your thoughts and impressions.

[bhg481]

Reading about it and seeing it are two completely different things. There is an atmosphere about these places which cannot be found in a book.

[LadyCG]

It should also be taken into account that you visit these places to pay your respects.

I have Jewish heritage myself.

[woofgang]

TTT "evidence" yes good word.
I do get Sqad's point though which is what I meant about "sick" reasons for visiting....kind of the same sort of thing as the people who like to watch the wildlife TV programs that are soley footage of animals fighting and killing other animals or animals hunting and eating each other....or maybe watching extreme horror films.

[bhg481]

or boxing matches.

[Zacs-Master]

Sqad, that’s slightly better. Educating oneself through a visit to the camp/s as to the true horrors which humankind can, with flimsy excuses, inflict upon fellow humans is tough but important if we’re to pass the warnings on to future generations.

[andres]

In the 40s the atrocities and suffering of the prisoners was shown on every newsreel all the time. Gaunt , skeleton like people clutching the wire fencing. Pleading eyes , outstretched arms and dressed in ragged clothes. German officers strutting round, poking and prodding them. What must have gone on behind the scenes was unimaginable. No-one can re-create those scenes in a book. The visual remains with you for ever.
These places need to be demolished and memorial gardens planted.
Let them rest in peace.

[Jordyboy9]

Sqad, that’s slightly better. Educating oneself through a visit to the camp/s as to the true horrors which humankind can, with flimsy excuses, inflict upon fellow humans is tough but important if we’re to pass the warnings on to future generations.>..so really zacs the horrors of world war 1 didnt have an effect that you are suggesting leaving the camps for future, no i think get rid if only to stop the sick and perverted individuals who go on holiday to see them,some holiday

[JimF]

Absolutely not! I firmly believe that visiting such places should be compulsory, just as I believe that all teenagers should be made to visit a maximum security prison for a day.

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." - Edmund Burke.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana.
"If you know your history then you would know where you coming from." - Bob Marley

[JimF]

Added to this, it should never be forgotten that Nazi Germany did not invent concentration camps - the good ol' British Empire is not exactly blameless: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/concentration-camps-existed-long-before-Auschwitz-180967049/

[anotheoldgit]

Gruesome I would say, why not also put on display the axe and chopping block in the Tower of London, or perhaps the revolution Guillotines in Paris?

[Zacs-Master]

‘so really zacs the horrors of world war 1 didnt have an effect that you are suggesting leaving the camps for future’

I’m not quite sure what your getting at, Jordy. What has WWI got to do with it?

[Zacs-Master]

You’re

[Hopkirk]

Holocaust deniers should be made to visit these places, and be confronted with reality.

[Jordyboy9]

ZACS you say leave the camps as a reminder,i say demolish them,the horrors of trench warfare in ww1 was not enough of a reminder to stop all wars as it was meant to,or am making no sense again?

[JimF]

"why not also put on display the axe and chopping block in the Tower of London, or perhaps the revolution Guillotines in Paris?"

Er, both of these are already on display!

[Zacs-Master]

Not really. Many soldiers didn’t talk about their trench experiences. Maybe some should have been left for people to view and WWII might not have happened?

[LadyCG]

Aye, Jim, but as we were reliably informed just 2 days ago, the Nazis committed such vile atrocities at their camps, the likes of which would never have entered British heads.

Anyone heard of pole hanging? I learned about it at Dachau. Don't google it unless you can stomach reading about unimaginable torture.

[bhg481]

The trouble is that you can only destroy something once; Bergen-Belsen was, to all intents and purposes, destroyed by the forces which relieved it and all that remains are the funeral mounds and memorials. Some of the other camps are no more than a memorial others, such as Auschwitz and Mauthausen are failly intact. There is no compulsion to go to see them but, as long as they still exist, you can if you wish. Destroying them removes that option.

[tamborine]

No - do not demolish as concentration camps are the ROOT of Israel.

A perfect place to incarcerate antisemites!

[Ken4155]

In the 70s, I was stationed in Hohne which is just down the road (literally) from Belsen Concentration camp. Myself and a few friends visited there just the once - which was enough. The huts had been demolished but one could tell where they had stood - bit like taking a picture down that had been hung on the wall for some time. It was deathly quiet, rather like a church graveyard, but it wasn't hard to imagine the conditions in which the POWs had to live. Poor sanitation, lack of proper food, rife with various fatal diseases. It is not 'sick' to visit such places, they serve as a reminder of man's inhumanity & barbarity. They should, imho, not be demolished.