Buchenwald

Hands down, our visit to Buchenwald, my first to a concentration camp, was the most intense experience I had in Germany.  You can see the memorial from the highway.  "Never forget" has been baked into some suburban developments.  Just looking out your window is a reminder that your country murdered at least 56,000 people in your own backyard.  Elie Wiesel, a transfer from Auschwitz with his father, was among the inmates who survived.

By the time we arrived, the memorial was closed for the day.  Snow still covered the ground in early spring.

Even with sweaters and jackets we were cold as we walked around the eerily empty grounds.  Most of the buildings have been restored.

 

 

Here's the crematorium where they burned the bodies after they had been gassed, starved or worked to death.  Initially there were more political prisoners than Jews which helps explain why the camp was built on German soil.  Most were men.

The entrance gate to the camp says "every man for himself."  More accurate than "work will set you free," I suppose.

But not entirely true.  Jan Sowka and another Pole tried to avenge the savage beating of a buddy by a guard.  The SS set an example by hanging them and 17 other Polish prisoners on three gallows in front of the rest of the camp.  This slab commemorates their deaths.

Inmates were forced to wrestle bears in the "zoo" for the entertainment of the guards.

Florian said the only other time he'd seen me choke back sobs was during the last scene in "Brokeback Mountain."  I later discovered that a Danish doctor (yes, you read that right) at Buchenwald tried to "cure" homosexuals with hormonal transplants.  Today, Germans deliver solar power as efficiently as they once did death. Those are windmills in the clearing skies between the barbed wire.

Florian had been to Buchenwald once before, during the summer.  He said this time was more meaningful because he could feel, at least for a few minutes, the seasonal cold that the inmates experienced 24/7 if they survived.