borofergie said:
GraceK said:
I also see that in my father in particular as he was a concentration camp survivor who certainly lost all the 'sweetness' in life long before I was born. Perhaps that sort of experience changes our DNA over time? Who knows? Only we do, I think, somewhere deep down. :think:
Wow. I visited Auschwitz a few years ago with an Israeli friend of mine (whose relatives died there). It was in the middle of February, in 4ft of snow, and we were the only people on the Auschwitz B (the concentration camp). I'm not a spiritual person, but the whole experience was very moving and affected me deeply. I'm going to take my son when he is older, so he can understand for himself what hatred and intolerance look like when taken to an extreme.
I also think that this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Is_a_Man
shows the most amazin dignity of the human spirit, and how someone can suffer the most terrible atrocities and not be motivated by revenge or hatred.
I can trace losing my own 'connection to the sweetness of life' when my father took me to see Majdanek Camp when I was 13. Like your experience with Aushwitz, there were only 3 people in the camp that day, my father, myself and my Polish half sister. It was the most profound experience of my life, the most shocking and disturbing, the most overwhelming and there were and still are no words for me to describe what I saw, what I felt and the profound silence in that camp.
I blacked out at some point and the next thing I knew I was sitting at a table having dinner with all my relatives. But I honestly could not remember one single thing about going to the camp. When I came to at the dinner table I had no memory of where I'd been or what I'd seen until 30 years later when I began having flashbacks and developed PTSD as a result. Because of that, I decided not to take my own children to see any of the camps. In fact, they haven't even been to Poland but I would like them to go some day to see their roots.
One cannot visit a concentration camp and come out the same person who went in. And although I believe people should and need to know about the atrocities that took place, there is a very huge difference between reading about it in a book, watching a documentary on TV and actually going there in person. I'm sure you'll agree that the atmosphere is something very profound and does leave us speechless. We don't yet know enough about the effects of those camps on our parents, I know that my father NEVER EVER talked about it. Most camp survivors were too traumatised afterwards to describe what they'd been through. Taking me there was my Dad's way of showing me and I don't blame him for that, but I do wish he hadn't. I was simply an observer of the past and it had a devastating effect on me and my future life so I can't begin to imagine the reality of it for my father. I believe also that he was an undiagnosed diabetic, probably because the test levels were set higher in those days, but he had all the symptoms and many of the complications. I think perhaps extreme starvation affects the metabolism and perhaps that becomes a genetic change which then is passed on to subsequent children. But that's just my wild guesswork.
Thank you for the link to the book boro - I'll check that out. Regarding human spirit, everyone who knew my Dad asked "How the hell does he keep going?" That was because he had so many health problems and struggled to breath and put one foot in front of the other every day and was on death's door on a regular basis. But he'd managed to escape from Siberian gulag on foot and somehow (God knows how) ended up in India where he took time to recover from malaria and starvation before joining the British Navy. To be honest I think his survival was due to good old fashion bloody mindedness and a desire to see the truth be told, particularly about the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn.
