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A history of the camp and vital statistics can be found on the its Wikipedia page. The camp now is a self-guided museum that shows not only what the camp was all about but also gives a bit of history surrounding the peoples who were most affected.
Much of the camp was rather benign and a bit boring in fact. A few displays, however, were quite dark and ominously depicted the true nature of the camp. One such was a registry of the murdered. There was a large book with the names listed but it was too painful to browse the hundreds of pages. Another example was a large ball of hair that had been collected from the female victims.
There is nothing more sobering than visiting the death camps. That is strange that they would think there is anyone out there who would place the ownership and management of those camps on anyone BUT the Nazis. I guess it depends on who's telling the story as with most things- that's sad that it's a sore spot as they were clearly victims- not the ones responsible.
February 23, 2009
Yeah, this is just the tip of the ice berg too.
There are ongoing land disputes between Germans and Poles concerning Russian forced migrations after the war. Poland was shifted "to the left" about 150miles losing ground to Ukraine/Belarus but gaining from Germany. In fact, the German government wants to build a museum (in Poland no less!) in remembrance of the Germans who lost their lands!
There are also ongoing land disputes between Jews and Poles over similar matters.
Not only that but much of the recent political dialog within Poland has focused on hunting past Communist collaborators! Like 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Strange to have such powerful, diverse, and somehow fresh history.
February 24, 2009
What a mess. It's hard to imagine the chaos that must've taken place during that time.
February 24, 2009
Here is a link about a group trying to get land back from Poland. I couldn't find it before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Expellees
February 26, 2009