27. Januar 2005, 23:59

60th anniversary of the liberation of concentration camp in Auschwitz

Auschwitz - a name, why I cannot be proud to be German. And there are many other ones, as Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Chelmno, Babij Jar, Leningrad, Oradour, Coventry, Lidice...

Well, actually, I am glad to be German, I like this country quite well, its culture and landscape. But when it comes to the two World Wars, then I only can feel ashamed, especially when it comes to the atrocities and the inhumanity, which was done by German people, by our ancestors. And I, like any other human being, also cannot understand, how this could have done, how this could have happened.

I have visited two times in my life a concentration camp. It was the women's concentration camp Ravensbruck north of Berlin and the concentration camp Buchenwald near Weimar.

The first time I was still really young, so I cannot really remember it. I was too young to know and understand, what this all has really meant. I only can remember, that we were young boys and have met there some Soviet soldiers and we asked them for some medals. I have learnt then my first Russian words: "Kamerad, znachki!" And we really got some medals from them. Today I am a bit ashamed of that, because these soldiers likely got some troubles afterwards in their barracks with their officers.

But the second visit to a concentration camp in Buchenwald I remember better, because I was about 14. It was winter and a survivor of that camp guided us through that today's memorial place. When I came out of one of the houses (I think it was some medical house), I felt that I became really sick and weak. I heard my blood pumping in my ears, and I had to go beside immediately, otherwise, I think, I had collapsed. I was a bit surprised, that this had this reaction on me, because I thought I had been stronger, but this was not right, obviously.

Today, I really would like to visit Auschwitz, because I am very interested in it, but I also have some doubts and fears, that I couldn't really deal with it, when I would be at that place of the biggest crimes in history, done not very long ago by German people.