Today was another busy and exciting day here in Germany. I quite enjoyed visiting the town of Celle; both the sights and the history were impressive, I wish we could have stayed longer! I also enjoyed meeting some English-speaking locals, and seeing the festival with them- the German cover band singing “Smoke on the Water” was particularly interesting, as were the old German ladies dancing like crazy.
However, the most striking thing to happen today was our trip to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration camp. I had been mentally preparing myself for this trip for a while, but it still managed to catch me off guard. I expected something with tangible horrors. I expected to see the rooms where innocent people were slaughtered. I expected to see everything as it was, carefully preserved, and still horrifying. Instead, there was nothing. The area where the camp had stood was just an empty void. There were some pathways and ruins of bunkers here and there, and there were many symbolic gravestones in one area. I could not believe how much of an impact the site still had even though there was little there. The tour center was interesting, our tour guide was very knowledgeable and she did a good job. However, when I walked into the film tower, there was a video playing of a bulldozer pushing around a mound of naked corpses into a mass grave. It was, by far, the most horrible thing I have ever seen. This trip made everything that I had heard about seem so real- it is easier for one to understand once they have seen these horrors in a more real context. I had no words to say while I was there, I took only one photo while there (the obelisk). This trip is something that I will remember for a long time.
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