Writer George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Since scholars place the quote's publishing date around 1905, it's clear that Santayana didn't have the Holocaust on his mind. However, the quote is nonetheless relevant when speaking about the importance of Holocaust memorials. I visited Dachau many years ago and Santayana's words appeared on a large sign at the end of the exhibit; it may still be there.In 1990, my resident director took my study abroad group to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. This past Friday, I did the same with my group. Similar to my visit to Sachsenhausen outside Berlin with The Pennington School in 2007, I really felt like there is no lecture, museum, or video that can drive home the lesson as much as a visit to a camp. This takes nothing away from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.
Mauthausen, near Linz, was a forced labor camp built primarily by Dachau prisoners and funded in large part by the pilfered money of German-speaking Jewish citizens. The exhibit areas are done (artifacts, documents, art work), but they have intentionally left the actual holding and treatment areas untouched. Shower rooms, a dissecting table, cells, toilets, refrigeration rooms for bodies, ovens--everything looks like it has sat 60 years. Tiles, floors, and windows are cracked, pipes rusted out. You feel uncomfortable the moment you step in and that's appropriate.
My kids took it all in--they were great! There were two separate Italian school groups visiting, and each group was so different. One was enthralled, taking photos of every corner, of every remnant. The other group was bored, cold, biding their time. I was once again proud of my Pennington group from two years ago because as much as they wanted to have fun on our Berlin/Prague trip, they saw the importance of such a visit from the first mention of the excursion.
I've visited four camps: Dachau, Mauthausen, Theresienstadt (outside Prague), and Sachsenhausen. They're all different but no one is less important than the others. If you ever venture to Europe, devote at least a half-day to such a visit!
