This entry is part of the blogburst commemorating both the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the 63rd anniversary of the Wannsee conference. A list of participating blogs can be found here.
I learned to speak German in Austria, many years ago, so I know how to pronounce the words "Auschwitz" and "Wannsee" properly. The "w" is pronounced like a "v" in English; the "ee" in "Wannsee" is a slightly elongated "eh" with a hint of a dipthong. The "itz" syllable is a little short. If you say the names often enough, they somehow become familiar.
But in the time between what happened at Wannsee on January 20th, 1942 and at Auschwitz on January 27th, 1945, the Nazis brought hell a little closer to earth. These German names, once so ordinary, will forever invoke a sense of dread and horror.
I have no first hand knowledge of any of these things. I've met a few survivors of the Shoah, visited museums, read books, seen a few movies, etc. But this is hardly adequate to understand or appreciate what it was all about. It's at once gratifying and frustrating to know that I can't possibly imagine what it was like.
So I can pronounce the names but can't possibly imagine the horror. Maybe it should be the other way around. As it turns out, an increasing number of people can't quite believe that anything bad happened at all; that all this talk about Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt, Dachau, Mauthausen, and numerous others is all a ploy to get sympathy for Israel and further what Palestinians are taught to believe is Jewish dominance of the world.
great blog
Posted by: callie | January 31, 2005 at 10:07 PM