Stephen’s Travels

After an early rise we headed out to Buchenwald; a concentration camp located in Germany. I will not go into any details about this camp.

We also made our way to Dora-Mittelbau which was a camp built to produce V-2 Rockets. Of course, slave labor was used in all aspects of construction. The interesting thing about this camp is the fact that the factory itself if underground in a complex dug out of rock. We were unable to go inside because there were no guides available today.

Tonight we made our way to downtown Hannover via train. I was really reluctant to go, but Chris convinced me. The reason for my reluctance was because for the first time I was really disoriented. Anyways, Chris, Robyn, Roxi, and myself went and had some coffee in a nice cafe.

Lidice is nothing important if you know nothing about WWII or the holocaust. To us on the tour, we know that it is a city that was destroyed in retaliation for the assassination of Rudolph Heydrich. Basically all of the city’s men were killed, and the women and children were sent to concentration or extermination camps. The city was completely razed so that all that now remains are a couple foundations. Out of all the memorials so far, this one touched me the most. I think it was the monument to the children that were killed hit the deepest. It is really difficult to put into words the things I have seen, I hope a new light is shed upon WWII and especially the holocaust.

We also visited Terezinstadt, which was a camp for political prisoners as well as Jews. While this was not specifically an extermination camp, like all of the others, thousands of people perished there.

This was all on our way out of Prague to Chemnitz, Germany.