Journal Entry: Dachau

I decided to post my journal entry that we were given after touring Dachau. My feelings after Dachau were mixed. I wasn’t sad, and I definitely wasn’t happy. Not being Jewish definitely has a part in it. Since I am not Jewish I didn't feel a connection to the prisoners. My relatives weren’t affected by the Holocaust, so I don’t feel the same connection as someone whose relatives might have been hugely affected by it. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel anything and wasn’t connected at all. We as humans all feel connected, if one of us dies everyone feels pain. So seeing pictures of all the prisoners killed, injured, or even sick gives us great sadness. Being able to go to a place where thousands of people were killed is crazy. It really puts everything into perspective. At one point I walked up next to one of the fences and saw a picture of a man laying dead, shot trying to escape, right where I was standing. Once you see it first hand it changes everything, it takes something that you have only heard about or read about and it makes you fully realize that it actually happened. It sort of proves that it happened because you are witnessing where it took place. I would say that the trip to Dachau did change me a little bit. It made me realize what happened at that point in history and how horrible it truly was. It showed me that you can’t really learn everything from books, you really have to go out and experience it on your own.