Auschwitz, Is this true???

[sapper]

The place where no birds sing? North of Caen. No birds at all, None... Only the sweet sickly stench of death. The poor little things would have perished anyway...And I am deadly serious.
Sapper

[EmersonBigguns]

Originally Posted by Gotthard Heinrici

Well there are 2 schools of thought here: The "Humanities" group which believes that nature is affected by evil and will not go near it and the Sciences School which believes that nature is nature and that evil is not something that it notices. This massive chasm between the two schools has never been breached and will continue to rage across these boards for many, many, many years to come.

With the noted exception that those of who have been there and who have seen the birds completely discredit the theory that birds NEVER go to Auschwitz. They do.

It does not however discredit the individual exeriences of those who go there and do not see the birds. There are reasons for it, several possible ones I gave in my other post.

If an individual wants to believe that they have seen no birds because of the evil of the place and that enhances their experience, then so be it. If someone does not see birds because they choose not to or because they don't know where to look, then so be it.

But there is a bottom line here and the minute I saw that duck sitting in one of the ditches inside the fence line I found out where it was. I knew where to look to find birds. And birds there are a plenty, in SOME places within Auschwitz.

Of course, if someone wanted to argue against my credibility as a reliable witness to the presence of avian life then I guess that's another matter. After all, I didn't get any pictures of birds when I was there....


I'm done 'raging' now as I agree with Herr Heinrichi that much like the 'chicken or the egg' argument, this is perhaps an issue that will never see complete agreement, and will live on forever.

-EB, card carrying member of the Audobon Society

[marcus69x]

For anyone who wants to go to Auschwitz but hasn't yet got round to it, I've just come across this camcorder footage of somebodys tour of the place on youtube.



YouTube - First Auschwitz trip (July 2000) Part 1

YouTube - First Auschwitz trip (July 2000) Part 2: Crematoria

[marcus69x]

And if you listen, there are definately birds at Auschwitz.

[Owen]

I can hear House Sparrow at 3 minutes.

[tankie1rtr]

I was a Continental Coach driver for 14 yrs and I have been to Dachau many times, but I have always seen and heard birds, and seen rabbits, I think its like Croonaert said, that because you are too hyped into to what you are going to see and link it with what went on there, you fail to notice and hear birds singing, the first couple of trips I did, I was too hyped into what happened there, but after your 6th visit, I started staying by the coach on the coach park, thats when I noticed birds flying over the camp, and birdsong, I also noticed rabbits hopping around.
Regards
tankie1rtr

[Smudger Jnr]

My sister visited Bergen-Belson some years ago and told me that it was eirey quiet and she could not see or hear any birds.

I travelled on a coach trip to Germany in 2000 and the coach driver diverted to Bergen-Belsen. Although it was a poor day weather wise I saw and heard several birds, but was overcome when looking around the mounds and seeing the numbers of the dead per mound!

As I now live in Berlin I have travelled to Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, North of Berlin.

This was the first concentration camp set up by the NS system and it was easy for them to take anyone not to their persuasion from the streets in Berlin and detain relatively close by.

Having visited this place, where brutality of an unimaginable extreme was handed out daily to the inmates, I cannot understand people denying that this took place.

The Camp is now a Museum, dedicated to educating people of the horrors of the NS system of extermination camps.

There is also a very large room full of computers where anyone can study from a vast amount of documented evidence.

I found it to be a truly moving experience. I plan to take my daughters there next year, as reading books about the holocaust is just not the same as visiting these monuments to those killed by the system.

Tom