Dachau

We saw Grandpapa's grandparents' graves today. Although I don't really know any stories about them, it was still surreal to see them. Grandpapa said he never really knew Israel, his grandpa, so there weren’t many memories to tell. We said kaddish and left. We didn't spend a lot of time here.

We went to Dachau today. Although we don't know anyone who stayed in this concentration camp, but it was still hard. Going to a place where you knew people were imprisoned for no other reason than their religion and where thousands died because of that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight. Dachau was mostly for political prisoners, but it still had Jews and other minorities imprisoned here. We didn't make it halfway through the museum before we both decided we couldn't go through anymore. It sickened us to read the stories of what happened to individuals and think about the people we knew that died during the war. We couldn’t stand to be there anymore. One quote I found from a 1939 newspaper headline defined what the Germans thought of those in the camp: "The concentration camp is an educational site for scum." It also shows how people didn't know what really went on in these camps. It's hard to believe looking back, but people really didn't know what was happening or that these camps existed sometimes. Chilling.