Buchenwald

What can I say about Buchenwald that isn't trite or hasn't been said before? Not much. It's really too staggering a thing to wrap your head around. A couple of things struck me though. First, Buchenwald is all cleaned up and sanitized so it's hard to get a sense of what a grisly place it is. I had the same impression when Charlene and I went to Dachau. Perhaps, I need to go to Auschwitz or one of the other actual death camps outside Germany to have a better sense of the place. One thing that does seem to set the appropriate mood is the fact that everything is covered in gravel and its wide open and barren. I don't know if the gravel is original or not, but the desolation of it does seem apropos. The other thing that struck me was the comments the museum had published from the guest book. Some were trite. I guess they were like me and could think of nothing but the trite to say. Some said, "Never again" or "Never forget". Others said, "I can't believe this many people died here" or "I didn't realized this went on here". A guest book probably isn't the right venue to share something more meaningful. But the thing that was more striking, were the more aberrant: "Thanks for a great day, Hitler". For those of you who know me, you know I'm the glass half empty guy, but this truly seems like the more we change the more we stay the same.