LafayetteLady
Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007 From: Northern New Jersey Status: offline
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I was raised Catholic, with my father being first generation born here, and my mom's side having been here since colonial times, so I have no history like that. However, it was something I had wanted to do for more than twenty years. I think if your great uncle was in Dachau, it is going to be very difficult because of personal history. Regardless, the level of discomfort depends on the individual. It wasn't "hard" for me to see it. It was more like appalled, disgusted, amazed, shocked and a state of awe for the people who had the personal strength and faith to come out of that and go on to live full lives. I spoke with a woman at Auschwitz who was Polish. She has spent years searching the records for information regarding various family members. Some she has been successful in finding out what happened to them, but for others, there simply are no records because towards the end, that meticulous record keeping started to slip from the sheer volume of prisoners that they were bringing in daily. Some were missed. Some escaped. Some died before an attempt at creating a record could be made. So much of many people's research was previously done by talking to other prisoners (there is much documentation on this). Now a significant number of those memories have been recorded for current and future generations to search through, but it isn't nearly enough. There are certainly parents and children who were separated and never reunited, with those children growing up having no idea that their parents search until their dying day to find them. That is what is so hard. When you go, if you have the time, I recommend you travel over to Krakow, Poland and visit the Oskar Schindler Museum. It is in his factory, although it is more about the occupation of Poland more than Schindler himself. However, there is so much information and historical memorabilia there, it is worth seeing.
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