windpig wrote in post #19000717
I went to Dachau back in 1959 when I was 5. My father was stationed in Germany in the USAF. When I saw the crematorium I knew people were burned there, but I didn't know if they were alive or not. I will never forget going to Dachau. My brother was 9 when we went, I asked him last year if he remembered. He said he had nightmares about seeing Dachau well into his high school years.
Heather Dune Macadam has written a couple of incredible books about the killing houses/camps - one which I have just read about the hundreds of young Slovakian Jewish women, teenagers a lot of them, who were the first at Auschwitz. These girls were young, innocent, loved and protected, and flung into slavery. This author's books are well researched.
Interestingly, many of the novels I have read, set in this era, and disturbing scenario, mention extremely similar occurrences/abuses against the people incarcerated in these dreadful places.
It defies my imagination what they endured, and how those who survived, manged to live with those horrific memories.