Live from Munich Part II: Never forget

Today I saw the concentration camp Dachau. At first, I was frustrated by the huge groups of young German students, joking around on the bus ride and making it difficult to see certain signs at the memorial site. But then I read, and I listened. I read about the fences watched by the S.S. and how prisoners would go into forbidden territory just to end their suffering. I listened to descriptions of experiments that tortured the innocent victims at the camps. I saw a reconstruction of a barracks.

Pretty soon, I broke down into tears. It was just too much to handle. I couldn't walk through the crematorium or even look at signs that talked about some of the horrifying things that went on there. It is one thing to sit and read about it in the comfort of a classroom or watch "Schindler's List" in a cozy living room. But it's something entirely different to hear and read about what happened while standing in the exact location where it happened just 60 or so years ago. It's an experience for which I will be forever grateful, and it is one that I will never forget.

This is the one wish of survivors, most of whom have spoken somewhere or written a book about their experiences. These innocent people went through horrors that most people can't begin to fathom, and yet they still found the strength to share their stories. In today's world of questionable wars, ongoing genocide and hunger in developing countries, it is essential that we too never forget. Instead of sitting in front of the television, or concerning ourselves with the latest celebrity gossip, we too must share the story with our children and grandchildren, so there will never be another Dachau, and there will never be another Holocaust. Never again. Never forget.