A sad history

I think that even though more than 60 years have passed since the end of the Second World War, when one thinks of Germany today, it is that period in history that comes up in most of our minds. We still, to this day, associate Germany with war, mass murder, Nazi power, concentration camps and incomprehensible violence. I wonder how it feels to be a young German today, knowing that although this history has nothing to do with you, you cannot escape it. Do they feel the need to apologize for what has happened so many years before they were even born? Is this country's history a burden for them? It would be interesting to survey a few young people and hear what they have to say about this.

So that this kind of event never happens again, one needs to be reminded of it regularly. A good way to do that it is to build a memorial. This is exactly what Berlin has done. It has build a Holocaust Memorial right in the centre of the city. The Memorial to the Murdered European Jews consists of 2711 concrete slabs, arranged in a grid pattern on slopping field. It is very impressive. Walking around this memorial, you kind of feel like the slabs are actually headstones. I found it strange to walk through this maze of concrete and could not help thinking that, although memorials are a good way to keep important events in one's mind, human beings are unfortunately probably not intelligent enough to make sure that what took place during the Second World War never happens again.