President Obama recently visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Visiting such horrid places is often "mandatory" for visiting head of states here in Germany. It will help them to understand their hosts as well the dark side of human nature.
Concentration Camps are hardly a German invention, but with our efficiency ours were the deadliest – although I am sure that Chinese re-education camps, Soviet Gulags and Camdodian Khmer Rounge camps were equally terrible.
I have been to Dachau myself and received as a school boy many long and tough historical lessons on this subject. Germany guilt is deeply embedded in today’s German psyche.
Many Holocaust deniers have actually visited places like Auschwitz and Dachau – and didn’t accept the terrible reality of the massive killings there. You see what you want to see.
Still I think Germany should invite leaders from Muslim Countries to a very personal tour around several camps. I MIGHT hopefully change their attitude to Jewish History?!
If we can’t get those leaders then we should invite school classes from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and many other major Arab countries and create some kind of reality show or documentary about the trip. It should be shown on Al Jazeera …
In that context we also should make such trips and a documentary to Gaza with Western school children and show this in Europe and the US.
