Freedom Center

Today we visited the Freedom Center and the most stunning point to me was the area where you stand in front of the great windows, looking at the Ohio River, because between those 200 meters a whole life has changed years ago. I imagine people standing on the Kentucky side of the river, looking over it and then I ask myself, what went through there mind in this moment...
If I replace myself with somebody in this time, this river would have meant like the border to a new life and this it exactly what it meant to people years ago! In addition to this the movies I saw forced me to interact with such feelings like being involved in a run that might cause your own death which was a very intense feeling.
At the age of 13 I have been in Buchenwald and although the barracks don't exist anymore you get a very weird feeling. It is hard to describe but you feel like your freezing with the difference that this cold comes from within. I never had this feeling before and I can't remember that I had it again, but today when I entered and sat down in the Slave Pen it overwhelmed me. This very objective voice telling you that this could have been a room where people were shackled and penetrated made me feel almost the same like 7 years ago in Buchenwald. Although there was some time in between those two experiences, I can clearly say that it felt the same, not neccesary to mention that I don't know why.
To me it is very important to keep the tradition alive to teach children what has happened and to care for this not to happen again! I mean, I can't change what happened 80 years ago and I don't feel guilty concerning Holocaust, but I feel responsible to care that nothing comparable will happen again, as far as I can influence it.
Somebody might say that a single person can't do anything about it, but I think that by teaching children around us we can prevent them from getting weird thoughts that might come up. Children are naive and tend to believe many things they hear without challenging these thoughts.
If I would have to teach students the most important point is to wait until they are ready for such information! It is completely useless to explain the Holocaust to a five year old boy, since he won't get the whole background of it. As soon as children are ready for information with such a immense important value for our whole community I would teach them the Holocaust and genocide without leaving out maybe stunning details. It doesn't help to euphemize things that happened in history. Things might be daunting but this is exactly how it's got to be, at least from my point of view.