Come take a shower

I was hoping it would go on a bit more. I haven't even gotten to the snack bar jokes yet.

I have never been there, but I would suspect it is set up more as a memorial then a theme park. More Arlington then Disneyland.

The question I would have, and I will have to ask an actual German I know, is how do modern Germans relate to this? Do they ignore it? Pretend it never existed? Apologetic? Aware of it? Knowing a bit about Germans, I would suspect it would be something pragmatic.

Man, people today are soo easily offended. Get over it people. If they weren't there, somebody woukd be whining because no attempt was made to cool off visitors.

aircooled wrote: The question I would have, and I will have to ask an actual German I know, is how do modern Germans relate to this? Do they ignore it? Pretend it never existed? Apologetic? Aware of it? Knowing a bit about Germans, I would suspect it would be something pragmatic.

Ask an actual German, but my general sense was: They are definitely aware. They know they were in the wrong in terms of following a psychotic mass murdering berkeley head. They don't exactly talk too loudly and dig too deep into how wrong they were though.

Older West Germans (at least in Berlin) are actually pretty fond of Americans. After defeating them, we treated the Germans better than they treated each other following WWII. The Stasi was pretty cruel and heinous.

The Germans I know generally think the people involved were a bunch of idiots. None of my friends are old enough to have taken part in the war, I've never spoken to that generation about it.

DrBoost wrote: Man, people today are soo easily offended. Get over it people. If they weren't there, somebody woukd be whining because no attempt was made to cool off visitors.

There were a lot of complaints about the heat. It was like an oven out there.

That is probably where we go from tasteless to offensive.

I have a couple of German friends, and at least to me, they are happy to have had the Allies win the war. I'm pretty sure they prefer the Germany of today and not the Nazi regime's tactics of killing those who disagreed.

One used to tell me that her grandmother had to leave her home because it was bombed by the US, but never complained to her about it. I think secretly the average German knew they had to lose the war at some point. At least that's the impression I have gotten. Of course they have gotten revenge by making us change the batteries in 750IL's.

As to the OP, I do believe it is not in the best of tastes for them to deploy the sprinklers. But I also think we do not know the entire story as to why they did or what the problems were to start with. Did they have complaints about heat problem, have a limited budget to solve the problem, what? One story generally doesn't convey that and you only get one point of view. There's more to this than what we know I think.

In high school I had the chance to have lunch with Eli weizell, survivor of Auschwitz and author of night. I saw the tattoo, and the haunted look in his eye. He talked with me about faith, and his experience in losing and finding it again. How that man looked at the world canged my life.

It's berkeleying Auschwitz, people. It should offend, shock, and outrageppeople of every generation. Every faith. Every nationality. Every everything. Maybe then the world will be spared another example of horror on that level. As the old saying goes, those who forget history aredoomed repeat it.

Im sitting here typing this, remembering my lunch, and getting chills up my spine. Haven't thought about that day in a long time.