Madam, - I write in response to Kieran Fagan's letter from Berchtesgaden (The Irish Times, September 9th). I would like to address in particular his suggestion that the people of the Obersalzburg area and Germans in general do not seem to "confront their history". My experience has been quite different.
Madam, - I write in response to Kieran Fagan's letter from Berchtesgaden (The Irish Times, September 9th). I would like to address in particular his suggestion that the people of the Obersalzburg area and Germans in general do not seem to "confront their history". My experience has been quite different.
I returned recently from a two-week holiday in Bavaria, three nights of which were spent in Berchtesgaden. Like Mr Fagan, my companion and I travelled to the area to visit the infamous site from which Hitler and the Nazis conducted much of their reign of terror. I wonder if Mr Fagan found time to visit the excellent Documentation Museum at the foot of the Kehlstein from which buses depart to take visitors up to the Eagle's Nest. The museum was opened a few years ago in a simple unadorned building and includes the bunkers below it built by the Nazis. We spent over three hours there before going up to the Eagle's Nest and it still felt as if we were rushing through it.
This fascinating and poignant exhibition, which tracks the history of the Third Reich from the rise of the Nazis through the second World War and the horror of the Holocaust, including a comprehensive book on the subject, is entirely in German, unlike the guided tours of the Eagle's Nest of which Mr Fagan speaks. Foreign visitors are facilitated with audio-guides. I was actually surprised at just how many Germans or German-speaking visitors there were, outnumbering foreign visitors on the morning we were there.
The exhibition culminates in a descent to the bunkers built into the mountain where two harrowing videos, including the testimonies of victims of the terror as well as scenes of violence from both the war and the Holocaust, are shown. Again, these videos are in German only, with no subtitles or translation facilities for non-German speakers. I got by with my passable Leaving Cert German.
At the end of the exhibition there is a display explaining the initial reluctance of the local people to build the museum, not wanting to encourage "neo-Nazi pilgrims" to the site. However around the year 2000 it was felt that the need for the Documentation was too great to ignore any longer. It is acknowledged that neo-Nazis still visit the area as pilgrims but this type of visitor is neither welcome nor encouraged. What struck me more were the hushed conversations and solemn faces of the visitors and particularly, a German-speaking mother with her 11 or 12 year-old-son, wiping tears from her face as she explained the content of a display to him. - Yours, et.c.,
NIAMH O'CONNOR, Artane, Dublin 5.