So since I've chosen history as one of my main subjects at school, we do a lot of things that aren't necessarily part of normal class, like, I don't know, study trips, going to museums and stuff.
And since we're about to revise everything connected to the Third Reich, my teacher organised an excursion to the Neuengamme concentration camp, which is a memorial now. Obviously I think that's a good thing to do, because knowing and remembering what happened in Nazi Germany is the essential thing to avert it ever happens again. I also still feel like being German gives you the responsibility to deal with the topic in an extremely cautious and sensitive way.
Unfortunately our guide there didn't seem to agree.
After walking around in the cold and the snow for three hours, my teacher suggested to go inside and have a look at the exhibition instead, because everyone was shivering, to which that woman replied "Also bitte, was einen nicht umbringt macht einen nur härter! Aber naja, jedem das seine!" ("Oh please, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger! But fine, to each his own!" or something similar).
I can't even explain how you can fuck up that much in only two sentences. I guess the first one is obvious - to say "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" at a place where people had to work 14 hours a day, with hardly anything to eat until they died, freezing or starving, is about the worst thing you can do. And as if that isn't enough "Jedem das Seine" is also the phrase that was placed over the entrance of the Buchenwald concentration camp. (In that case probably meaning "Everyone gets what he deserves.")
Now can a person working at a place like that really be that dumb and not notice what she's saying? I don't think so.
How can she still be working there? It's rather shocking, actually.
bitchy
shocked