Concentration Camps

Heroes Remember

Concentration Camps

Transcript

I'll, I'll share with you a, another one. Went skiing, and we were driving and we stopped in this museum, which is now a museum, it was called Dachau Concentration Camp. And you walked through this place and it's the original wrought iron gates and it was a work camp, a death camp. And there, the, the sign on the front side "Arbeit Macht Frei", "Work Makes Free." And you don't really understand what the world of yesterday, the dark places, and today for that matter, the dark places that mankind or humankind have gone and you go to a place like that, and you walk out a different person, ‘cause, it, it, it just... I remember going through the museum and I just had to be, I was with some other people, I just went there to be by myself, and to touch, to stand in the same parade square where fifty-thousand people stood every day and you can look over the, the same barbed wire where fifty-thousand people, many of whom died in this place. The spirits are still alive there, and I'll tell you, you better be in touch with your creator when you go into a place like that, because you will be a different person. I don't care what your religious denominations are, you will be a different person when you leave a place like that. And I remember just taking a walk and all of a sudden there was, to the extent that there's this chair here. And on the side of it said, and it basically, they, they just found these ashes. And they were human ashes, and how many thousands of people or hundreds of people, they just dumped these ashes here. And so what do you do with something? They collected them together, and they put them in this crypt. And just wrote on the side of it, "Never Again." You go, you can feel the spirits in the air and like I said, you, you leave a different person. You go to a place like that, you touch it to the extent that I'm touching this, and this is one of the things Canadians may not understand, is when you go to a place and you're standing there, and you touch it, you, you become a different person. Fortunately, we live in a country that, that is, fundamentally at peace, peaceful place, and you go to other places in the world that aren't as peaceful and, and you come back to this country, and you're much more thankful as a result of it.

Description

Mr. O’Loan speaks about visiting Dachau Concentration Camp.

Timothy O’Loan

Mr. O'Loan was born in Edmonton in 1965. He grew up in a military family as his father, mother and brother all served in the Canadian Forces. Growing up in a military family he moved quite frequently but says his roots are in the north. At the age of sixteen he decided he was going to keep up the family tradition and join the services. He signed up when he was seventeen and served for 10 years. After leaving the forces he moved back to the north where he now works with the government on Aboriginal events.

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