From Pierre:
Six
of us enjoyed a day without paddling to go on a different kind of adventure
Monday morning. We decided to book a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau to visit the
largest Nazi concentration camp that was built during World World II. For those
who missed the history class at school, more than 1.5 million people died there
in a bit more than 4 years, mostly Jewish people, but many other European
citizens, exterminated just because they were who the persons they were.
It was obviously not a funny day, but that’s not what we
were expected from it. It was very interesting to have a mixed age group (staff
and paddlers) sharing the memory of what happened there, just 75 years ago. It
was powerful enough to leave Jack (Dangen) voiceless during almost the whole 3
hour tour, which is quite a performance.
I was self debating before going there on the utility of
such a trip when preparing an important race, but I think we all agreed on the
way back on the strength of this journey and the awareness and self
reflexion it caused while walking through the camps with the guide’s comments.
The site itself was very modest, much more than I expected, and every thing is
organised to give us the feeling of what happened there without being
outrageous or voyeuristic.
It was definitely interesting to go there and being able to
share this with team mates, as our discussions usually don’t go beyond : “ how
much do you bench?, did you nail this move bro, or did you hear about the
latest gossip?” :) As written on the stones of the memorial monument
there, we have a duty of memory, not just to be sad and empathic thinking about
it, but just being aware of who we are and what we are capable of, in good or
bad.
So it was a little aside in our trip, very team bonding and
instructive, and definitely reminding us of the luck we have to be able to
travel across the World and live experiences such as this one through the sport
that brought us here.'
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