Sad places you've been too

SmallTown said:
If the locals were OK with it I guess it's fine, it's their history too. From a UK point of view would you really want a blatant symbol of slavery flying in Sierra Leone?

I'm not talking about deleting history or any revisionism. Just it doesn't seem the right place to have the flag.
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See above. We've done a lot of good things in the world as well. I'm not ashamed to fly the flag when the locals are happy with it.
 
zzzzz said:
See above. We've done a lot of good things in the world as well. I'm not ashamed to fly the flag when the locals are happy with it.
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And if we had freed Sierre Leone from the Nazis I would have agreed with you.
Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not an anti empire person at all and I used to be proud of being British until Brexit. I actually had a sense of pride when I got a cab to Kuala Lumpar Airport and the taxi drivers explained how much better he thought Malaysia was under British rule.

In this specific case however: Do you not think it's distasteful to have a symbol of the slave trade, in a country whose very capital celebrates the freedom of Slaves? It seems really unpleasant to me.
 
I tend to put these places into before and after I was born.

Auschwitz/Birkenau - visited in 2009, first time I'd been abroad on my own.
Lots of Germans and Jews visiting (understandably). This was before you needed to book a tour, I just turned up, bought a guide book and wandered round. It didnt really hit me till I got to Birkenau - the sheer size of the place.

Also been to Dachau.

Poznan cemetery, where some of the great escape 50 are buried.

Treptow park, Berlin. Huge Russian cemetery

Now the more recent stuff

House of terror in Budapest

KGB prisons in Riga, Tallinn, Vilnuis, Warsaw.

Stasi HQ and prison in Berlin (shown round by a former prisoner)

I found these places harder to understand as when they closed I'd already left school and was working.

Also the tunnel museum and the various mass graveyards dotted around Sarajevo. They had only been buried
10-15 years prior to my visit.
 
As a student we went on a tour to HMP
Full Sutton. We went into the vulnerable prisoners wing and the atmosphere was just terrible. The smell of disinfectant.
 
weallhateleeds said:
Treptow park, Berlin. Huge Russian cemetery
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The marble for the memorials at Treptow and Strasse 17th Juni was looted from various government buildings around Berlin at the end of the war.

The tombs of the Unknown Soviet soldier - known locally as the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist - are continually defaced. The Mother of one of my friends has daubed red paint over the Str 17th Juni tomb on May 5th every year since they were put there. She's been arrested over 40 times. She's still campaigning to have the guns and tanks removed from the memorials.
 
SmallTown said:
AH I saw that place when I was in Riga. Wish I had gone in!

Not a sad place at all but the KGB link reminded me of it. There is a hotel in Talinn where westerners went during the USSR days. You can do a tour up to all the spying equipment. The things is diplomats knew they were being spied upon and started using it to their advantage. The Soviet union was trying to pretend it was more opulent then the west so guests would say things to colleagues like "These pillows are rubbish" the KGB would then get new pillows sent to them, despite them not "asking" for it.
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Went on the hotel tour in Tallin, then later after a few beers went looking for the KGB headquarters. Many were tortured and murdered. The building was bleak as anything and exuded evil. A dark building in a row of sweet box ones.

The Colosseum in Rome I found sad, when on the arena floor, looking up at the stands thinking of all the death to man and beast in the name of entertainment.
 
We did a "Berlin Bike" and visited the "Holocaust Memorial" where we spent some time. It has an eerie quality in that voices seem not to carry, to disappear as it were and almost feels like they are unspoken as you go into the bigger deeper set pillars.

Reading the various notices and the details within the information centre and venturing through the site is a sobering experience and one that touched me deeply.
 
I've visited a few famous battle
fields and places of genuine war history. Although it's sad its also a great time to reflect.

This places are usually very quiet and peaceful when you visit. Just close your eyes and her birds etc then try to go back and imagine what it was like all those years ago.

I've been to the Normandy Beaches / Battle of the Somme fields and Mt Longdone (Falklands).

Just genuine history and nice to reflect.
 
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