Time Moves On

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Uh, let's say you went through something really horrible, like, uh, several family members all died together in a car accident. You know, you just feel this, this deep, dark despair and sadness and overwhelming just feeling of awfulness that you're just not quite sure you're ever going to get over. And nothing feels good in that moment. But you know what? Eventually, uh, you go back to work, or you go back to school, you go back to the grocery store, you go back to watching football on television, you go back to laughing with friends, and your loved ones that passed away become a memory because life and time moves on. I recently visited Germany, which is my wife's homeland. She was born and raised there. Germany, like a lot of countries in Europe, exemplify this phenomenon of time moves on. Because for countries like Germany that have endured so much awfulness and terribleness and war and disease and famine and, you know, with Hitler and everything, the evils of what mankind is capable of, they have to move on in order to thrive and survive. I love World War II and I love history, and so going to a place like Germany was just awesome for me. This is the third time that I've been there, and I was actually born there. I was a military brat as a kid, so— but I don't remember anything of it. We left when I was like 2 years of age. But, uh, we, uh, part of our trip this time— it was a 2-week trip— part of our trip was we ended up in Munich, and we went to the— I'm going to butcher this word, I'm sorry— um, Feldherrnhalle. Feldherrnhalle. It's a, it's a big monument. It's in the, in the heart of Munich, and it is very famous because this was the location— it was actually built in the, uh, in 1840, 1841, I believe. But then fast forward to 1923, and it was the location of November 9th, 1923, of Hitler and his cronies' attempt at what they called the Putsch. And the Putsch famously failed. But sure enough, 11 years later, when Hitler is in power, he returns back to that spot at that monument and speaks to thousands of his followers and declares that that date, November 9th, is a national holiday to commemorate the Putsch, the beginning of their rebellion, if you will, their uprising. And later, that monument would become basically sacred ground for the Nazis. The SS would guard that monument 24/7. And if you were a citizen in the city and you passed by the monument, you were required to give the Nazi salute. So very important spot for the Nazis. But sure enough, I went back to that monument. I've been there before, but I went back to it, and I'm always amazed at I don't know if juxtaposition is the right word, but the spot where Hitler literally stood and gave his famous hate victory speech to all these thousands of people, on that very spot where he stood was, just the other day I saw, was a Muslim woman with her head covering eating an ice cream cone and, uh, tapping away on her phone on the exact spot where Hitler stood. Time moves on. And then we went to the Dachau concentration camp. Um, first time I've ever been to a concentration camp, and, uh, oh boy, was that, uh, both interesting, sobering, disturbing, depressing— all things all rolled into one. 3 points that really stuck out to me from my time in Dachau. One was At one point, my daughter went to— sat on the ground and started playing with some rocks and things like she usually does. My daughter's 2 years of age. We took her with us. And the place where she was sitting and fiddling around with rocks was literally a kind of a sick bay, if you will, where they took all the prisoners that were dying of dysentery, malnutrition, you know, just abuse or whatever, and they died. And they took them to this sick bay to try and get them better so they could put them back to work. On that very spot where all those people were sick and dying, my daughter was sitting and playing with rocks. Perfect little illustration of time moves on. And so I went to the other side of the camp and I saw this guard tower. And it was an exit that could lead you to outside of the camp. And the guard tower had, you know, barbed wire on either side of it. And this is the spot where prisoners would make a run for it. And they would try to run and they would get caught in the barbed wire and And the guards would leave them there to die, or they would pull them off the barbed wire and take them back and torture them and kill them, or just shoot them on the spot. Pretty harrowing experience to stand right on the spot and see where all this went down. But what was interesting was literally immediately on the other side of this gate, on the other side of this tower, was a busy highway, a modern-day highway. And families and their Volkswagens and their BMWs were driving by, and kids sitting in the back seat on their iPads just having no clue that, you know, just a mere couple of feet away from them was this scene of all this death and evil and destruction. Time moves on. And the, the most emotional part of the trip was going to the, uh, they call it Barrack X. Barrack X was where they held the ovens, where they put the crematorium, where they took the dead bodies and burned them like garbage. I went into the Barrack X and there was— they have these little, um, placards or these little freestanding walls there that, that show you— they have text and pictures that show you what happened historically on the spot where you're standing. And where I happened to be standing was a spot where, uh, thousands of men were hung, shot, killed, and, um, thrown into the ovens. And being there in the presence of that was a very emotional experience, and, uh, I was choking up. I, I decided to— there was a whole crowd of people around me all you know, standing in the same spot, you know, like maybe like 10 or 12 of us. And so I walked away from all of them and needed to kind of compose myself. And I went to an adjoining room which was empty, and I was the only person in this room. It was just a big empty room, and they had more, you know, words and pictures up on the wall to describe what was going on with this room. And I went, and they said this is the room where they piled up all of the corpses. So they would shoot, hang, whatever in the other room, Drag the corpses over there again like garbage and store them in that room before they would eventually throw them in the ovens to dispose of them. Um, yeah, that was tough just to be in the presence and be, uh, you know, in literally in the spot where all that evil and destruction and death took place and just all those innocent lives just destroyed. You can feel it. And so I stepped back out in the sun, and I remember, uh, looked to the left, and there was a group of people. And I realized what they were doing, and I got out of the way because they were all taking a group photo in front of Barrack X, smiling. Well, someone held up a phone and took the photo of them all together. And at first I was a little taken aback by it, a little pissed, because I thought it was a very irreverent, very, um disrespectful thing to take a photo, you know, in front of something like that. I don't know what would make them do that. But then I thought, well, maybe this place has some kind of meaning to them. Maybe this is an extended family of someone maybe who passed at the camps, and they're— maybe this is their way of coming back and saying, um, you know, time moves on, here we are. So that— I went from pissed to— it was kind of a hopeful scene. Really. And then my wife and daughter were walking around the camp while I was in the building. We didn't want our daughter to see any of that. You know, 2 years is a little young to take that in. And I had my sunglasses on, so I had teared up and stuff. You couldn't tell I was upset, at least I don't think so. But my wife didn't really say much of anything to me. If there's one thing she's good at, it's allowing me to save face in moments like that. She doesn't, you know, poke and prod and say, "Tell me what's going on. Why are you emotional? What is it?" She kind of leaves me be and lets me have my moment. And she did. She let me have my moment. And we, we walked away and we walked towards— made the long walk back to the exit of the camp, taking turns holding our daughter, letting her walk, run, fall to the ground, do her thing. And it was that moment that I realized, um, you know, if some 10, 11 years ago when I went through my own little personal version of hell If you had asked me back then, where are you going to be, you know, a decade from now, I don't think I ever would have said, uh, I'm going to be halfway around the world with my new beautiful wife and our 2-year-old daughter taking in, you know, World War II historical sites in Germany. No, it's just— it's mind-blowing. It's, uh, it's ridiculous. It's, um, it's amazing. It's silly. It's, it's all the above. And, uh, I never in a million years thought I would be in this position and talking to you good people. But you know what? Time moves on.