ELDE Haus...intense.

Blogging a bit late about my visit to Köln and after watching Sophia Scholl, I thought it appropriate to preview my experience at the ELDE Haus, a main site of administration and execution in Köln during the Nazi regime. As we were able to peer into a meer crack in the hollow darkness that hellaciously defines the era, I was able to open my eyes like never before to a piece of history that quickly became tangible reality as we silently walked down the eery, narrow halls as the tour guide outlined the procedures of extermination beginning with an unjustifiable measurement of features to inhumanely categorize innocent citizens into what would become "lives unworthy of life" or not. My eyes slowly ran down the pages and pages of charts that merely gave statistics on who a person is, apparently at the time determined only by words on a page. Graphs outlined how much taxpayers spent on indigents like the deaf, blind, or mentally retarded only for the purpose of attempting to justify throwing those citizens out for the success of creating their "master race." We continued down into a cold, dim basement of which a few lights illuminated deeply engraven scripts desperately beseeching freedom in a time of inevitable injustice and imminent execution. My heart sank and every face of every portrait I have seen in my history books suddenly came to life. This experience is one which everyone should know, and of which I am appreciative to have taken part of.