I have visited Auschwitz and can think of no reason why a contribution should not be made to the eternal preservation of the memory of one of the worst periods in human history.

Freestone, Oxford, UK

maybe the jews can afford to keep the camps going surely they have plenty of money to burn.

alan leonard, england,

How can it be that money is also running out to support Dachau survivors? Over the years the West Germans have paid massive amounts in reparations to holocaust survivors, and there must be very few survivors left by now.

Chris Wrench, London,

The U.S. paid for their defense for over 50 years and now the victims will have to pay admission to the KZ. Leave it to a German to know how to make a buck.

sb, Huber Heights, USA

Due to the nature of this museum, the fee should be paid in order to get out, not to get in. Use it as a learning moment.

Lee, sterling, va, USA

I visited Dachau in the late 80's as a young adult and although entrance to the camp was free, there was a small charge for going around the museum. I remember thinking at the time that this didn't feel right. The older the camps get the more money is going to be required to maintain them. Where this money, as well as the money required to educate, will come from I do not know. Maybe The UN should step in.

At Dachau the phrase, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" appears almost as a mantra. It was on the memorial as well as being on the front cover of the guidebook. Genocide has occurred since the Second World War, in both Rwanda and Bosnia. Are we allowing ourselves to forget?

Visiting Dachau had a profound effect on me and the images of the bodies piled up in rooms that I then found myself standing will forever be etched in my memory. Perhaps visiting these places should be compulsory for the youth of today.

John Stewart, Newcastle, Edinburgh

I took a group of school kids (aged 14-15) to Auschwitz a couple of years ago. We prepared well - looking at the facts from a historical, religious, ethical point of view - and I'm glad we went there - but what I had never realised was how many local Poles also met their fate in these camps.

As said above "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -it is important to remember what was done - and also look as those records which were not destroyed to piece together this shameful history.

And Dave - concentration camp = camp where people (the undesireables) were herded together. Daschua and Auschwitz were work camps, and Birkenau and Treblinka in particular were death camps. But in all -works makes free was a lie... death was for most - the only way out.

LK, Derby,

Having visited Dachau the one exhibit that struck me was the sign outside a room stating "Gas Chamber never used as a Gas Chamber". Turns out this was a post war construction by the Americans using SS forced labour.

Perhaps the Revisionists have it right. The people that gave us the Nazi gas chambers are the same ones that convinced us that Saddam had WMDs.

Mannstein, Cambridge, USA

Up until 1960 , it was claimed that there were gas chambers at Dachau. The U.S. Army made films which one can view on youtube posted by revisionists which claim that a "brausebad"
was infact a gas chamber . In 1960 Dr. Martin Broszat from the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich announced that there
were no gassings at Dachau, nor any of the other camps located in
Germany (Third Reich proper). Yad Vashem followed suit. If we
were lied to for 15 years about gas chambers at Dachau, then why should we believe that inmates were forced to drink salt water infected with malaria or that any other medical experiments were carried out there ?

Joseph, Chicago, Illinois

I visited Dachau in the late 80's as a young adult and although entrance to the camp was free, there was a small charge for going around the museum. I remember thinking at the time that this didn't feel right. The older the camps get the more money is going to be required to maintain them. Where this money, as well as the money required to educate, will come from I do not know. What I do know is that it is not only the responsibility of Germany to keep these sites alive but of the whole world. At Dachau the phrase, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" appears almost as a mantra. It was on the memorial as well as being on the front cover of the guidebook. Genocide has occurred since the Second World War, in both Rwanda and Bosnia. Are we allowing ourselves to forget?

Visiting Dachau had a profound effect on me and the images of the bodies piled up in rooms that I then found myself standing will forever be etched in my memory. Perhaps visiting these places should be compulsory for the youth of today.

John Stewart, Newcastle, Edinburgh

We hope to visit some of the camps including Auschwitz this summer. I would be happy to pay a small fee to ensure the sites are well maintained and that there are guides available.
I understand why direct descendants of victims might be offended at having to pay but at the same time I would happily contribute to the upkeep of the graves of my relatives. Perhaps the donation could be voluntary as is the case in the Met Museum in NY on certain days.
It is understandable that modern Germans do not want to keep paying for the mistakes of those fifty years ago. Those who wish to see the camps must contribute to their up-keep.

Peter , Portstewart, Derry

It is a bit pedantic I know but not all the camps were concentration camps. Dachau was a concentration camp. People died there as a result of ill treatment and neglect but that wasn't the sole purprose of them, unlike death camps like Auschwitz/Birkenau, Sobobor and Treblinka.

Dave Proctor, Leeds,

Director of the Dachau Memorial - Barbara Distel - told me on May 13 that she believes Germany will never charge admission for any concentration camp memorial. As I wrote then: The suggestion has drawn criticism from survivors and from directors of other memorial sites in Germany. It also pits de Loos against the director of the Dachau memorial, Barbara Distel, who said that fees are charged "in France, but not in Germany."

(Germany correspondent, JTA)

Toby Axelrod, Berlin, Germany

I think it is reasonable to charge. Free entry for all is asking tax payers of a country which has bent over backwards to acknowledge and atone for the sins of Nazism to pay ad infinitum for memorials. Descendants should remain eligible to visit for free.

It is time to acknowledge that, while more horrific in method and objective, in scale Nazism's crimes were not much different to those of its sister philosophies of Communism. While Germany has hung its head in shame at the horrors of the Final Spolution, the Left has been allowed to slip away without ever facing up to the crimes committted in its name. The Central Board of Jews should do themselves and everyone else a favour by acknowledging that equally hideous crimes were committed elsewhere too.

mark mcfarland, dubai, uae

Only in Germany...

J, Brussels, Belgium