I recall going to Bergen Belsen when I was about 14 whilst at school in Germany as a forces kid. Absolutely shocking and something that still stays with me to this day. I also took my son during a trip to Munich in 2019, to Dachau, to experience some real facts about Nazi Germany 1st hand for himself and indeed to remind myself likewise. Both of us were hugely affected by what we saw and learned from the woman who guided us around the camp, explaining what went on and the impact on the local German people who lived nearby at that time, who like many others then, became amazingly adept at ignoring what was happening whilst they carried on their 'normal lives'!! Hideous in the extreme. Truly horrific and incredibly emotional, even to this day and CATEGORICALLY an inhuman event that must never be forgotten, alongside and along with far too many others that replicate that era even today.............
Former Prime Minster Ted Heath also shook hands with Hitler. Apparently he went on a kind of gap year to Germany in the mid-thirties (like you do) and attended a Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg. According to Heath, Hitler had a weak and floppy handshake, which is exactly how I imagined it would be.
