It's not the location that made it real to me. It was hearing the stories from someone who was there.
It was like the Nova program I saw once where veterans of Dunkirk return to the beaches 50 years later and describe what happened in their own words.
I am very fortunate to have relatives who fought on both sides in WWII. Both are gone now, but their related experiences greatly enriched my life and made me the extreme history buff that I am now.