Dachau

I am taking an online History class. The way the class works is the teacher asks a question and everyone answers in a message board type format. Then we are required to respond to one another's answers. Our teacher asks about 150-200 questions per week and no one has thus far responded to anyone else's answers, who has time. This week, or really last week as I am a week behind in my responses, we were asked to define social-Darwinism and how it led to the first and second world war. One of my classmates is a total ignorant ass, I have been avoiding reading his answers this whole course because he upsets me so much, but this week I somehow managed to read his answer to this question. It was such a mistake. He wrote about how he believes in social-Darwinism and went on and on about all the evidence he believes exists in the world to back up his ascertain that his race is more advanced than other races. Reading his words reminded me of our trip to Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich, Germany in 2001.

We arrived there on a cold June day. We were on a guided tour, first of Munich and then off to Dachau. In Munich we had brats and beer at the market. We climbed stairs to the top of the local church and viewed the city. After drinking a huge beer, served in a glass stein. The city was crowded, people jammed the streets, eating and buying food from the street venders. It was a bustling city come alive. Then we drove a few miles to the town of Dachau, the site of a concentration camp from WWII that was left standing as a memorial to all who had died.

Munich and Dachau are very close to the border of France, but not too close. Once the Allied forced crossed the border into Germany the Germans surrendered. There had been months of fighting very close to the border, I especially remember, "The Battle of The Bulge" in Belgium as we visited this site on our WWII memorial tour of 2002. Jeff is a history major, majoring in Military history for his Bachelor's degree and is now working on his Masters in WWII history. It turns out that the American journalists arrived at Dachau concentration camp before the Nazis had left, they were still burning bodies in the Krematorium and guarding the emaciated prisoners. These journalists had cameras and as we toured the concentration camp we watched the film, of the conditions as they were that day. The pile of naked bodies. The tortured prisoners. Even Amanda watched this movie. It was so overwhelming. That is the only way to describe it.

After the film we toured the camp. Only one of the building which housed prisoners was reconstructed. The foundation was left of the other buildings, which were all burned down upon the camp's liberation. We saw in the film just how this camp looked, and then walked there. Walked where there had been hundred of starving people, walked where the pile of dead bodies had been, walked into the gas chamber and the Krematorium. I could hear the souls crying out to me. The terror of this spot screamed in the cold silence of that June day.

For a long time I asked how could this happen. Was it Hitler. Was he so evil and demented that a single man could cause this to happen? Were all the good people of Germany so terrified of this happening to them that the let it happen? Were all German's evil? As I walked the streets of Germany was I walking amongst the dependence of true complete evil? Those were my thoughts at the time. Today I believe that the answers are more complex, more complex than good versus evil. I read many books about the holocaust in search of the whys. I read books of survivors, there stories of being taken from their homes, and the horrors they endured at the camps. I began to wonder of the neighbors who watched these people being rounded up and taken away. All over Europe people were rounded up and taken away. How would I act if my neighbor was being rounded up and taken away? Would I keep quiet? Would it be because I didn't want the same thing to happen to me? Would it be because I didn't really like my neighbor and was glad they were going away? Would I think that my neighbor was subhuman and this was for the best? Would I risk myself and my children to stand up for someone who was different than me?

I sit in my home reading the words of a classmate, a classmate spewing words of racial superiority. Do I speak out? He lives thousands of miles away and cannot harm me. Do I speak out? I am in a classroom situation where I am encouraged to debate topics. Do I speak out? Honestly I am worried about the next eleven weeks of class, if I confront this man will he stalk me and criticize me for the rest of the term. If I ignore him I wont have to think about him or his hateful words again. I can go through the rest of the term just not reading his words. I can isolate myself from him. If I respond, this sick feeling, this anger will be with me everyday for the rest of the term. Do I respond? Do I let the teacher handle it?

This situation takes me back to my frustration toward the German people during the holocaust. Why did it happen? Could it happen again? Are we all evil and selfish enough to allow other human beings to suffer and die so that we can not be bothered? I don't think the world has changed.

I did respond to him. I say bring it on baby. I am ashamed to say it took me a few days to make the decision and I considered ignoring it all together. I know it wont change his mind, but I still think it is important to stand up for humanity, even if it is only with words during a history class. That is just one of the ways that being a military dependant and seeing the world has changed me. Sorry the pictures suck so much, back in June 2001 my digital camera was so lame.