Life Back Outside the Comfort Bubble
The First that made the Worst
Discussions of Hitler occasionally mention that at least the trains ran on time, without any consideration of where these mythically prompt trains were running to. Last weekend I went to one of those places. Though the trains didn’t always run there, eventually they did to the detriment of all who rode.
Last weekend I completed the trifecta I never imagined completing. I went to my third former concentration camp, Dachau. The mother of them all. The first camp whose deputy went on to create the worst camp. It was, like the others, a sobering and surreal experience. No trip to a concentration camp is without moments of incredulous shock at the atrocities that were done, but despite being prepared to have that experience, Dachau still found ways to shock.
If you read either of my earlier posts on Auschwitz or Flössenburg I mentioned that on the way to see the first camp Lizi and I discussed visiting more than one to see if the treatment of the camps were the same in Germany as they were treated in occupied Germany. Once again, our theory was confirmed. They are different.
Dachau was created specifically to be a prison for enemies of the state but even though all were prisoners, there was a dedicated prison cell building, The Bunker, behind the massive main building. Where Aushwitz was more preserved (almost no former barracks were removed) Dacahau, like Flössenburg, has had almost all of the barracks removed. Two actual barracks remain and 32 footprints are clearly defined stretching out towards the crematorium. What we think of as the camp itself was only a small portion of the overall installation though.
In addition to the prison camp there were SS Officer quarters, training facilities, farms, and a whole slew of buildings which are not part of the memorial site. Distrubingly, the location was used as an American installation after liberation. The US Army even put prisoners in The Bunker, though they did remove the standing cells which were particularly cruel and inhumane. Then in the late 60s and early 70s as the memorial was being set up the majority of the installation was turned over to the Polizei. It is still being used albeit in a manner that precludes the public from ever seeing it.
The far back corner of the memorial, which would have been inside the heart of the overall installation, was the crematorium area. The first crematorium still stands but when it could not keep up the pace a newer one was built nearby. The newer facility also included a gassing facility disguised as a shower room very much like Auschwitz has, the only difference being that the Dachau facilities were never used. No one understands why which I find interesting in and of itself. Was no one who had run the place asked? Are they sure the rooms were never used? It is a very elaborate system to construct so simply having a go-by example makes little sense yet that’s the best guess we can form now.
It is still a haunting statement so I’ll say it again. The first crematorium was too under sized. It could not keep up. It did not have sufficient capacity. And this was a labor camp, not a death camp.
The atrocities committed here were no less severe than the atrocities committed in other camps, especially to those on which they were done. To say there were perhaps fewer atrocities committed here lessens the fact that none were excusable, allowable, or forgivable. That is not what makes the treatment different in this case.
The memorial at Auschwitz was all about the victims and survivors. Not only were the camps run by Germans, the citizens of the town were removed and taken elsewhere. The city was repopulated by Germans deliberately so that none of the surrounding residents would know what was behind the wall much less what went on there. On the grounds, there were former barracks dedicated to each race, nationality, and religion that had been imprisoned, tortured, brutalized, and attempted to be exterminated. The only real discussion about the captors was one on Rudolf Höss. After touring nearly all of the facility the last two things to see are the crematorium and the gallows on which Höss was hung. At that point it is a feel good story to see that he was hung right next to the crematorium and within sight of where he and his family had lived. Where after the end of a long day of terrorizing, dehumidifying, and desecrating everything good about living this demon went to spend time with his wife and children. He was hung within sight of where he had enjoyed life and family. And fuck him for making us feel good about him being hung, too.
My visit to Auschwitz was so powerful I still feel the need to discuss it in detail when the point of my post is a different camp. It is that emotionally strong.
The memorial at Flössenburg had a great deal about the captors. Here the captors were not just Germans, they were fellow Germans. This was where they were from. Where they had lived and played and grew up. At the end of the war this area was still German. There was a lot about the victims and survivors here, but they shared the stage. While most of the buildings here were torn down, even the footprint of the camp was removed. Today there are houses that were built upon the location of some former barracks of the camp. There is no barrier between the town and the memorial. It is open, wide open to the city that remains.The Mound of Ashes and crematorium are hidden from view of the town, but that was where they were originally built—out of sight.
The memorial at Dachau has memorials to the victims and survivors. I was there three weeks after their liberation anniversary. There were several 90+ year old survivors that had been in attendance for the ceremony. There was information about what happened, the history, the coverup, and how the process spread. It was regularly “cleaned up” for propaganda visits, at least early on. It did serve as a model for other camps. At one spot there was a board showing the “career arc” of the leadership of Dachau. It showed where the important members of the leadership went on to serve, set up, or be a part of the overall labor and death camp systems.
Living in Germany, not just visiting it, has given me a unique opportunity to get to know Germany and its people. I have friends, close friends who are German and I can talk with them and pick their brains on life and living here. When you first come here they tell you that most Germans do not want to talk about the 12 year period that includes that dark time. There are 2000 other years of German history to discuss. But I’ve been here long enough now that they’ll talk to me about that part too. It isn’t that I dwell on it, it’s just that it is that 12 year period that has allowed me to come do what I do here. And the question that we all want to know is how can these people, who are so kind and helpful today, have been led down that path.
Looking back 2000 years into German history explains the reason they are the way they are. It explains why they could be led down the path they were led. But looking back over the last 75 years explains where they are today. They have taken such a shift that all life is sacred to them now. I had a massive hornet nest in my shed. Not bees, not wasps, hornets. Ugly, nasty, loud, big stingers that stay on the insect not in your arm, huge hornets. Not only is there no hornet spray in this country, you can get fined up to 50,000 Euros for willfully damaging or killing them. One of my projects at work is to replace guy wires on an antenna that is in danger of falling down. If it falls it has the potential to land on other buildings and possibly even kill humans if they’re unlucky and happen to be where it goes down. The whole project, to save a structure and make it safe for people, was threatened because of an ant hill at one anchor point. If the ants had not decided on their own to move the project would have been canceled. Why mention that here? Because of the life I found in the camp. Ant hills and wasps. I don’t think the ants show up, but the wasp does. Life moves on, and a respect for life is now evident. Not just in the memorial site but throughout the country.
Life rules. Life is good. And that is what memorials like this hope to convey to their visitors.
Flossenbürg
Back when we were traveling to Auschwitz for a visit I suggested to Lizi that we also go to a concentration camp in Germany later so we could see if there was a difference in the way the camps are treated in occupied territory rather than inside Germany. Once we completed our trip through the death camp though, neither of us had a desire to visit another.
But of course, the best laid plans of mice and men, right?
Not far from where we live, about a half hour, is the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp. Unlike Auschwitz which was a death camp, this one was "merely" a labor camp. The main emphasis here was labor and not eradication although it served both purposes.
Quite some years ago I first heard of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He could be considered a German theologian though he was born in Poland since at the time of his birth Poland was swallowed up by Russia, Prussia (later Germany), and Austria-Hungary. When I began researching my soon to be home before moving on a whim I searched for camps and saw how close Flossenbürg was which in turn let me to a brief search on it and discover that it is where Bonhoeffer was held and executed. Not that a camp needs to have a "most famous" inmate, but he would certainly rank as among the most well known.
One of the few things my Dad wanted to see on his visit was a camp, so I used this opportunity to finish the observational experiment started two years before. At the start of Dad's trip we visited Nürnberg and went into the Congresshalle. As the largest piece of Nazi architecture left, it has been made into a very well done museum. There is a steel and glass shaft-like protrusion that seems to pierce the building and as you make your way through the exhibit you end up at the tip hovering over the open air, bombed out courtyard that would have been a stadium covered portion of the complex. The displays were very well done and didn't display either pride or necessarily shame in what was done. Rather they were informative and explained how what happened had. But the center courtyard, that was different.
After touring the displays that showed before, during, and after pictures you make your way to the center where the bombed out building was left. Very stout building, so it isn't crumbling, but the pockmarks, the grass, trees, and even weeds growing in the center of this building is very much a middle finger in the air to the bigoted shitheads that built it. I know I've used that phrase before, but it is just as accurate here.
There was a display about the building which also mentioned a spot nearby where they had constructed sample seats which, like all the buildings at the Nazi complex, had used stone quarried from Flossenbürg. So this served as a tie to the bookend excursions of the trip.
A colleague I work with from nearby Weiden told me he doesn't go to the city Flossenbürg because with the camp it just has an air about the whole town he finds depressing. He has even told me that when he goes into the woods nearby that the weather is colder and more repressive. That was not the experience I had though. We had the top down in the Peugeot as we cruised the backroads to the town. We parked at the bus stop and walked on to the site which was itself very strange indeed.
I mentioned in my Auschwitz post that someone lives right next door and can look down into the complex. In Flossenbürg they not only look down into the former camp, they knocked down most of the barracks and built houses on the site. A road goes through the houses and then through the site, there is no fence or barricade. There is even a restaurant that looks down into the site. The old wall is mostly gone, but several of the towers remain.
Walking through the few buildings that remained I didn't take many pictures. Until the end when I took pictures all the way back out. There were stories about the camp, it's history and growth, as well as detailed listings, pictures, and information about both the captors and the captees.
One particularly memorable "escape in place" attempt is chronicled well and also includes the spot in the wall he crawled and hid among the pipes between the floor and ceiling. It describes how he almost gave up hiding because the hiding place was as bad as being dead. I call it "escape in place" because he didn't go with them when they evacuated the Jews, rather he hid, then he was still open about being a prisoner but avoided detection as having been on the supposed to have been evacuated group.
There was an entire library full of books on the inmates of the camp. Famous or not, they have their histories indelibly inked as much as is known separated by country of origin.
In another spot there were plates with pictures and biographies of the camp's staff. Not just the head, but the guards. It talks of where they came from, where they went, if they disappeared later, and if they were discovered as several of the more cruel were.
The site still contains part of a prison complex (weird because the whole place was a prison) where the non-working laborers were kept, the laundromat/washroom, the kitchen, and the administrative SS Headquarters. Much of the city was taken over by the SS guards, but the HQ building is by far one of the nicest, most imposing structures that remain.
As I walked through the exhibits in the laundromat and kitchen there were paths to the parts of the building left un-converted. Some of the walls and floor were covered with glass, or metal grates, but it was possible to step off and into the spaces that had been occupied when the camp was operational. For example, the shower heads were removed, but the tiles on the wall and floor remained. I walked in awe examining the ceilings imagining when it was operational. Running my hand along the same tiles, walking the same floor tiles that seventy years ago had been touched and tread by the captive laborer prisoners.
The sense of tactile actions allows someone to become more connected to anything observed. I long to touch and become a piece of the historic and infamous locations I get to see. There was an authentic set of stairs with well-worn handrail full of patina that I slid my hand down imagining connection to the prisoners of once ago. In this manner I became a part of what I was observing.
At the back of the camp is what they called the Valley of Death. Overlooking it they have built a chapel but the Valley of Death is the part of the camp the town cannot see into from their bedrooms, or their front yard. Surrounded by trees and down a slope is where the worst things happened.
There are many monuments from countries honoring their dead. There is a HUGE mound covered in grass called the Mound of Ashes. It does not take a smart man to understand what lies beneath. A small field with concrete pads is marked as the location where executions by gunfire took place. And in the corner stands the crematorium.
At one point a railway track was added to ease the transportation of bodies from the camp to the crematorium which was really just outside the boundary fence of the camp. At this point the original gates of the camp were set up as the first memorial to the camp by former prisoners. These gates are right next to the crematorium.
My travels through the camp culminated at the crematorium. I walked past it a few meters to see the original camp gates. It is connected to the ubiquitous walking trails throughout this country. This one through the woods. Unlike the last crematorium I was in at Auschwitz, this one had not been destroyed by retreating forces. It had been in operation when the camp was liberated. Inside were the small rooms where bodies had been stacked and prepared for burning. And the ovens themselves.
I did not use my sense of tactile connection in this building. I have no desire to be connected to the folks that orchestrated this travesty. I care not if they were following orders, or even if they themselves were prisoners forced to toil away at the macabre task. The despair and gloom Klaus made reference to centered on this spot. I could feel it here.
On the way back out, I took pictures to chronicle my visit and to use when I explained it. Previously I had no desire to visit another concentration camp. Currently I still had no desire to visit this one twice.
One thing that was poignantly different was that here I found out that after the war the courts extended the statue of limitations to allow prosecution of Nazis involved in concentration camp atrocities. Many of the guards that had disappeared were found years later and recognized by the former prisoners and brought to justice.
Justice here is used rather loosely though. While many were convicted and even sentenced to long terms including sometimes life, most got out after three to ten years. It has taken me quite some time to process the fact that after the war the only people that really had the heart and desire to go after and prosecute were either victims that had survived, or family members of victims that had perished. The country wanted to, needed to, and did move on. They didn't brush it under the rug and forget about it per se, but the overwhelming desire was to get on with correcting the path of the country. It was not, and is not, a sense of ignoring the past, but not vehemently punishing those that did what was done. I'm still not sure I have processed that level of information.
One thing that I am sure of, this visit helped me to better understand what happened afterwards. It helped me in processing my thoughts of the first visit. I finally finished and posted my Auschwitz visit after seeing this site.
When I got here I was told that the Germans don't like talking about this 12 year period of their history. There are thousands of years of history to discuss instead. But if it were not for this 12 year period, I would not be here today. The reason I can work here is due to that time, so it is incredibly interesting and necessary to view for me. But in the minds of modern Germany it is like Alsace and Lorraine were from 1918 on, spoken of never, but thought of always.
Auschwitz
This was is near to my heart. Partly because I got to share it with my daughter, but mostly because of where we went.
Typically speaking, when one sees or experiences something it is best to record your thoughts as soon afterwords as possible or else something may be lost and forgotten. But there is nothing typical about a trip to Auschwitz. I started this description not long after our visit in 2016 but did not complete it or post it. Now, after 2 years and a visit to another camp I have returned. No less changed and no less awed by the power of the visit.
Joseph Stalin is reputed to have said “One death is a tragedy; one million a statistic.” I say reputed because the exact wording and context are not known as well. Also at issue is whether or not he was the first to espouse the concept. He was not.
In 1759 Beilby Porteus, who later went on to become the Bishop of the Church of England, wrote Death: A Poetical Essay in which he said:
’Twas not enough
By subtle fraud to snatch a single life,
Puny impiety! whole kingdoms fell
To sate the lust of power: more horrid still,
The foulest stain and scandal of our nature
Became its boast. One murder made a Villain,
Millions a Hero. Princes were privileg’d
To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime.
Ah! why will Kings forget that they are Men?
And Men that they are brethren?
This is a sentiment that was repeated by Charlie Chaplin in Monsieur Verdoux in 1947: “That’s the history of many a big business. Wars, conflict, it’s all business. One murder makes a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify my good fellow.”
Mother Teresa, whose canonization for sainthood is likely to be soon, once said, “If I look at the mass I will never act.”
If Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin seem to agree it gives pause for thought. Bishop Porteus echoed in a Charlie Chaplin movie may seem a stretch, but Chaplin shared a birthday and had his trademark mustache copied by a man who would be king. A man who thought himself a hero. A man who made others think him a hero. A man who forgot he was a man, perhaps on purpose.
From the text of affidavit signed by Rudolf Hoess on 5 Apr 46 the former commander of Auschwitz estimated at least 2.5 million victims were executed and exterminated by gassing or burning, and at least another half million by starvation or disease making a total dead of 3 million. Hoess estimated this to be 70-80% of the people sent there as prisoners. Maybe he overestimated, maybe he couldn't count, but never forget, these fuckers kept meticulous records even though they began to destroy them when the enemy was at the gates.
The sheer magnitude of what occurred numbs the mind. The surreal power of the place 70 years later has the same effect.
By the time we arrived in Oswiecim, Poland it was not a dark and stormy night, but it was a dark, wet, and dreary night. The view from our window at the Hotel Galicja had two deserted loading docks on one side and a big empty field with a well worn footpath alongside a babbling stream. The overcast fog and light drizzle covered the cold night air. The tone was well set for the next day's event.
The sunrise brought no relief. The sky was overcast and gray with a light sprinkling of rain. The temperature was cold, downright bone chilling. There could be no better weather for a visit. This is a place I never in a million years imagined I would be. But here I was with my seventeen year old daughter, Lizi.
Germans had a history of renaming Polish towns even before they were a country. But this was different. The town was renamed by the Nazi invaders who then used on the camp. Over the course of the camp’s existence they also removed the inhabitants of the town and brought in new settlers. They were removed partly to keep secret what was happening, partly to keep residents from helping escapees, and partly because the whole justification of taking over Poland was to provide liebenstraum for the German people. Not so much to subjugate the people as to eliminate and make room for agriculture to provide for the Reich.
It began as a Polish military barracks, evacuated and abandoned but repurposed as an overflow location for the town’s prison facilities. As the former allied Soviet Union was turned on by the Reich, Soviet prisoners of war were interred as well as interned there. The list of prisoners continued to grow to include Jews, Romanies (Gypsies). Contrary to Hoess's numbers, it is estimated to have contained 1.3 million people over the course of its lifespan. Lifespan doesn’t feel appropriate yet there is no antonym that does.
Of those people, 1.1 million perished. By gas, by starvation, by lack of oxygen, by disease, by hanging, or by being shot, there was little difference how. Most of the rest were shipped to other locations deep in the Reich as the Red Army advanced late in the war. The crematoriums and gas chambers were sabotaged or destroyed. The wall where prisoners were shot was torn down. The gallows were removed, and many records burned to hide what had happened. A mere 7,500 remained to be liberated, 500 of which were estimated to be children. For all its infamous brutality it had been an efficient extermination center.
The best way is to reserve a tour guide which takes several days advance preparation. While we knew when we were going, by the time we looked there were only Polish and German slots available and even then only one each. There are also 6 hour and multiple day introspective tours given but we knew those were not for us. The gates opened at 8 but you have to enter before 10 or after 3 if you tour at your own pace.
Walking up you can see the buildings and the fence. The iconic concrete post, barbed wire fence. Rusted, weathered, dirty, and in places moldy. Some features and buildings were recreated or rebuilt, some were restored, some were left in their original condition. The fence was original. The surreality of it began to hit as we walked up to a trailer that said “Info” to get our tickets. This was not a place that topped the list of must see locations but it was certainly on the list of places I never imagined I would ever be able to see. Standing in line memories popped into my head, Mr. Belvel’s history class, black and white newsreel films, The World at War on PBS, Schindler’s List.
The bookstore had tour guides and more. We entered and looked at the books while the cashier completed the transaction with the three guys at his counter. Most of the books were sterile and un-attractive bindings. There was no brightening up the subject matter. I grew up in a tourist town. Normally doing tourist activities are things I’ve seen others do and recognize but haven’t participated in myself. As we turned to the cashier I could tell he was good. He had laid out pamphlet and handed us a tour guide as he explained the pamphlet and another I swear he materialized from his hand. The documents were all in English. We’ve gotten spoiled since almost every German we have dealt with since moving spoke our language, too. In Poland it was not the same. It took 4 people to take our order at McDonald’s but here this guy knew tourists. After we walked out I remembered that now I would have to carry the books and DVD through the whole tour but how to do that was secondary to the entrance.
Arbeit Macht Frei.
Maybe it was intended to be true when it first went up. Maybe it was a psychological ploy to give the semblance of a chance for freedom. Maybe it was just a promise that would never be fulfilled. Maybe it was intended to be just what it is: a symbol of what lay ahead, a sinister sick joke to say abandon all hope ye who enter here. But there it was. As large as life. Life sized. Again life seems a word that should not be used to describe the structures of this place. In person, not fabricated, not on television, not in a movie, not on a grainy black and white PBS special. I touched the gates of THE symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust.
There were many exhibits set up in the former barracks. One block was set up for each group of detainees: Soviets, french, Belgium, Netherlands, Romanies. I could easily spend a paragraph on each and it would never be enough. In the Hungarian display there was the sound of a heartbeat. Eerie, spooky, and chilling. In the french and Belgian display they had train sounds and a plexiglass covered set of tracks depicting the cattle cars that brought the prisoners in.
At a display of uniforms there were many original sets of clothes hung on makeshift frames behind barbed wire. Unlike the United States, in Germany they do not protect you from yourself. If you want to do something stupid (or against the rules) you can. Tactile memories can make one feel a part of what went on and I find myself touching the wall, or the stair rails, or whatever historic venue I happen to be at. These uniforms were not for touching. I didn’t touch the closest ones, I bent over as far as I could and grabbed one. The coarse weave of the material had a utilitarian, uncomfortable feel to it.
Outside Block 11 there were a family of owls living. Block 11 is where most of the executions were carried out. It is where the first test of Zyclon B was done. It is where the optimal density, timing, and amounts needed were determined. Owls hoot into the now silent building of such suffering.
We were traveling alone, just the two of us but there were may groups there. For the most part we tried to avoid going into buildings with them. It did not always work. In one building we failed miserably to avoid them. Even with ventilation and lighting it was dark and stuffy, especially with too many people.The mass of people filing through the basement was bad. Slow, shuffling, muffled. No one spoke. One line headed down the hall another back. But we had space. Personal space we all gave each other as much as possible. As close as we would get to what had happened, yet not. It would have been indescribable back then. Downright claustrophobia inducing.
We walked between the buildings where most of the executions were carried out. And past the gallows, and the daily roll call. The condition of the roads was similar to what it was 70 years ago. Gravel with imperfections, potholes with water. Misty rain. It reminded me of the Rudyard Kipling story that convinced him to be against capital punishment where a man, literally on the way to his death, avoided a puddle.
There was a display of cloth made entirely of human hair. It was not a small bolt. There was a tangled mass of wires that when you got close to it were wire-rimmed glasses. Thrown there because their owners did not need them any more and they would not burn. There were rooms full of pottery, family heirlooms, and my God the luggage. Suitcases with the hopeful, hastily scratched addresses of their former owners on them. Hopeful because they believed they would be reunited with them again. And the room of shoes. If I one day honed my writing craft to the level that earned me the Nobel Prize for Literature I would never be able to describe the room of shoes. Not a small room, a hallway lined on both sides with an unimaginable pile of shoes. Except for one detail. It was imaginable because it exists. It sits there behind glass paned windows for all to see.
At the tender age of 14 I read Poland by James Michener. In it he describes an event based on a true story of a room in the basement of Auschwitz where the guards crammed more people than could fit. One small window provided all the air the room would receive yet the cruel men in charge locked the door and left. In the story a priest told a man the fool’s move was to fight for a spot at the window to breath, better to hang back by the door. There would be room, not much air but room. At the end of the night, the man survived along with the priest. There were not many more that walked out alive.
I saw that room.
I cannot recall if the room was accessible, but I know I came nowhere near that window. I stood at the door and could not imagine a more poignant moment to bring home the power of what this place was. I was wrong.
Near the end of our tour we came to the gallows beside the cremation chamber where Hoess had hung. He was hung within sight of the barracks, beside the cremation chamber, while being able to see the very location he and his family, his wife, his children had spent their lives, cheerily. That fucker hung until he ceased to breathe and he got off easy. While I enjoyed reading about and seeing where he had lived his last second something else happened. As I finished taking a picture I looked for my daughter. She was nowhere to be seen.
I had lost my child in Auschwitz. At the crematorium.
Full on panic set in. Hurriedly scanning the crowds. Running to the other end of the line of people walking somberly, soulfully, and mournfully from barracks to gallows to crematorium entrance. No sight of her.
Backtracking I stood on a small hill and looked in every direction. Nothing. Ran to the other end of the sidewalk and another hill. Nothing. The hill was the crematorium but not the point. She was not there.
As she emerged from the exit of the crematorium my heart began to beat again. She told me she went on through, so I asked if she wanted to wait while I did. Without hesitating she said no. Arm in arm we walked into the crematorium.
In the face of the advancing Soviets this crematorium had been destroyed. The callous cretins knew they were doing things they should not have done because no one hides if what they’re doing is right. They were unsuccessful. As a part of the memorial it was restored to safe conditions. Safe. A truly relative term. The rooms were there. The ovens. The rails and carts that made the task easier. After we came out Lizi told me that there was one place in particular that gave her the shivers. It did so both times.
So we walked out. Like a mere 0.25% of the former occupants had.
The tour guides online all said to allow 90 minutes each for Auschwitz and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. We spent four hours in just Auschwitz. On the way out I commented to Lizi who said it didn’t seem that long. When asked how long it had been she said no more than three and a half tops. But it was four, long, surreal hours.
Next door to Auschwitz is an apartment complex. And I don’t mean a few hundred meters away. I mean right there at the wall, a parking lot or less away is an apartment complex. Several stories high, which means that there is someone who looks out their window and can see over the top of the wall, over the barbed wire, and into the heart of the barracks of this former extermination camp. I think I would rather live in a cemetery homeless.
Over the course of my life I have experienced prejudice, sexual harassment, and discrimination. I have been racially profiled and even pulled over for driving while white. I have not complained or pushed these incidents because I know that the intensity of them is nothing compared to what others feel. It is just as wrong, but not on an equal level. I know my experiences at this camp of death does not rise to the level of any given Tuesday when it was in operation. But they are no less powerful for having happened to me. If anything it has strengthened my resolve to meet someone who has experienced this nightmare firsthand.
There is so much to hate about what is and what was done in this place but one thing that struck me was at the entrance. That powerful, symbolic entrance gate, in harsh black letters, Arbeit Macht Frei, has a crowd control black and white barrier similar to many roads, sidewalks, and paths around the country. One that means do not enter, or when up to come on in. There is such a pole at the iconic gate. There is no way to photograph the gate without the pole. This got me to thinking and in the time since our visit I have gone back to see and notice this pole. It is always there. In every shot. Every video, every photograph, omnipresent. And always up. Presumably they close the arm, why else have it? But they do not allow anyone into the grounds without opening it. Even the private photographers that come before or after visitors. It. Is. Always. There. It is a giant middle finger sticking straight in the air to say youu made this a place of death and despair now fuck you we have gained our freedom.
Meeting around the world
I have long said Serendipity takes me everywhere. From time to time I have an incident that I can use to prove it. Yesterday was one of those incidents.
On the way back from the US last Saturday I began talking to a guy sitting behind me. I had flown from Mobile to Houston from which the flights would go to Newark then Munich. This gentleman and his wife were headed to Geneva but would be in Berlin the next weekend. My plan was to either go to Muenster to see the Anabaptist cages atop the steeple or to Berlin so I mentioned I might be there, too. He gave me his card and after landing in New Jersey went our different ways.
Friday night I looked at the map, Berlin is a huge city in case you didn't notice, and saw that where I figured our bus would be was near their hotel which in turn was near the two sites I most wanted to see. Unfortunately I missed both but that's a different story. I emailed him in the hopes that we might meet up to break bread or at least have a coffee or beer.
Upon arrival in Berlin we had a native Berliner (not the doughnut) join our group and took a tour of the whole city. We made stops at the Brandenburg Gate (where I hummed the Concertos, thank you Mr. Blessey), the Wall, and Checkpoint Charlie.
At Checkpoint Charlie I walked around and took in the sights. I found it particularly interesting to watch one lady drive through the intersection without even checking up on the gas going from the former West to former East Berlin. Arriving back at the bus I had about 5 minutes until we left when I thought to check my email again. He had responded about forty-five minutes before and said they'd be at Checkpoint Charlie for about an hour.
Hastily I went to my other phone where I had saved his number and to my dismay I did not save the number just the email. As I reached into my pocket to pull out his business card, who do you think walked in front of me? Mr. Lopushansky.
We only had a few minutes to laugh and comment about the unlikeliness of what had just transpired. He had just told his wife something told him he needed to go across the street when they met me. She took our picture a few times and we shook hands. We both parted with a smile on our face and the thought in our minds that no matter how much of this great big world we see it just keeps getting smaller and smaller.