Joanne
and I travelled from London to Munich, Germany with our son and his family to
visit Legoland – a ‘Disneyland’ without Donald, with rides and Lego building
block structures that are enjoyed by both kids and adults. Joanne and I took a side trip to the
concentration camp memorial outside of Munich – Dachau.
 |
| Memorial Sculpture at Dachau by Nandor Glid, erected in 1968 |
There is no complete explanation for the
camp at Dachau that I can offer – just stunned horror and a few comments. Dachau
was a model for the other German concentration camps, a training ground for
S.S. troops and it mirrored
German society of the time.
Consider the words of Martin Buber before World War II started:
Collectivity is not a binding but a
bundling together; individuals packed together, armed and equipped in common
with only as much life from man to man as will enflame the marching step. But community is the being no longer side by
side but with one
another of a multitude of persons.
Collectivity is based on its atrophy of personal existence, community on
its increase and confirmation in life lived towards one another. (Between Man and Man, translated by
R.G. Smith, written in pre-WWII Germany)
Our tour guide told us over 4,500 people
died at Dachau in its twelve year existence from 1933 -1945. It remains a white-washed but empty tomb, the
smell and horror has faded into imagination, but the camp is still there as a
crucial memorial.
It was explained that Dachau was originally
for political prisoners. Hitler’s
dissolution of civil rights meant that political dissidents were sent to Dachau
without legal due process. We were told
of a sixteen year old sent to the camp for doing political graffiti. Scholar Bruno Bettelheim was a prisoner at
Dachau. The camp was not an
extermination camp such as Auschwitz, but Jews died there as political
prisoners placed in slavery along with others.
The basic absurd lie of the camp was printed over the camp portal – Arbeit
Mach Frei. (Work sets you free.)
Of course Buber was not the only German intellectual
who saw what was coming. Karl Jaspers
wrote:
Irrational Existenz which rests upon
feeling, experiencing, unquestioned impulse, instinct, or whim, ends up as
blind violence… (Karl Jaspers, "Existenzphilosophie," reprinted in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, Meridian Books, p. 131)
In contrast Martin Heidegger, often credited
as a founder of the existentialist movement in philosophy, supported
Hitler. When Heidegger was named Rector
of the University of Freiberg, Heidegger gave a ringing endorsement of the Nazi
weltenshauung – world view. Heidegger replaced the world-renowned and
philosophical innovator, Edmund Husserel who was Jewish.
Our guide showed us where Medical
experiments on human beings were carried out at Dachau. This was a reminder that absurd Nazi pseudo-science
provided a rationale for the murder of six million Jews. I pointed out that the neighboring town of
Oberammergau has had a famous periodic passion play since 1634 that blamed execution
of Jesus of Nazareth by the Roman Empire on the Jewish people. The play is
based on gospel stories written in the context of religious factions in
competition for dominance. Our guide
claimed that religion was not a motive for the Jewish massacre because the
Nazis were not religious. It was
suggested that the Nazis also blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War
I. The guide did agree that religion was
a background for the holocaust.
Can we relate our present politics to the
absurdities of Nazi Germany? Fourth
amendment rights against search and seizure have been weakened, a travel ban
against Muslims is being attempted. Lies
to labor and catering to the aristocracy, a wall to prevent Mexicans and Central
Americans from entering the country is promised. The politics of nationalism and hate is open
and evident.
Labor, university professors, faith
communities, the media, must take a stand.
Trump is not going to bring back the 50’s – we are looking at a hologram
of Germany during the 30’s. Our country struggles
in an atmosphere of existential completion instead of cooperation. Again Martin Buber:
God’s
speech to men penetrates what happens in the life of each one of us, biographical and historical, and
makes it for you and me into instruction, message, demand. Happening upon happening, situation upon
situation, are enabled and empowered by the personal speech of God to demand of
the human person that he take his stand and make his decision. (Martin Buber, I and Thou, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1958.)
Schwesterobein:
"Das alles war ganz ganz schlim."
Schwesterobein:
"Das alles war ganz ganz schlim."
