Rolland With The Punches: Untitled

~ Arbeit Macht Frei ~

"Work Will Set You Free"

These words are welded to the iron gates of the entrance of Dachau, a former Nazi Concentration Camp turned museum. The combination of those words and the fact that this gate, maybe 10 feet in width, is the only way out of the this hell. If you could climb to the top of the concrete walls enclosing this camp, you'd only be mangled by barbed wire.

As soon as we reach the gate, chills run up my spine. The walk from the bus to the entry was a gravel road lined with trees on each side. Quite simple. It looks exactly like you'd imagine a concentration camp would look: long, white concrete buildings with iron windows and as little character as possible. Watch towers and barbed wire fences still line the perimeter of the once active camp.

As a memorial site, all the other barracks and buildings are mowed down and their plots are numbered and filled with gravel and stone. One replica barrack stands. Well, two; side by side. Replicas hardly do justice to what one's mind can't even imagine what those "living quarters" looked like after 12 years of death and suffering. Mostly just the suffering because I'm sure the weak prayed for death every night. And many received it, in a manner not even their wildest imagination could conjure.

The images displayed throughout the museum are tough. What's more discouraging is there are worse images and evidence of disgustingly horrific events that took place there in little over a decade that are not presented. The quotes from survivors and victims are heartbreaking. It literally sends a surge of disgust and pain through you from what these innocent lives endured; if they didn't die first.

"You are without rights, dishonorable and defenseless. You are a pile of shit and that's how you're going to be treated."

- From the address of the protective custody camp leader, Josef Jarolin, to new Dachau prisoners; 1941/42

Their brave faces plaster the displays of history throughout this giant museum of chronologically ordered terror that began in 1933. I will never be able to wrap my brain around the fact that one man, with little help, turned one race against entire countries. And if you were homosexual or practiced the "wrong" religion, even then, your race was irrelevant.

The fear he instilled in nations and millions of people will forever be a mystery. The only answer to cooperation is fear, but how he made them fear him, aside from violence is unfathomable. Fear is a powerful thing. I am intentionally not saying his name because he is not worthy of having his name mentioned in a story honoring those he murdered and tortured under his reign.

The only beauty in all of this heartache is that pain has an end. How anyone can endure such conditions and carry on is again, unfathomable. But the fact that it ends and people can be saved is hope; hope for generations.

There will always be wars, hate, discrimination, crime, evil dictators and so forth, but some how the world always comes through. temporarily at least. Hope has to be the only answer for how these prisoners survived even one day in such heinous conditions. Ripped from their homes, lives and families then stripped bare, down to gold fillings, and hosed and assigned whether or not to live or die. If it were me I'd pray for the chambers to avoid suffering.

This is heartbreak.

In Germany, people don't deny the Holocaust happened, they just don't discuss it because they are ashamed. Their heritage is what, massacre? It's only been 60 plus years since the Holocaust. There are still survivors alive from that horror. Peoples parents and grandparents, not their ancestors. That's a hard thing to live with.

I didn't go into depth describing the rooms and barracks because we've all taken a history class and we all know what happened there. You can use your imagination to decide what once took place there. This day was really significant to me and I hope you've enjoyed reading it because this one means a lot to me. Hate breeds hate and it's dangerous. We're all just humans trying to live a life. "Let it be."

Entrance

"Never Again"

"May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945, because they resisted Nazism, help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom in respect for their fellow man."