Summary:
In October, I visited a concentration camp with the 10th grade. As an American, it is interesting to see how Germany remembers its past, especially the bad events. We learned a lot about the horrible conditions prisoners lived in there, such as random violence, starvation and cold. It is important that we remember these events and recognize when similar things happen so we can fight against them instead of quietly letting them happen.
Full post:
On October 23rd, I accompanied some of the 10th grade classes on a trip to the concentration camp in Flossenbürg. Our destination was tucked at the edge of a small, peaceful village near the Czech border. As we congregated1 to meet our tour-guide, it began to rain, which felt appropriately sobering2. Our tour-guide was merciful and moved us under the large main gate to begin the tour but didn’t hesitate3 to point out that these were common weather conditions for the area and it would only get worse in the winter. Prisoners had been forced to endure these conditions without umbrellas, warm puffer jackets or changes of clothes.
I’ve been to a concentration camp before – Dachau – and then it had been a pleasant, sunny spring day. I had a personal connection to Dachau – my friend’s grandfather had been imprisoned there and survived. My friend always told me how his grandfather was a mean and angry man and after seeing in-depth what people had been forced to endure4 in that camp, I wonder how people who were liberated5 found the strength to continue afterwards at all. They had seen the utter worst of how humans are able to treat one another.
During both concentration camp visits, I was struck by how tenuous6 our rights are. Though we may think of our rights as “inalienable7,” they require everyone in society to participate in upholding them. At any point someone could take power who decides that one group of people no longer deserve to have rights for some arbitrary8 reason. We see this even today as people are starved, bombed or held in horrible conditions in immigrant detention centers.
In Flossenbürg, my main question was how the people in the town reacted to a concentration camp being built there, especially as the people of my own country are faced by our own breaches9 of human rights. I know that a few brave people, like the namesakes of this school, spoke out against the atrocities10, but as far as I know they were in a small minority. Indeed, the tour guide said that the reactions were largely positive – the local bar and restaurant owners got more business as SS moved to the area, local girls had soldiers to flirt with and businesses were afforded11 free labor.
It would be easy to just judge the regular people who stood by and did nothing, but as I see this happen in my own country with a crisis much more publicly documented and with far less severe consequences for speaking out, it’s hard to do that. All I can do is make sure I don’t turn a blind eye12. I commend13 Germany for speaking so openly about what they did, but no one can forget that the work continues on today.
1to congregate: versammeln
2sobering: ernüchternd
3to hesitate: zögern
4to endure: ertragen
5liberated: befreit
6tenuous: unsicher
7inalienable: unveräußerlich
8arbitrary: beliebig
9breaches: die Verletzungen
10atrocities: die Gräultaten
11to afford: bieten
12to turn a blind eye: ein Auge zudrücken
13to commend: loben