On our way to Berlin Sunday —a long driving day (longest of the trip)—we stopped. At Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. It seemed like the right thing to go there, and it was really something. Moving and serious, but also a place for reflection and provoking thoughtful conversation. We walked through the site, struck by the gateway (replica now of original), and how awful Hitler’s “plans” truly were. The place has created clear and explicit exhibits of what he intended, what occurred there, and what happened with those who resisted. Dachau was a prison labor camp, not extermination site, but many still died there. And it was open a dozen years—the first place he opened, until Allied forces liberated it. To illustrate the scale of how awful—it was meant for 6000 “workers” (prisoners made slaves!!) and when liberated, there were 32,000 there.
Going there was hard but important and significant—we cannot forget what genocide and racism and prejudice and xenophobia breed. We cannot. And having this site as a place to remember and learn and reflect helps the world not to forget and to work to ensure that the respect and dignity of all human beings happens across the globe. We are all responsible for that! May we work on it together.
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