Dachau
10 May 2007
I left Landshut, Germany at about 9:00 Wednesday morning. From my understanding, it has not rained in Bavaria for about six weeks. The farmers, praying for rain, got what they wanted. The night before I left, the rain started and it didn’t stop until I arrived in Prague at about 10:45 at night.
Though the farmers may have been asking for rain, I was not happy. My intention to visit Dachau Concentration Camp on the Monday before was spoiled by the fact that many museums in Germany are closed on Monday. In fact, their calendars start on Monday; it’s like their Sunday. It’s an interesting way to do things, certainly not a good way.
Now my plan to visit Dachau was ruined by rain. The rain was coming down in buckets, but I firmly intended to take the visit anyway. I caught the S-Bahn out of the Munich station and got off at stop Dachau.
There is a bus that runs straight to the camp and I took that. Upon getting off the bus, I was shielded by the rain with only a half-operating umbrella that was given to me back in Oxford. It basically prevents my head from getting wet, but little else.
I’ve never visited a concentration camp. The only real encounter I have ever had with the Holocaust is the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. That museum was disturbing enough, being in the actual place where some of the most atrocious events of the twentieth century took place is quite different.
Sopping wet, I made my way across a bridge over a little creek flowing alongside the camp. The Jourhouse stood in front of me. The archway in the middle of the gatehouse contains a thick iron fence which gives the gatehouse a somewhat face-like quality; like one is about to be swallowed up into the bowels of the prison camp.
You enter the gatehouse, go through the gate, and onto a massive gravel-paved area where roll call took place while the camp was operating. It was an intense feeling of standing in the rain, the uncomfortable gravel beneath your feet, your clothes becoming continually more damp, and wondering what it must have been like for those so many thousands of prisoners who were called out each day to roll call. It would be decided during roll call who would work, who would eat, who would be beaten, who would be tortured; all random, all based on the depraved wishes of the SS guards.
You enter the gatehouse, come out into the roll call area. On your right is the SS command center, behind which is the camp’s prison where prisoners were once pole-hung. It was a form of torture where the prisoner’s hands were tied behind his back and lifted up on a pole for hours on end.
In front of you is a plaque which reads “May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men” and is translated into several different languages. Behind this is a monument designed by one of the camp’s prisoners which depicts human forms, disfigured and twisted into barb wire fences; a fitting depiction of National Socialism’s inhumane treatment of the millions who it enslaved, tortured, and killed. Below the monument reads the dates 1933-1945. Dachau was the first concentration camp and lasted the entire twelve years of Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany.
Standing at this monument, you make a 180 degree turn and you face two rows of trees, separated by a road. On each side of these rows of trees stand the foundations of 32 blocks of barracks built by the prisoners during the course of the operation of Dachau. Block 3 is where the most barbaric events of the camp took place, the medical experiments on prisoners, only two of whom survived only to become mentally handicapped.
To give you an idea of camp life, the barracks to house the prisoners were supposed to contain roughly two hundred prisoners per building. By 1945, each of the prisoner’s barracks contained over 2000 prisoners which led to squalid conditions, leading to disease and death.
You walk down between the columns of trees and take a left at the end where now there stand several religious monuments erected by different religious traditions. Crossing a little bridge at the end of the camp, you see a tall smokestack rising above the trees.
You walk into the building with the smokestack and stand in the room where prisoners were to remove their clothes and personal possessions, being told they were going to take showers, because hygiene was one of the principal mottos of the camp. Above the door of the room in front of you is the word “Brausebad.”
You enter a dimly lit, tiled room. It was here, with faucets made to look like shower faucets, prisoners were locked and suffocated to death with poisonous gas; the Nazis could kill 150 at a time in their gas chamber. The next room is a room to house the dead bodies until they can be cremated in the six furnaces in the next room.
The last thing I looked at in Dachau was a monument, translated into several tongues, which in English read “Never again.” It is a command, but also a plea. The entire time in the camp, my stomach was twisted in knots, my heart felt like it was in my throat, and at several points I found myself wanting to physically hurt the high school boys running around the camp, laughing, joking, and obviously not taking seriously the barbarity that existed in their country not more than a century ago.
How can man be so evil to man? Of course the obvious answer is the effects of sin. In Oxford, there was a seminar meeting where one of the professors was speaking about something which I have completely forgotten, when she brought up an essay of a student who had applied to the program and who had either dropped out or not been accepted. The subject of the student’s essay was tracing the historical link of Darwinism to Hitler’s Reich and the atrocities of WWII. The professor scoffed at the idea and the majority of the students chuckled at the “naivety” of the student’s essay.
I didn’t laugh at the essay and thought it was a rather interesting idea; something which has always been clear to me, but never something I thought worth putting into writing because it was just so self-evident.
I don’t know where I exactly stand on the creation/evolution debate. Could God have created the world in a literal six days? Of course. Could he have created the world over a long period of time, where days in Genesis didn’t literally mean 24-hour periods? Of course. But one thing that is certain is that the human race is not the product of an evolutionary progression towards perfection. If we are evolving, then it is an evolution that consists of a depraved mutation that is only getting worse and worse.
I don’t think the word “evolution” is bad. There are many types of evolution which science has shown to be useful and productive. But if you want to see Darwinism at work, if you want to see the effects of this pagan philosophy upon civilization, then look to Dachau, look to the Holocaust and the horrors of WWII. That is Darwinisim.
I’m also a bit wishy-washy about the war in Iraq. I go back and forth with it, partly because I can never get a straight story from anyone, especially not the media. The atrocities of the Hussein regime are undeniable. He was one of the worst dictators of all time and was responsible for thousands of deaths. If you ask me whether I think US forces should be in Iraq, I will say yes for this reason. If you then ask me why the US has not invaded North Korea or parts of Africa and South America where similar brutality is taking place, then I will say that that is our responsibility as well. The unfortunate thing is that Europe has forgotten. They have forgotten Dachau. They have put it in a locked chest and covered it up in a closet. Instead of attempting to prevent carnage by corrupt dictators, they have tucked their tails between their legs and run. Dictators and corrupt governments only understand war. They scoff at negotiations and care nothing for charters, or agreements, or sanctions. WWII showed this in a powerful way. The unfortunate thing is that mankind has still not learned their lesson. They have forgotten Dachau, they have forgotten our responsibility to humanity.
I left Landshut, Germany at about 9:00 Wednesday morning. From my understanding, it has not rained in Bavaria for about six weeks. The farmers, praying for rain, got what they wanted. The night before I left, the rain started and it didn’t stop until I arrived in Prague at about 10:45 at night.
Though the farmers may have been asking for rain, I was not happy. My intention to visit Dachau Concentration Camp on the Monday before was spoiled by the fact that many museums in Germany are closed on Monday. In fact, their calendars start on Monday; it’s like their Sunday. It’s an interesting way to do things, certainly not a good way.
Now my plan to visit Dachau was ruined by rain. The rain was coming down in buckets, but I firmly intended to take the visit anyway. I caught the S-Bahn out of the Munich station and got off at stop Dachau.
There is a bus that runs straight to the camp and I took that. Upon getting off the bus, I was shielded by the rain with only a half-operating umbrella that was given to me back in Oxford. It basically prevents my head from getting wet, but little else.
I’ve never visited a concentration camp. The only real encounter I have ever had with the Holocaust is the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. That museum was disturbing enough, being in the actual place where some of the most atrocious events of the twentieth century took place is quite different.
Sopping wet, I made my way across a bridge over a little creek flowing alongside the camp. The Jourhouse stood in front of me. The archway in the middle of the gatehouse contains a thick iron fence which gives the gatehouse a somewhat face-like quality; like one is about to be swallowed up into the bowels of the prison camp.
You enter the gatehouse, go through the gate, and onto a massive gravel-paved area where roll call took place while the camp was operating. It was an intense feeling of standing in the rain, the uncomfortable gravel beneath your feet, your clothes becoming continually more damp, and wondering what it must have been like for those so many thousands of prisoners who were called out each day to roll call. It would be decided during roll call who would work, who would eat, who would be beaten, who would be tortured; all random, all based on the depraved wishes of the SS guards.
You enter the gatehouse, come out into the roll call area. On your right is the SS command center, behind which is the camp’s prison where prisoners were once pole-hung. It was a form of torture where the prisoner’s hands were tied behind his back and lifted up on a pole for hours on end.
In front of you is a plaque which reads “May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men” and is translated into several different languages. Behind this is a monument designed by one of the camp’s prisoners which depicts human forms, disfigured and twisted into barb wire fences; a fitting depiction of National Socialism’s inhumane treatment of the millions who it enslaved, tortured, and killed. Below the monument reads the dates 1933-1945. Dachau was the first concentration camp and lasted the entire twelve years of Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany.
Standing at this monument, you make a 180 degree turn and you face two rows of trees, separated by a road. On each side of these rows of trees stand the foundations of 32 blocks of barracks built by the prisoners during the course of the operation of Dachau. Block 3 is where the most barbaric events of the camp took place, the medical experiments on prisoners, only two of whom survived only to become mentally handicapped.
To give you an idea of camp life, the barracks to house the prisoners were supposed to contain roughly two hundred prisoners per building. By 1945, each of the prisoner’s barracks contained over 2000 prisoners which led to squalid conditions, leading to disease and death.
You walk down between the columns of trees and take a left at the end where now there stand several religious monuments erected by different religious traditions. Crossing a little bridge at the end of the camp, you see a tall smokestack rising above the trees.
You walk into the building with the smokestack and stand in the room where prisoners were to remove their clothes and personal possessions, being told they were going to take showers, because hygiene was one of the principal mottos of the camp. Above the door of the room in front of you is the word “Brausebad.”
You enter a dimly lit, tiled room. It was here, with faucets made to look like shower faucets, prisoners were locked and suffocated to death with poisonous gas; the Nazis could kill 150 at a time in their gas chamber. The next room is a room to house the dead bodies until they can be cremated in the six furnaces in the next room.
The last thing I looked at in Dachau was a monument, translated into several tongues, which in English read “Never again.” It is a command, but also a plea. The entire time in the camp, my stomach was twisted in knots, my heart felt like it was in my throat, and at several points I found myself wanting to physically hurt the high school boys running around the camp, laughing, joking, and obviously not taking seriously the barbarity that existed in their country not more than a century ago.
How can man be so evil to man? Of course the obvious answer is the effects of sin. In Oxford, there was a seminar meeting where one of the professors was speaking about something which I have completely forgotten, when she brought up an essay of a student who had applied to the program and who had either dropped out or not been accepted. The subject of the student’s essay was tracing the historical link of Darwinism to Hitler’s Reich and the atrocities of WWII. The professor scoffed at the idea and the majority of the students chuckled at the “naivety” of the student’s essay.
I didn’t laugh at the essay and thought it was a rather interesting idea; something which has always been clear to me, but never something I thought worth putting into writing because it was just so self-evident.
I don’t know where I exactly stand on the creation/evolution debate. Could God have created the world in a literal six days? Of course. Could he have created the world over a long period of time, where days in Genesis didn’t literally mean 24-hour periods? Of course. But one thing that is certain is that the human race is not the product of an evolutionary progression towards perfection. If we are evolving, then it is an evolution that consists of a depraved mutation that is only getting worse and worse.
I don’t think the word “evolution” is bad. There are many types of evolution which science has shown to be useful and productive. But if you want to see Darwinism at work, if you want to see the effects of this pagan philosophy upon civilization, then look to Dachau, look to the Holocaust and the horrors of WWII. That is Darwinisim.
I’m also a bit wishy-washy about the war in Iraq. I go back and forth with it, partly because I can never get a straight story from anyone, especially not the media. The atrocities of the Hussein regime are undeniable. He was one of the worst dictators of all time and was responsible for thousands of deaths. If you ask me whether I think US forces should be in Iraq, I will say yes for this reason. If you then ask me why the US has not invaded North Korea or parts of Africa and South America where similar brutality is taking place, then I will say that that is our responsibility as well. The unfortunate thing is that Europe has forgotten. They have forgotten Dachau. They have put it in a locked chest and covered it up in a closet. Instead of attempting to prevent carnage by corrupt dictators, they have tucked their tails between their legs and run. Dictators and corrupt governments only understand war. They scoff at negotiations and care nothing for charters, or agreements, or sanctions. WWII showed this in a powerful way. The unfortunate thing is that mankind has still not learned their lesson. They have forgotten Dachau, they have forgotten our responsibility to humanity.
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