To forget the dead
would be akin to killing them a second time - Elie Wiesel
This
past year I had the opportunity to walk through the annals of history that
covered one of the most troubled and testing times for humanity (1933 -1945).
As a
part of our travels, my husband Prashant and I visited the Dachau and
Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial sites in Germany (near Munich and
Berlin).
Nothing
prepares you for the shock and the dull ache that follows you around as you
pass through the grilled iron gate engraved with ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (Work sets
you free). Not the dates and statistics dutifully catalogued in your high
school history textbook. Not the carefully preserved bleakness of the faces
that peer out of the black & white pictures in the internet archives. Not
the ache that so eloquently unfolds in more than a few Hollywood movies.
Nothing.
There
is a silence that lies upon you, still and heavy as a winter blanket without
any of the warmth that accompanies it. It is hard to assimilate the fact that
you are standing on the grounds that changed, crushed and in most cases, brutally
and systematically snuffed out the lives of millions of people who were no
different from you and me. The barren ground stretches out as far as the eye
can see. The barracks have long since been knocked down but the crushed gravel
stones remain on the ground like vestiges of the broken spirits, packed closely
together and bound by the makeshift borders that act as phantom walls to
indicate where the barracks once stood. All that remains unchanged is the
somber grey sky still shedding the odd tear and framing the weathered,
leafless, lifeless trees whose branches now flutter in the cold wind like an
eternal candle of remembrance.
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
There
is a replica of a barrack; a stark reminder of the inhuman conditions that
people like you and me were put through. Rows upon rows of beds crammed one on
top of the other like matchboxes. A mere 12 toilets for 200 people that went up
to as many as 2,000 people at one time and lead to unhygienic living conditions
and outbreaks of Typhus epidemics. Meager rations of bread adulterated with
sawdust and watered down soup that was barely enough. Essentially everything to,
break the body and crush the soul. The routine itself was ruthless. Day after
day, season upon season, people like you and me were made to brave the elements
and do forced labour. At Sachsenhausen, we saw a shoe testing track where the
inmates were made to test shoes made for soldiers by wearing them and walking
around the track for the entire day while carrying backpacks weighed down with
sand, sometimes even after the soles wore off during the testing. They are said
to have covered distances of up to 30 to 40 kms in the process; some of them,
unable to live through the ordeal.
Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial site
What
really punches you in the gut and hits home hard is not walking through what
used to be the gas chamber (as unsettling as that was) but walking through the
memorial museums. It is here that you are able to put faces to the statistics
in the textbooks. From the museums’ walls happy faces smile at you- some
lawyers, some musicians & doctors, some in tuxedos, most sharing happy
moments with their families; normal families like yours and mine. A normal life
like yours and mine. A life, which changed overnight. For in the same breath,
you can see how they were changed to a shadow of their original selves when their
possessions were stripped away, heads shaved, clothes confined to stripes &
a coloured triangle and names replaced with numbers in a cruel attempt to
dehumanize them from the people they were. People like you and me.
The
museums also carefully preserve a collection of their possessions, memoirs and
creations. I was especially moved by a craft made by a 16 year old Russian boy
who was an inmate at Sachsenhausen. He
had put aside some of his already meager ration of bread to create a replica of
a boot with flowers that he gifted to his fellow inmate. The creator soon died
of Tuberculosis but the artwork survived to tell the story of this beautiful soul who
even in the darkest hour of despair and destruction found a place in his heart
to lovingly create an object of beauty and joy for a fellow sufferer. It is one
of the most beautiful things I’ve seen – both the
creation and the gesture and I shall cherish the memory forever and remember it
as a beacon of hope and kindness in a dark time.
The boot with flowers at the Sachsenhausen Museum
(Picture courtesy: http://theseandthose.pardes.org/2014/03/20/flowers-of-bread/)
The
visit brought home the scary truth of how one’s life can change overnight. I
pray that no man, woman or child ever has to face such brutality,
suffering and indignity ever again. I especially pray for the Rohingya people
and the Syrian refugees, as theirs is a story of lives changing overnight in
our current world. But Prashant and I are glad we went to the concentration
camp memorial as that gave us an opportunity to honour the dead. There is
an especially evocative statue in Dachau of an unknown prisoner with his right
foot forward and hands in his pocket to denote moving on with life after the
liberation. The heartening thing is that the new generations of Germans have
worked hard to atone for their fathers' and grandfathers' cruelty. They have
tried to put a positive spin to the buildings that were occupied by party Officials
in Nazi Germany. For instance what used to be Hitler's office in Munich is now
a police station and the clock tower where ‘The Crystal Night’ was
instigated has now been converted into a toy museum that contains many
beautiful pieces that I’m sure would’ve brought a smile to the face of the
16-year-old creator of the flowers in the boot. Here’s an ode to him from me:
For the unknown boy
Who found a place in
his heart
To create with love
and kindness-
A beautiful piece of
art;
That would serve as a
beacon
A ray of light,
Hope in a dark world
To get through an endless night.
To get through an endless night.
Dachau
