Anti-Semitism
and denial of the Holocaust
are on the rise. In
Hungary, albeit a civilized and
reflective culture, growing anti-Semitism has forced 100,000
member of the Jewish community to consider the option of leaving the
country. Anti-Semitism in Europe is deeply-rooted in its culture and
history. Despite major efforts toward creating a prejudice-free
environment since the end of World War II, a
declining economy has now made a mentality of fear, suspicion,
division and supremacy to come out of its fringe shell and spread
throughout the continent. In countries like Iran, hidden under the
mantle of anti-Israeli sentiment, anti-Semitism has also become a
part of foreign state policy of the government.
While
living in Europe I had the opportunity to travel to some places with
historical and cultural significance. One of the most meaningful
trips that I took was to the Dachau concentration camp in Upper
Bavaria
in the southern part of Germany [http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/index-e.html]. It was a rainy gray day. Certain
aspects of the concentration camp stood out to me. The walls and the
watchtowers were threatening. As we continued to walk through the
place we saw the cots where the prisoners would sleep. For every ten beds
they would put up to sixteen people in one room. Next door to the
bedroom was the gas chamber. The gas chamber was this empty dark
square-shaped room
which was more commonly called amongst the Nazi’s “the shower
room.” The camp held communists, political opponents, Jews,
religious minorities, Gypsies, and homosexuals. The museum of the
camp was poignantly informative. There were pictures and documents
reflecting the suffering of the victims and systematic efforts of a
regime bent on annihilating everybody whom they would assume as a
threat to their racist ideology. This experience,
which was enhanced by
a visit to the museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem accompanied by
Professor Moshe Sharon of the University of Jerusalem,
had a huge impact on me. It opened my eyes to injustices and consequences of political systems
that took advantage of peoples’ sense of insecurity and fear, promising a
utopia but in reality delivering
intense misery and unspeakable suffering.
Later,
I also had the opportunity to visit the House of Anne Frank in
Amsterdam http://www.annefrank.org/. Her life and experiences in the annex gave me a new
perspective on life,
and humbled me. Both of these experiences have helped me realize the
importance of human rights and having a non-judgmental attitude
towards everyone. The
Holocaust was the hallmark of barbarism that lurks beneath the skin
of civilization. Denial of the
Holocaust should alarm us as it usually precedes the ominous
resurgence of fascism in different forms.
My
learning journey came to fruition recently
when I visited Washington,
DC for participation in a human rights event. During this trip I had
a few free hours which gave me a chance to visit The United
States Holocaust
Memorial Museum [http://www.ushmm.org].
It was a memorable experience. I highly recommend a visit to the museum as it will
enhance you intellectually, ethically, and spiritually. President Obama's
remarkable speech while visiting the museum sums up my feelings and
aspiration during my own visit:
“We
must tell our children. But more than that, we must teach them.
Because remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture. Awareness
without action changes nothing. In this sense,
"
‘never again’ "
is a challenge to us all -- to pause and to look within. For the
Holocaust may have reached its barbaric climax at Treblinka and
Auschwitz and Belzec, but it started in the hearts of ordinary men
and women. And we have seen it again -- madness that can sweep
through peoples, sweep through nations, embed itself. The killings in
Cambodia, the killings in Rwanda, the killings in Bosnia, the
killings in Darfur -- they shock our conscience, but they are the
awful extreme of a spectrum of ignorance and intolerance that we see
every day; the bigotry that says another person is less than my
equal, less than human. These are the seeds of hate that we cannot
let take root in our heart.”
In
our educational system a student generally goes through public
schools without understanding the true purpose and application of the
subject areas not only in daily life,
but also in the scheme of history and philosophy and how our culture
has been shaped by them. Students should learn how these historical
facts fit into a larger and broader scheme. Some of the questions
they need to consider are: How have
their own lives been shaped
by the lives of people hundreds of years ago? How are
they a part of the human journey of the past and the future? What mistakes
are a constant theme throughout our collective past, and how can
we avoid making them ourselves in this age? What are the erroneous
assumptions made and are we making similar errors today? What human
characteristics have led to historical downfall of civilizations?
I fully believe that in our educational activities the student body should be reminded that no country, government, or political system can ignore or violate the human rights of its citizens. They should understand that respect for human rights is now categorically and undeniably a major premise of ethical discourse and international law. Students should learn that political differences are legitimate but they should not be a reason to applaud violators of human rights.
More than fifty years ago, on the ruins of World War II, the Declaration of Human Rights was ratified by the General Assembly of the United Nations. It is a monumental document that goes over every aspect of human rights and acknowledges that all human beings have been created equal
Dr. Dirk Riedel has kindly corrected two points on my blog. I am grateful for his feedback:
1. The bedrooms for the prisoners were in barracks. These barracks do not exist any longer (only two of them were reconstructed in 1965). The crematorium building (including the gas-chamber) was called “Barracke X” and does still exist. But the gas chamber in “Barracke X” is not next door of the bed rooms. The SS built the “Barracke X” on a separate plot of the former concentration camp. So the prisoners could not see, what was going on around this building.
2.
The
first prisoners, who died in Dachau Concentration Camp, were brought to
Munich and cremated there. In summer 1940 the SS had a crematorium
built in Dachau because the number of dead had risen dramatically. In
1942/43 a second large crematorium (the “Barracke X”) was built with
four furnaces and a gas chamber (marked as “Showers”) for mass
extermination. The prisoners, who died in Dachau concentration
camp mainly because of the exhausting work, the small food rations, the
cruelties of the guards and the deceases in the camp, since 1943 have
been cremated in the large crematorium. Also executions by hanging and
shooting in the back of the head were carried
out very often particularly in the last period of the war, whereas the
gas chamber in Dachau Concentration Camp was not used for mass
extermination. However there is some evidence, that the SS-medicine
Siegmund Rascher killed some prisoners in the Dachau gas
chamber during experiments with combat gases.
Dr. Dirk Riedel
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau
Alte Römerstr. 75
85221 Dachau
Tel. +49 (0)8131-66997-169
Fax +49 (0)8131-66997-6169
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