“Dachau is a reminder to all people around the globe, a reminder that we can fall into such ignorance, where our fear and pride blind us into seeing the Other as something that can be used and destroyed, or simply ignored, to assuage our own anxieties.”

The Dachau Concentration Camp is powerful and subtle. It has worked on me for days. The International Memorial, unveiled in 1968, has two main plaques. On the west:

“May the example of those that were exterminated here between 1933 – 1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow man.”

On the east, the monument simply says, “Never again.” It does not say “Never forget”, which might be used as a battle cry for some future horror. Simply, “Never again”, a reminder to all when faced with fear of the Other.

Dachau is not important because it was the biggest concentration camp (it wasn’t) or had the most deaths (it didn’t.) Dachau is important because it was the first and was the model for the Nazi concentration camp system. At Dachau, the SS honed their skills and trained their recruits in the maltreat of those deemed less than, the Other that threated the vision of National Socialism and the purity of the Germanic race. Modern production techniques were applied to enslave the Other for the purposes of the Reich, to be worked to death, consumed like spare parts on the production line, with only enough care and feeding provided to balance the supply chain. Of course death was processed with equal efficiency, converting corpses into ashes for easier disposal. It was not until the coal ran out and the Allied armies approached, did the bodies begin to pile up, forming the subject of post-war holocaust photographs. But, we know all this.

The message of Dachau is not about Germany, the German people, or even the Nazis, even though these are the forms that gave rise to such atrocities. It is too easy treat Dachau as a product of Hitler and the Third Reich, pushing the events outside of ourselves, to the history books of war and memorials for the victims. No, Dachau is a reminder to all people around the globe, a reminder that we can fall into such ignorance, where our fear and pride blind us into seeing the Other as something that can be used and destroyed, or simply ignored, to assuage our own anxieties. When we find ourselves looking to the Other as the source of our problems, we are on the road to Dachau. While it is a long road with many crossroads and even opportunities for U-turns, we must learn to recognize when we are on that road.

Anyone who doubts the validity of human spirituality need only visit Dachau. Here the pain and suffering of thousands upon thousands of human beings is held, not in the museum and reconstructed barracks, but, in the gravel filled foundations across the camp, in the ash fields beyond the crematorium, and in the religious monuments constructed at the rear, where the worst of the worst (the Jews) were held as far away as possible from everyone else. Here the Judeo-Christian religions, as imperfect forms as they may be, constructed monuments, not as alters to the Sky God, but, as atonement for the greatest sin of all, indifference, the denial of life itself. That is the message of Dachau – never again.

Post Script: The original post was written in September, 2011, in Munich, Germany after visiting the Dachau concentration camp on a crisp, clear Saturday and visiting opening night of October Feast the same day.  This was nearly a decade ago.  In the wake of the November 2020 elections in the US and the rise a fascism in America, reposting seems appropriate.  Never forget. The road to Dachau is all too easy to follow.