April 29, 1945: American forces liberate the prisoners of Dachau Concentration Camp, Dachau, Germany. Among other monstrosities, 30 boxcars filled with decomposing dead. Remember.
The horror of what they found led American GI's to blindly kill 122 German soldiers and guards out of anger and guilt for the atrocities in front of them. Remember.
American soldiers forced the German townspeople and suspected Hitler youth into the camps to see what had happened in their backyards. In some towns, U.S. forces even had the locals rebury the dead in individual graves. Remember.
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| Liberation day |
Dachau, made for approximately 5,000 prisoners, held 67,665 as the end of the war drew near. Remember.
Dachau was in operation for 10 years. Remember.
Dachau held political prisoners of war, Romas, "asocials", Jehohvah's Witnesses, homosexuals and later, Jews. Remember.
Propaganda was so thick and evil, that high officials of Germany and even international media ingested it, making Dachau out to be a dream facility of swimming pools, daily exercise and hygiene, and the teaching of craftsmanship in different trades. Remember.
Not only was Dachau a work camp, but it eventually had its own gas chamber and crematorium for the sick and weak. Prisoners were told of showers and met eternity. Prisoners were hung in front of the cremation fires and disposed of. Those left behind had to see the smoke of the chimney stack. Remember.
Medical experiments were conducted on prisoners to benefit the German troops and hundreds died or were permanently crippled due to their effects. Remember.
The number of the dead will never be known, although 206,206 were incarcerated. Between 1940 and 1945, 28,000 were among the registered dead. Remember.
I write of these things because we don't remember. There are those who say it didn't even happen.
Those who lived through this very hell on earth and those who remember seeing its darkness aren't here any more to remind us of history's reality.
The reality of: humanity degraded, lives stolen never to be returned, the image in Who they were created ignored and blasphemed, discrimination practiced, and animality placed on those who had real dreams and hopes and plans, souls disregarded.
Yet when we forget, when we choose not to remember or perhaps, don't think to remember, repetition occurs. It is occurring, peoples of the earth, and we sit and ignore it though it is in our own backyards.
I could have posted graphic pictures, images that rend the heart in two to think of the reality captured in time. I haven't. Go look for yourself. Remind yourself of what can happen when a government and leadership control supreme and the media dupes populations with agendas, meanwhile thousands upon thousands have the respect, honour, rights and greatest gift of life, stripped from them while we stand in silence.
Yes, remember Dachau. Remember its prisoners and dead. Remember the American forces who, through determination, blood and sweat, opened the gates on that day 68 years ago, giving hope to survivors. Remember the other Allied Forces who helped make the liberation a reality.
Remind your children. Let them remind their own children.
And never let this taint your views of the country that holds these camps and the people who lived in their shadows, whose government perpetrated this great evil. In so doing, you judge yourself as even now, your own governments silently head in the same direction and you stand silent.
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| "Work makes you free" |
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| Room of interrogation |
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| Political prisoner cell |
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| "Home Sweet Home" inscribed by prisoner |
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| Dachau bunks |
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| A face to remember |
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| The "shower room" (gas chamber) |
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| Dachau's alley |
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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - George Santayana
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| Spring comes even to the darkest of places |
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there's no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when he is silent.
- excerpt from poem written in a concentration camp, author unknown
