Before we are overcome with gemütlichkeit we should remember that the Germans also gave the world the concentration camp at Dachau.
Compared to Auschwitz the Dachau of today is sanitized. There isn’t really much to see. Only two barracks and the crematoria remain from the horror that was Dachau of the 1930s and 40s. But the documentary film depicting the humiliation and degradation inflicted on the inmates of Dachau pulled no punches. Dachau was among the first concentration camps and became a model for the work camps that followed. The first inmates to pass the “Arbeit Machts Frei” sign were political prisoners, including priests. Then came the Jews in the tens of thousands. Homosexuals and gypsy Romas followed, with a smattering of punks, criminals and other sociopaths. Barracks designed to house 200 people had ten times that number, 63,000 by the end of the war. And how many thousands died or were executed in the interim? The documentary kept emphasizing that the gas chamber constructed in the 40s was never used for mass exterminations. As if that excused the starvation, beatings, hangings, shootings and medical experiments that would gag Dr. Moreau. All this took place in an otherwise pleasant town under the noses of the German version the Cleaver family. And no one noticed?!
As the film ended all of us sat in shocked silence and despair filled the room.
