A Reluctant Repost

One of the unfinished posts here on WordPress (apparently from 30Sep21) consisted of only a snippet of a quote from a long-forgotten thread I had started and gotten distracted from:

“Why? Why have you carried it so long? To remind you of the horror of Dachau, of what had been done here?”
His face carried the faintest of smiles as he shook his head. “No, son, to remind us of the horrors that we are capable of, to remind us not to go down that road again.”

A quick cut and paste of that snippet of a dialogue returned me to the station of that mental train of thought – a repost of “Dachau Will Always Be With Us” by Tony Hays.

I had reached out to the author of the blog, Matthew Rozell, to get permission to repost the entire blog here; however, in the process of waiting, I had moved on to other books and other ideas. Yet, this still echoed in my mind as I went about my days and weeks.

The term “Nazi,” much like every other quick category of disparagement in recent years, has become victim of dilution through ignorant overuse. A convenient label for the ill-informed, it could be supposed that, by comparison to one of the most evil ideologies in human history, it would suffice to draw a proper comparison between that which is deemed “appropriate” and that which is not; that which is conforming to the whims of public opinion, and that which refuses to accommodate the inflexible dogma of modern day “social justice.”

It saddens me to hear – and know – people who feel that the use of this word, among other words, and understand that they believe they are right… or “on the right side of history.” That they fundamentally perceive that their perspective are the sole just ideas; that they are hardcore absolutists who see contrast in such vivid clarity and are incapable of registering the shades of grey other than when it suits their biases.

Much of what my reading lately reflects a growing desire to understand how they in the past got to the chapters in our history books they now reside in:

Nuremberg Diary, by G.M. Gilbert…

Psychological Warfare by Paul M. A. Linebarger…

Liberty and the News, by Walter Lippmann…

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Cristopher Browning…

Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield by Hollie McKay…

The Interrogator by Raymond Toliver…

Among others, when there is time…

However, I find myself returning back to the opening quote… and my earlier post in which I mused about one of the most disconcertingly relevant episodes of The Twilight Zone: “He’s Alive.”

We often view history as a buffet of desirable morsels which is as endless as it is ripe with selection. Don’t like items with curry – no problem, there’s sweet and sour… there’s bland vegetables and sugary treats… whatever one’s desire. No taste unfulfilled… no favorite unavailable. Whatever the consumer desires; whatever direction they want to go. Whatever satisfies.

The problem is, while this is ideal, this is not an accurate reflection of every choice one could possibly explore. And just like the larger scope of history, there are some experiences which are unwarranted, unappreciated, unlikable, and downright nauseating. However, they are there… and should be understood rather than readily cast aside.

…Much like some aspects of my recent additions to my physical library. I feel compelled to try to seek not appreciation or admiration, but an understanding of how such events were allowed to happen by those who lived through them, what immediate and long-lasting impacts those events had on the individuals and societies who endured, and what – if any – similarities can be gleaned from what happened then to what is going on now.

But he never spoke of Dachau.

The picture which followed that statement of the author and his slow realization of the hell that his father carried unspoken to his grave now resides in my mind under the file of “things that can’t be unseen yet should never permitted to happen again…EVER.”

The images are of unspeakable horrors committed by man against fellow man… Ivangorod, Ukraine, 1942… Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 1941… more than I care to continue on with… The point here is not merely the evil those pictures captured, but that there was someone who was there to take the photograph… someone who seized a dark moment in time and carried it for…

…For what?

To glamorize the elimination of an “other”?

To document for future use in evidence against the perpetrator?

To justify the dehumanization of the victim?

…For whom?

For their own benefit?

To remember those who would otherwise be forgotten in the sea of statistics?

To provide accountability and/or deniability of their own actions or inactions?

To carry that physical burden of evidence that they had once been witness to something so wrong in hopes that they will never be relieved of that oppressive weight of experience?

…to remind us not to go down that road again.

I hate the word “Nazi” – all it stood for in the past, the dilution through casual usage today, and the creeping sense of dread as I watch the die being cast for another generation of rigid and inflexible ideas of the next “solution” to the problems we are creating ourselves. I hate the slow realization that this is how those lessons of the past are overwritten with the same words or ignored with the same blind adherence to the mob rule that has become the popular movements of today. I hate the distortion of the past, the present, and what the future should look like to one group or another. Those solutions, those angry words, and that insistence of one goal… they are the fodder for tomorrow’s nightmares… yet we keep feeding the beast in hopes that appeasement will work… we fight long and hard for our own biases and limitations of perspective… and we will continue to be surprised that it all happened the way it always happened.

[sigh]

However, someone carried that picture… out of the hell of the moment and into a brighter and fuller life. Perhaps outwardly, they presented an image of resilience and tenacity; there was laughter once again, and though that picture remained, it defined only the intent to never let it happen again and not the individual in his daily life.

There isn’t much to extrapolate about Tony Hays’ father in the article, but my own reading and experiences offer one possible observation: that he carried the pain in spite of the pain he carried; he persevered… the found the determination and will to ensure that “never again” remained “never again.”

Those stories – and the weight of their words and implications – need to be remembered so that they are not renewed.