Dachau Liberation: There is no Liberation

At the end of Special Report on Fox News last night, they had a brief, special item: the commemoration of the liberation of Dachau, the renowned concentration camp in Germany. Instead of my usual sadness, I felt rage, as I scanned the skeletal human beings being helped to leave the camp:

On April 27, 1945, approximately 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to begin a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee, far to the south. The next day, many of the SS guards abandoned the camp. On April 29, the Dachau main camp was liberated by units of the 45th Infantry after a brief battle with the camp’s remaining guards.

As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000 survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more than 10 times that number were executed by the American liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp.

Almost no countries took in the Jews during the war, and those who did, did so at great risk. Even the U.S. and FDR tried to ignore the horrible story which was impossible to believe and initially closed the doors to the Jews:

Prisoners at Dachau were used as forced laborers, initially in the construction and expansion of the camp and later for German armaments production. The camp served as the training center for SS concentration camp guards and was a model for other Nazi concentration camps. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments. At Dachau, Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to atmospheric pressure on inmates, infected them with malaria and tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled as a result of these experiments.

But that’s history, right?

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To address the protestors across the country, you are in the process of re-establishing a new Nazi regime. Although you decry genocide, you are following in the footsteps of those who killed six million Jews and a total of 12 million people. At least they knew what they were fighting for, instead of following their leaders like lemmings.

George Washington in his letter to the Hebrew Community of Newport Rhode Island, assured us we had found a new home. Eventually we came to believe that we’d found a haven after World War II. Slowly, over time, exclusive organizations opened their doors, including universities.

But at this time we are condemned by the administration, faculty and students.

Are the doors closing once again? Are we being blamed for the problems of the world? Has the one country in the world who welcomed us begun to rue its decision?

Are we discovering, once again, that liberation is not attainable?