War is Ugly

On the train ride from Munich to Clermont-Ferrand, I typed up my thoughts about our visit to Dachau. That's what the second part of this post is. Before I had time to edit a final draft, though, we also visited Normandy. I think it's appropriate to include a few thoughts on that experience, too. Both of these places tell the same story from a different vantage point: war is ugly. It's ugly for the innocent civilians who get caught in the crossfire of waring nations, and it's ugly for the soldiers who are enlisted to fight for their country's interests.

Part I: Normandy

The train ride from Paris to Normandy was about two and a half hours. It was enough time for Jackie and I to watch the better part of Saving Private Ryan. War seemed a little less glamorous after that. The opening scene shows a boat full of soldiers preparing to storm Omaha Beach. They’re shaking. They look absolutely panicked. As soon as the door to the boat opens, they’re sprayed with ammunition. They all die. Their hopes and dreams are cut short… Just like that. For them, there will be no glorious homecoming at the end of the war. No returning to their loved ones. That's it. It's horrible to think about, and it made our visit to the American Cemetery and Omaha Beach later that day a little more meaningful.

Walking around the cemetery was somber. It was emotional. When you think about each one of the crosses representing a human life lost in the war, it moves you. Quinton had a little moment. He told me he started thinking about his wife and how so many soldiers left behind spouses, too. I can’t even imagine. We talked about how grateful we are that we don’t live in a time when there’s a draft. And how war has never been a reality for us. We’re so far removed from it. But at the same time, that’s not true everywhere in the world. In places like Aleppo, the horrors of war are real. It still happens. The Western world is relatively stable, but war is a reality in so many places.

On one of the memorials at Omaha Beach, there was a quote from General Dwight D. Eisenhower just a few days after D-Day:

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can... Yet there is one thing to be said on the credit side. Victory required a mighty manifestation of the most ennobling virtues of man—faith, courage, fortitude, sacrifice.

A world without war would be wonderful, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately. And I don't know how to make peace with that. What I do know is that the brave men and women who are willing to make that sacrifice are deserving of the highest honor and respect. In my mind, there is not a more selfless sacrifice than giving up your own life so that others can be free.

Part II: Dachau

Dachau. What an emotional experience. I’m glad I went, but it wasn’t pleasant. There’s nothing nice about seeing a place where thousands of innocent people were stripped of their humanity, slaughtered, and disposed of like useless animals. I think there’s a reason the holocaust is remembered as a particularly dark moment in human history. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany was a unique brand of evil. It was systematic and sophisticated—more so than any operation we’ve seen since. Donald Trump’s campaign is often compared to Hitler’s, but I don’t think that’s the best comparison. I actually think that gives too much credit to Trump.

Trump is running for president in a country that is pretty well off. The United States is the most powerful economy in the world and has had a stable democracy for more than 200 years. Racism still exists and globalization hasn’t benefited everyone, but overall, things are not that bad. Trump has written a few books about how to make deals and money, but he has never contemplated politics much deeper than that. He’s a celebrity and a businessman. He talks big, but he does not have the conviction or discipline for politics that Hitler had.

When Hitler rose to power, Germany was in trouble. The country had been embarrassed on the international stage by the Treaty of Versailles. Post-WWI reconstruction benefited a few but harmed the majority, and the stock market crash certainly didn’t help. Germans were rightfully frustrated with their nation’s seemingly unsuccessful transition to democracy, and Hitler capitalized on that. Hitler had been a political prisoner and authored his own biography, Mein Kampf, by the time he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He was elected in March, and Dachau opened in April. Within a couple years, Hitler had successfully codified anti-semitic laws. Moral character aside, he was a brilliant organizer and strategist.

One of the most disturbing parts of Dachau was actually how well it was organized, packaged, and sold to the public. People in Munich weren’t aware of what was going on in the camp. I think the best comparison is the crazy old man with conspiracy theories about how the government is performing secret tests on human subjects. Nobody believes him, and he usually is just a crazy old man. But in the case of Nazi Germany, the crazy old man was right. Dachau was organized so that no one on the outside knew what was going on and no one on the inside could escape and tell the truth. The fence around the border consisted of a no-entry zone, a ditch, barbed wire, and a four-meter-tall electric fence. Prisoners were shot if they entered the no-entry zone, but if that didn’t stop them, the ditch, barbed wire, or electric fence did the trick. Conditions were so bad that prisoners often threw themselves at the electric fence because death seemed like a better option than trying to survive. That wasn’t the description that was sold to the public, though.

The words “arbeit macht frei” are still written on the gate into Dachau. In English, that means “work makes you free.” As far as the public was concerned, concentration camps were good things for the prisoners. But that was far from the truth. Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Poles, Soviets, and political prisoners were treated like scum. They were starved, ordered around, beaten, or shot, depending on the guard’s mood. Living conditions were rough to begin with, but by the time Dachau was liberated in 1945, more than 30,000 people were crammed into barracks meant for 6,000. Thousands died, and their remains were simply burned in one of the camp’s two crematoriums. No funerals. Just death.

When I was younger, I figured war was something you eventually became comfortable with, but the more I think about the individual lives affected, the less comforting it is. I doubt any of the Jews thrown in concentration camps wanted to be involved with WWII. They were civilians. They had families. Jobs. Hopes. Dreams. But all of those were cut short. It was unsettling to walk around a place that was the end for so many people. For me, Dachau was a memorial. It was a place to visit and pay tribute to those who lost their lives. At the end of the day, I knew I’d be back in a nice, warm bed. But for others—so many others—that wasn’t the case. Dachau was it.

It’s hard to comprehend how the Nazis could have done something so terrible. I think part of it was that they actually didn’t regard the prisoners as members of the same human family. When Dachau was liberated, Nazi leaders were forced to look at the piles of bodies waiting to be cremated. That must have been hard to stomach. It’s easier to be terrible when you can separate yourself emotionally and physically from the situation. That’s exactly what Hitler’s Nazi regime was designed to do.

I think it would be naive to write off the holocaust as something that will never happen again. I certainly don’t think we’re on the verge of something similar happening anytime soon, but we shouldn’t be complacent. We may be more technologically advanced than we were 80 years ago, but the human condition is the same. Every new generation is subject to the same cognitive biases and racist tendencies as previous generations. We need to be cognizant of that. When people say they’re being oppressed, I think we owe it to them to listen. It’s when we stop listening that things get bad. We start blaming others for our misfortunes. We dismiss pleas for help. We become hostile. But when we listen, we remember that everyone else in the world, no matter their ethnicity, is trying to find happiness just like we are. That’s beautiful. And I think that’s the direction we’re moving.

I’m optimistic that it is, anyway.