Dachau Pilgramige

Delegations from 15 countries attended the unveiling ceremony of the Dachau Memorial on September 8. There was no barrier between East and West, and among the countries represented were Yugoslavia, Hungary and Eastern Germany. A special welcome was extended to the delegates from Czechoslovakia. The Council of Jews from Germany and the AJR were represented by the writer. Most of the participants were either themselves ex-prisoners of Dachau or had made the pilgrimage in memory of close relatives who perished in the camp. For all of them the visit to the site, for twelve years a place of suffering, but also of untold courage, was an unsurpassable experience. Survivors located the areas where they had worked as slaves and where their barracks once stood. Each of them had to tell a story of his own. And yet, the predominant feeling was not one of bitterness or emotional excitement but of pride—and of gratitude for having been permitted to live to see this day. There were also many personal reunions of former comrades now living in different countries. The ceremonies were opened by religious services in the small memorial buildings of the three denominations. The service in the beautiful synagogue was conducted by Rabbi H. I. Gmenewald (Munich). At the official unveiling ceremony, which followed, the main speakers were the President of the International Dachau Committee. Major-General Albert Guerisse, and the Vice Premier of Bavaria, Dr. A. Hundhammer, both former Dachau prisoners. As readers will have seen from reports in the general press, the proceedings were disturbed by a dozen or so people, mainly students, who carried banners with anti-Vietnam war and anti-Nato slogans and who also tried to shout down Herr Klaus Schuetz, President of the Bundesrat and Mayor of Berlin, when he delivered a message on behalf of the Federal German Government. Unfortunately, undue prominence was given to these anti-establishment disruptions, now in vogue all over the Western world. Their instigators not only showed disrespect to the memory of tens of thousands of heroes but were also oblivious of the fact that, but for the courage of those anti-Nazis, freedom of thought and speech would have vanished from the European continent. The list of the representatives of States was headed by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, and included the Bonn ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Sir Roger Jacklin, and of Israel, Mr. A. Ben-Natan. Among the 75 members of the British delegation were Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, Mrs. Odette Hallowes (Churchill) and four M.P.s. There were also several former German and Austrian Jews in the British contingent. The flight arrangements from London were made by the British Government, which put an R.A.F. ‘plane at the disposal of the delegation. Special tributes are due to the organisers of the British transport, Mr. ” Bob ” Hollowday, G.C., and Captain B. R. Hanauer. The impressive huge monument, the unveiling of which occasioned the rally, is a fitting tribute to the victims. It depicts seven emaciated bodies, their limbs intertwined. The artist is Nid Glandor, a Yugoslav, whose brother died in the camp and whose parents perished in Auschwitz. However, not only the monument but the entire site of the former camp is a permanent memorial of the Nazi terror. The design of the area is due to the initiative of the Comite International de Dachau (Brussels), which represents organisations of former Dachau inmates in twenty countries. The major part of the costs was defrayed by the Bavarian and Federal German Government and the Municipality of Munich. The site also includes the former crematorium and some original barracks. Records of the past are displayed in a particularly well arranged museum. The exhibits not only recall the history of Dachau but also convey details of the origins of the Nazi movement and of antisemitism in Germany. They also deal with the anti-Jewish measures between 1933 and 1939, including the mass arrests during the November, 1938, pogroms, when altogether 30,000 German and Austrian Jews went through the inferno of the camps, 10,000 each in Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. These records of the pre-war crimes are of particular importance from our point of view. As the crimes committed between 1939 and 1945 and the number of people affected by them surpassed anything which had happened before, the world easily forgets that the war against humanity started in 1933 and that the German Jews were among its first victims. Sometimes it seems that even the German Jews themselves lack a necessary sense of history. Many of them have a matter of-fact approach to life. They certainly help each other where help is necessary, but are easily inclined to dismiss memorials as useless expressions of false sentimentality. The Dachau site with its museum reaffirms the importance of mementoes which visibly preserve the manifestations of a barbaric period. It is, therefore, also a hopeful symptom that the number of German visitors to the camp is steadily increasing.