Carmel: Why it has happened to me

I've been in the UK the last few days, visiting my family in St Albans and Portsmouth. It's strange returning home after being in Munich for so long; everything is normal, understandable and familiar, from places I've been to the newspapers I read. I enjoy the strangeness of living in Germany and being immersed in a different culture, but at the same time it's nice to be home.

There's a very potent word/concept right there. Home. For many people it is the place you grew up, or where your family live. For others, it is something more complex. I remember hearing somebody ask a Methodist friend of mine rather casually "Where's home for you?", obviously not expecting the long, soul searching answer they received in reply. Over the past few years, the idea of home and where I feel at home has been going through my mind. More often than not, I refer to places where I am living as home, such as York, Konstanz and finally Munich. Sometimes, I may even refer to St Albans or London as home. Yet these thoughts are occurring at a deeper level than thinking superficially of a location.

I consider home to be where I am most comfortable, where I am able to grow and where I feel loved. This of course transcends concepts of place and finds its meaning in relationships and personal worth, in communities, in family. At twenty two years old, I believe it's normal to be considering "What's home for me?" I believe I may have found it. In September 2011, I will enter the Carmelite Order as a novice friar.

For some people who read this blog (some of you Carmelites) this will have been pretty clear from previous posts about Carmelites in KZ Dachau, about my growing faith and other such things that people who think about religious life dwell on too much. For others this may be a bolt out of the blue. Either way, this is a way of life that has tempted me from my first months at university. At York I developed a close relationship with the Carmelite friars and laity in the city, and they accepted me, bad music taste, cynicism and all. I met friars visiting York, I began to attend Carmelite Spirituality Group meetings and found myself with a group of imperfect but honest and good people. In April 2009 I began to visit friar communities in the UK, wondering if I could really live with these people. Essentially, it has now taken me almost four years to say, "Yes, let's try."

Many things have gone through my mind, including many fears and worries. Am I simply trying to escape the 'real' world of student debt and dead-end jobs, running away from responsibilities? Do I really want to give up the chance of having children? Why not 'live' a few years, and allow God to pull me back in with G.K. Chesterton's proverbial 'twitch upon the thread' once I've had a few years of libertine living? These are worthwhile questions, and ones to which I cannot answer certainly 'No.' However, there are two more questions which the Carmelites consider more important. They are "Can you grow with us?" and "Are you comfortable with us?". To these I can answer with a sheepish, "Yes, possibly."

The novitiate isn't intended to be an everlasting commitment. It is an opportunity to taste and see, to try the lifestyle. Of course I would like to believe that I will remain for longer, but I will not know that until I have tried religious life, experienced its rhythm of prayer become routine, been forced to live with the dynamics of community.

In 1930, a week after his conversion to Catholicism, Evelyn Waugh wrote an article for the Daily Express entitled "Converted to Rome: Why it has happened to me." (the title of this blog should now make more sense as a literary reference no-one understands. Go me.) Conversion begins with a contradiction of that statement, the willingness to stand up and accept an invitation to grow. The rest of the experience is however often passive. Carmelite spirituality sometimes feels like that. I did not wake up one day and say "Today I will be a Carmelite", it just happened that I realised I felt at home with a bunch of imperfect, middle aged men and that they might be able to teach me something about who I really am.

That may change, maybe not. All I know is that right now I feel at home with them. I feel no need to perform, no pressure to impress them, no desperation to fill an awkward silence. I can be me. Even better, I might be able to learn who 'me' is. That journey, the one we all take, continues in a new way in September.

The Lessons of Chernobyl

On the 26th April 1986, twenty five years ago this year, the name Chernobyl entered our lexicon as a byword for nuclear disaster. After a power surge caused by a failed experiment to make the plant run more efficiently, a number of explosions erupted in the plant's fourth reactor. The resulting fire led to huge quantities of radioactive material being spread for thousands of miles and across most of mainland Europe. The Soviet authorities didn't tell the world what had happened for almost three days, and the nearby town of Pripyat, not far from the border between the Ukraine and Belarus and the 'worker's town' for Chernobyl, was only evacuated days after being irradiated with highly dangerous levels of fallout. Pripyat was a ghost town by the end of the year.

In Germany the Chernobyl disaster is being commemorated with a travelling exhibition called Tschernobyl: Menschen - Orte - Solidaritaet, People - Places - Solidarity. The official opening for the Munich leg of the tour was in Munich Central Station this afternoon, a low key affair with one of the city's mayors and representatives of various groups involved with the exhibition. There was a lot of press there, a few religious as well, but only a few members of the public.

Today, for better or worse, Chernobyl stands for two things in Germany: Nuclear Power and Government Silence. Ask most Germans about Chernobyl and they will talk about the disastrous consequences of nuclear power when it goes wrong. German energy and environmental policies were shaped for decades afterwards by the amount of fallout that covered much of East and West Germany. Germans only learnt that they had been irradiated by the radioactive material from Chernobyl three days after the event. The weather had been unseasonably warm the days before, and thousands of southern Germans had been playing, eating and working outside as the fallout began to settle.

In the exhibition there are news reports showing Geiger Counters reacting to playgrounds in Bavaria. There are Vox Pops with people in Munich city centre weeping with anxiety. They had been eating lunch in the garden, their children playing outside as the radioactive material fell. They speak in rushed, high pitched voices, not believing a word they hear from the government and not knowing exactly how badly they have been affected. This had a direct impact on the role of Nuclear power in Germany. The Atomkraft Nein Danke's smiley red sun has become a stalwart of environmental movements the world over, and the German Green Party has been the most successful in the world, power sharing from 1997-2005 with the Social Democrats.

Secondly, the Chernobyl disaster is a lesson in government secrecy. There is a reason why the Soviet authorities kept quiet about their tests and the ensuing explosion, and it had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with the health of millions of people. The explosion came a year after Gorbachev's promise of Glasnost, Openness. Many were left dumbfounded by their silence, and it was no coincidence that less than five years later the system that kept the world ignorant would have toppled, not least because of the estimated 18 Billion Ruble cost of the clean up for an already limping Soviet economy.

However, there is another side which has been primarily forgotten by the West. Chernobyl left a huge humanitarian crisis in its wake as over 350,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Many can only return once a year to visit the graves of their relatives. Some returned a few years later, many of them old and prepared to bear the risk of radiation in order to die where they had spent the best years of their lives. Thousands of children are still affected by Chernobyl, many of them deformed, afflicted with cancer among other illnesses and abnormalities. According to some estimates, as many as 900,000 cancer deaths between 1986-2004 could be attributed to Chernobyl.

The emphasis there is on the "could be". Conditionals are all we have in this situation, as it is almost impossible to accurately attribute somebody's death to radiation poisoning twenty five years later. It is this state of unknowing, of ignorance of the facts, that has left people confused and anxious in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.

The exhibition is well laid out and considers a number of angles. One is first introduced to the story itself, the explosion, the cover up and the international outcry. Then there is a section looking at the international response, the Atomkraft, Nein Danke movement and government aid to the nations most affected (Did you know 60% of radioactive material fell on Belarus? I didn't.) Finally we see the current situation, the rebuilding of homes and communities as well as the search for alternatives to nuclear power. There is a panel with a number of different words. We. 24,000 Years (the time it will take Pripyat to return to normal levels. Three Mile Island. Cancer. Hope.

One word is absent from the list, but is all the same very much present at the opening: Fukushima.

The name is now used in the same breath as Chernobyl, and indeed it has led to a resurgence of Atomkraft Nein Danke protests and public anger at the current CDU/CSU-FDP alliance's attempt to postpone the decommissioning of Germany's few remaining nuclear power stations. Yet to me, at a commemoration of the Chernobyl disaster, this seems almost perverse. No doubt many have suffered in Fukushima and in northern Japan, and their suffering is something we must not ignore as it slips off the front pages, but in comparison to Chernobyl few people have been directly affected by nuclear meltdown. Only one person of the thousands dead in the earthquake was killed directly by the meltdown at Fukushima, and the prognosis is good for the community around the plant. Even George Monbiot, a man revered with a demigod-like aura by environmentalists and metro-liberals now actually supports nuclear power as a result of Fukushima. This is not to dismiss out of hand the fear felt by people when they saw the images of evacuations and smoking reactors. A witness to the events present at the exhibition opening this evening said it felt like Chernobyl was occurring all over again. That is a perfectly understandable fear, and safety issues should never be ignored. Thousands of peoples lives were altered by the earthquake in Japan earlier this year.

Yet Chernobyl acts as a spotlight on a number of other issues, and they are clouded out when we link it with other nuclear disasters and turn it solely into an environmental issue. It is as much an environmental issue as a Central/Eastern European cultural and social issue. To have learned from Chernobyl isn't simply to slap a green badge on your lapel, but also to look at the wreckage the Soviet Union left in its wake.

Over 60% of all the fallout ended up in Belarus, and over 6,000 children are currently diagnosed with thyroid cancer linked to radiation exposure. Reactor 4 still isn't completely covered, as the Ukrainian authorities still haven't raised enough money to fully encase the reactor in lead. In the Ukraine there is only one clinic in Kiev for the entire country dedicated to looking after those born with Chernobyl-linked abnormalities and cancers. This is a humanitarian issue, largely forgotten by the rest of the world.

Those responsible for organising the exhibition were Naturschutzbund Bayern (Envionmental Protection Association of Bavaria), Tschernobyl Kinderhilfe Muenchen e.V (Munich Help for Chernobyl Children) and Renovabis, a Catholic organisation with responsibility for Central/Eastern European Solidarity. It was the last group, Renovabis, who at the exhibition opening put the most emphasis on helping those in Central and Eastern Europe. They acknowledge the fact that the transition into a post-Cold War society has not been entirely successful and that many areas experienced economic and social turmoil when the Soviet Union collapsed. I have been interested in their work for a while now, as there is no similar group in the UK to speak of.

You've already noticed from previous posts how I feel about Central and Eastern Europe after these nine months in Dachau. Listening to what I have heard from colleagues of mine, coupled with the experience of spending those precious few days with the Dachau survivors from the former Soviet Union, it has made me think about our attitudes to Eastern Europe. I strongly suggest you have a look at Renovabis , or at the very least their Information in English. It is perhaps the only organisation I have seen that faces the poverty that lies right under our noses.

Everything I have done here in Dachau seems to be forcing my attention in one direction: East. It is a part of the world that has always remained, in the words of Winston Churchill, "A riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma". He, like all Englishmen, likely said "Russia" when he meant "The Soviet Union". Chernobyl continues to bring people's attention to the Ukraine and its neighbours, and should force us to face up to our responsibility as European neighbours to work in solidarity with their poor. Yes, Nuclear power can be dangerous and yes, we should look to find renewable alternative energy sources that will mean we never have to take such a risk with people's lives again. However this should not be done at the expense of forgetting the local issues that arose from the Chernobyl disaster, which millions in Eastern Europe still live with today. If we turn away from the millions affected in Eastern Europe, then we really haven't learned anything from Chernobyl

Renovabis: An Act of Solidarity of German Catholics with the people of Central and Eastern Europe. The name comes from Psalm 104 "You (God) will renew the face of the Earth".

Thoughts on Violence 1: Cocaine Cowboys

On my 14th Birthday I received Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a computer game for the Playstation 2. The GTA series has always been popular among teenage boys for the freedom it creates in this virtual world to do as you please. There are missions that you complete to open up new functions, but otherwise you are in charge of gameplay. In such games, you often discover that when given the chance, you like to be anti-social. You can perform drive-bys, beat pedestrians to death and steal cars. The thing that received most media attention at its release was the fact you could pick up prostitutes and have sex with them - you see the car rock and your money slowly disappearing - then kill them afterwards.

For me this was fun (and yes, I am aware of the difference between virtual reality and the real world!), but it wasn't my favourite aspect of the game. With GTA: Vice City, you were set loose on the glamorous, neon-lit world of South Florida in the 1980s. Men with Hawaiian shirts and white slacks roam your estate with pistols; sports cars motor past every few seconds and the sunset is always a mixture of purple and orange shades. This culture fascinated me. Every song on the radio was solid gold, and then on came Crockett's Theme by Jan Hammer. The first time I heard it, I put the game on pause and simply listened. It remains to this day my favourite song, and kick-started my interest in the social and cultural history of the 1980s. Eight years on from that fourteenth birthday gift and my interest is undiminished. I have now seen every episode of Miami Vice, which was a groundbreaking television show in its use of colour, violence and music to tell a story. Jan Hammer's soundtrack became a character in itself.

However, it is only really in the past couple of years that I have begun to look at the history of the South Florida Drug trade in perspective, separating the fact from the fiction. Although life did begin to imitate art in that people began wearing light Armani jackets and Ray Ban sunglasses, the show was of course a work of fiction. The reality was far more violent, as you will discover when you watch the superb documentary Cocaine Cowboys (2006).

In 1981, Time produced a cover feature called "Paradise Lost?", looking at the horrendous homicide levels in Miami at that time. Most people measure homicide in deaths per hundred thousand people. The UK is about 1 death per 100,000, a very low figure. In the United States as a whole, the figure hovers around 4-5 deaths per 100,000. For Miami in 1981, the figure was 70 per 100,000. Given many historians name Medieval Oxford as the most homicidal city in history with 40 deaths per 100,000, this sounds like a city out of control.

A number of factors contributed to this figure. Firstly, the drugs. The cocaine trade was at its peak and Miami was the gateway to the USA for most South American countries. Thousands of kilos, known in the trade as 'pieces' or 'keys', were brought in by boat or dropped along the West Floridian coastline by planes. The city was brimming with the white stuff. Obviously, when so much money is in play, there comes guns and violence. Many of the foot soldiers of this war came over in 1980, when Fidel Castro sent hundreds of thousands of Cubans from Mariel Harbour to Miami. A significant proportion of these were murderers, rapists and thieves (the film Scarface is based on this) but not all of them were. However there were enough to begin the Cocaine Wars between rival factions.

Why do I write all this? Recently I have been once again mulling over the nature of violence. I had a few seminars on violence as part of my degree course, and from that I realised that violence was more often than not either something done when in the heat of the moment or something coded and controlled to prevent deaths. In Dachau, we consider one of the historical deviations from this theory, i.e the cold blooded, systematic execution of violence to control, humiliate and often kill political opponents. The violence of the Nazi persecutions was perpetrated with a particular aim in mind. Mass murder was committed in the most economic way possible.

The situation in Miami in the 1970s and 80s was actually quite old fashioned compared to the Holocaust. Rival groups of Cubans and Columbians had feuds, which escalated until somebody, normally the Police, said 'enough!' and stopped them. There were triple homicides, multiple homicides of six, seven, ten people, but the murder of women and children was always frowned upon. Codes of honour exist and control the 'distribution' of violence. Miami was a city unable to control its violence, and thus thousands of people died. However, it is surprising how so many of those involved seem to have come to terms with the violence. It is often justified either by their refusal to pay, insulting the head of a rival family, or defaulting on a delivery. Those involved accept there is a price to the wealth and glamour that comes with dealing cocaine, and that is often death.

In some ways however, the situation depicted in Miami is also amoral in a modern way. Many involved with the trade at that time blame Hispanic culture and their 'hot-bloodedness' for the number of people dead, yet all acts of violence were more often than not codified. Every death was an execution for getting in someone's way. There was even 'collateral damage', people who were sprayed with bullets for being at the same table as a person with a 'hit' on their heads.

Yet I find this kind of mass murder inconsequential. I watch Miami Vice still, aware of the erroneous image of a neon paradise it portrays, and cannot equate the images I see with the reality. Murder is accepted as a given in the case of Miami c. 1981. Although this was not death for death's sake such as was the case in Europe 1942, there does seem to be a similar attitude towards those who are killed - "Somebody's gotta die!". There is also a justification behind their deaths on both sides of the law. While the Columbian gangs kill for a contravention of an honour code, the FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and the Miami-Dade Police Department by the end were ready to shoot first and ask questions later. Extremely few episodes of Miami Vice ended in arrest; more often than not there was a shoot out. The Police were prepared to admit that their system of justice was failing and that murder was a justifiable alternative, an attitude best expressed in the 1972 film Dirty Harry for example.

Miami in the 1970s and 1980s is a curious middle ground between the old world of violence as something committed in the heat of the moment and resorted to so that order may be maintained, and the new in which violence is mindless and indiscriminatory. I actually find the violence of Miami quite comforting, or at least thinking about it.

before you close this page and mark me down as a sociopath, let me explain. People deal with violence and their capacity to commit violence by explaining it, by codifying it in order to control its limited use. Watch Cocaine Cowboys and you'll eventually come to the case of Jorge "Rivi" Ayala, who became the chief hitman for Griselda "The Godmother" Blanco. He speaks often of killing people, but only when he talks about the 'accidental' murder of a dealer's three year old son does he see his actions as horrific. He refuses to kill women and children, only those involved in the war. As far as he is concerned, he is justified. When watching the documentary, looking at the history, it is clear that the vast majority of those who died in Miami in those years were involved intimately with the drugs trade. In one sense, they deserved it.

I work daily with the history of a place where violence had a purpose and a function, but is nowhere near as easy to explain. People were systematically murdered and maltrated for their nationality, their ethnicity. The Holocaust challenges every preconception we have about violence there is, particularly our ability to control and justify its implementation for the greater good. The cocaine fuelled violence of the late 1970s and early 1980s in some ways makes sense to me. It scares me that it does, because under the same precepts the Holocaust made perfect sense to millions of people. When we accept that violence is justifiable 'in some cases', we need to accept that we are not the only ones who determine what those 'cases' can be.

Witnesses through their wounds...

One of the pleasures of my work is being able to practice my translation skills, and during the Liberation Day commemorations one of my tasks included translating a couple of speeches into English. This homily was delivered by Mr. Ludwig Schmidinger on the 1st May 2011 at an ecumenical service to commemorate the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp. The Gospel reading for the day was from John 20: 19-31.

"Two-thirds of a century has now passed and more than two, almost three, generations have been born since Dachau Concentration Camp was liberated by American soldiers on the 29th April 1945.

Once more we remember this day of liberation, which brought a long sought after freedom to the approximately 30,000 people who up to then had been incarcerated here. From that day on they would no longer have to live without rights, without protection or without dignity.

From this day on they knew they would no longer be used and abused as expendable and worthless tools, and then thrown away like rubbish and exterminated. It was the day on which those who had already died would be recognized for what they were: the remains of people who each had their own story and personality, and each of whom had a unique dignity.

It was the day on which life once more had a chance, on which hope could blossom anew.

For those who survived it was a long hoped-for miracle, that after so many years of deprivation, of need, of humiliation, of abuse and of arbitrary murder, they should receive another chance at life; that after many years experiencing complete abandonment – by God and the World – finally there was the expectation that they would be able to live in peace and security, and above all with dignity.

Today is also the day on which we were all called, including those born later, to remember what happened; the day on which we also remember why our Constitution begins with a quote that is both a proposition and at the same time a passionate call to attention:
In Article 1, Line 1 it reads: “The dignity of humanity is untouchable. To respect and protect it is the duty of all state force.”

One year before the liberation, Edgar Kupfer Koberwitz, who was interred in Dachau Concentration Camp on the 8th November 1940, wrote:
„So the war cannot last much longer…“[1] and: „Everything is in expectation of the invasion, we are all on edge: will they come, or won’t they?-“ [2]. and “I myself have premonitions of death, but I do not know whether they are ideas or from a desire to die. – I am so tired, emotionally as well. –“… “I feel so miserable, that I am incapable of anything. – I cannot sleep at night, and I want everyone to just go away. –however I believe I will not leave the camp.
- Nothing makes sense anymore. –But I would have liked to have organised everything in my life, paid my debts, made my work ready for print. And there is still so much unwritten in me. – I have absolutely no right to begin to write. – I am also not happy, neither in life nor in love.

It would be easy for me to die, I almost long for it. – Only the things left unfinished unsettle me, that I will be unable to pay my small debts and that my manuscript will still be so incomplete. – Were everything published or awaiting publication in secure hands, I would feel more at ease- but the power, that power that creates, brings forth from us that which can take away from us and take away that which has been given us, will know better what is good.” [3]

On the day of liberation in a long entry he then describes which thoughts and feelings plague him. He observes exactly what is going on around him and what is going on within him.
The day is over, this 29th April, - I will remember it my whole life long, celebrate it as my second birthday, as the day when life was presented to me anew. - Is it is too hasty, to accept this date so? – The battle rages on, and the fortunes of war can easily change. –
It was a lovely and yet such a bloody Sunday. – Funny that everything should end the way it began. Everything began bloodily, and so it will end. –
The Americans entered the camp at 11:45am.”[4]

And three day later he wrote: “I must see what the camp now looks like, -I want to see with my own eyes how much it has changed. –I would also see old comrades, my polish and other comrades from Präzifix, take them by the hand, then apart from the Germans and the Russians see if they are really all there. –However above everything else it is important that I take the manuscripts, the diary, the book about Dachau from their hiding place, and that I do it in the presence of the Americans, so that no one can say later on that it might not have been written here. – “ [5]

Yes, it also dealt with bearing witness, already then, even today: bearing witness to that which had happened – also with the wounds that had been inflicted upon them in the years gone by, to an extent that many people did not want to believe. They had many wounds – some visible and permanent, and some that were not so obvious – that remain despite it all – as signs burned irrevocably into memory.
Externally their incarceration was at an end – yet how long and how strong they would remain imprisoned in their memories. Often survivors needed thirty years or more before they could show this and, in addition, their deeply buried psychological injuries. How long the after effects had a hold on them.

„I suffered greatly from the after-effects of my imprisonment in the concentration camp.” Princess Irmingard of Bavaria, among others, expressed her experiences as such. Paintings she made from around 1980 onwards of her own recollections are impressive and moving witnesses to the horrors and the fears she had to go through. You can still see these paintings on display in the Lecture Room of the Church of Reconciliation.

Just as it happened to many people, it happened to the majority. The inner liberation took much longer – even now in the present it is not entirely possible.

Memories of the pain, of the longing for fathers, mothers, siblings and friends make themselves apparent right up to the present day in the thanks and feelings, the dreams of the survivors.

As well as this, not a little of the segregation and degradation by the majority in society carried on once the Nazi Terror had ended: The Sinti and Romany communities in particular, who in the same way were exposed to wicked persecution and extermination for racial reasons just the same as the Jews, had to experience it again and again.

In today’s Gospel it says that the disciples had shut themselves away because they were afraid of the Jews. As we know, the young church saw itself threatened by various and, in part, very complicated circumstances and, above all, by the Jewish establishment. This historical experience and circumstance unfortunately found its enduring expression in the form of polemical attacks against Jews in general, above all in John’s Gospel. Again and again this polemic, which hinges entirely on historical context, would be the basis and cause of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism within society, and within the Church itself.

As recent as the Second Vatican Council, and once more through the proclamations and actions of John Paul the 2nd, such interpretations have been categorically and undeniably decreed as false.

The message which lies in this Easter Gospel really shows us exactly the opposite: it is the Resurrected One alone, who despite his own wounds proclaims peace. Indeed the disciples come to Him through their fear and despite their caginess, He who went through anxiety, torture and death. He reveals himself with his wounds as the one through whom the Spirit brings freedom.

The Spirit, that is so free that it can overcome hatred and forgive sin. No wonder there is somebody there who doubts it.

The miracle is that this is possible: to be mortally wounded and despite everything express no hatred. To have to suffer death himself and then forgive those who have let him down.

We should not allow ourselves to misunderstand this: No-one today can and may demand that the survivors should forgive kindly. No, the opposite is true: we who did not have to suffer all of that, can and may see and experience with amazement and gratitude how many of the survivors have overcome a justifiable and comprehensive hatred, or did not even see it as an issue in the first place;

The extent to which they see contemporary Germans entirely blameless and have only one wish themselves: that they recognize and take seriously the responsibility that arises from their history.

The extent to which survivors are prepared to do that which Jesus also did for Thomas: show us the wounds and the suffering that they put Him through. And the extent to which they are prepared to trust us to take on board and carry on their witness, their message.

The biggest misunderstanding of National Socialism was to think that only those without wounds, the unwounded, are authentic people. The Good News of Christianity, which in German is identified with the greek word “Evangelium", contains the exact opposite: in the person of Jesus, who had to suffer death on the Cross, who confronted us with his wounds, we meet with God alone. The worth of Man does not lie in being a perfect and pain-free specimen, it is through finding whilst in great pain the opponent from which he must not hide or conceal himself, but instead take on and bear, as he also bore his pain.

We are encouraged by the Good News: to go with the witness of the survivors along the path of freedom and of peace, and to construct our institutions, our societies, our unions and our nations accordingly, that people will never again dehumanize and segregate other people just because they do not conform to their idea of perfection.

We pray that the Spirit of God fills us and makes us passionate witnesses to the worth of humanity!

Amen."

[1] Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, Dachauer Tagebücher, Die Aufzeichnungen des Häftlings 24814, Mit einem Vorwort von Barbara Distel, München 1997, ISBN 3-463-40301-3, S. 290 (Eintag vom 28.4.1944)
[2] ebd. (Eintrag vom 30.4.1944)
[3] ebd. S. 291 f (Eintrag vom 8.4.1944)
[4] ebd. S. 449 (Eintrag vom 29.4.1945)
[5] ebd. S. 459 (Eintrag vom 2.5.1945)

Liberation Day: Random Thoughts on a Busy Few Days...

I'm not going to apologize for the gap between posts, because I'm not really sorry. I'm perhaps slightly miffed with myself, maybe even mildly annoyed, but I don't feel so remorseful that I need to apologize here. Also, I was too busy experiencing what had been going on over the last few days in Dachau.

Firstly, we have a group of Dachau survivors currently staying at the Jugendgaestehaus. They come from the Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, all countries once in the former Soviet Union, and are able to come here thanks to the tireless work of the Foerderverein (Supporters Union) in Dachau, in particular Nicole Schneider and Irina Grinkevich. They spent the last few months arranging Visas, contacting as many people as possible to give them the opportunity to come and arranging a series of events to make them feel as welcome as possible. They also have the opportunity during their stay to receive a medical checkup and get some new clothes.

As with so many things during this year, I felt a distance between this group of visitors and myself, partly because of the language barrier and also because of their shared history. Many of them spent two, even three years in Nazi captivity and in a number of different camps. What's more, they were almost all in their mid to late teens when they were taken into custody. After the war they simply had to get on with their adult lives. Often they were also ignored by others as, for many, they had failed by being captured. Returning Soviet POWs were treated with suspicion by the authorities.

On Friday 29th April, the 66th Anniversary of KZ Dachau's liberation, Prince William of Wales and Ms. Catherine Middleton were married at Westminster Abbey. As the family assembled on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, the couple kissing for the first time in public, a Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane flew over. The Battle of Britain Flypast was a crucial part of the day's events, and an extremely telling one. Perhaps I am being cynical, but it seemed to me that the organisers sought something that was uniquely British, and Nationalism in the UK was never stronger than during World War II.

I was excited to see it all. I admit it. My family were gathered round the TV at home and I felt rather left out of the national celebrations. I hung a commemorative Union Flag my parents sent me out the window of my flat. Later on I began to think. My flatmate had not taken this well. She felt that it was an insult to fly a flag of celebration on a day of such importance for the eight men she was currently looking after in Dachau. In many ways she was right. I had put my own interests ahead of the victims, whose memory I am here to keep alive and whose warning I am supposed to spread.

Even worse, it was pure nationalism that seduced me. However benign a form of nationalism it may have been, it is still worrying to know how weak you are to it.

***

On the Saturday evening I delivered a speech to those gathered at the Death March memorial in Dachau. It was not difficult to decide what to talk about, and I was reminded of this when I saw the ex-Soviet survivors in the front row, their translator packs in their ears, sitting with a quiet but understated dignity. I spoke about the distance I felt, how foreign Eastern Europe remained the 'Other' to us and how, step by step, I was becoming aware of issues that affected them. I think a lot of people felt the same way, and I am grateful for the positive feedback I received, particularly from those from the former East. One of the survivors came up to me in the Landtag a few days later and said, in broken German, "You did a nice speech." That meant far more than any of the other comments previously, and I thought back to that moment on the 29th April when I rushed home to see the Royal Wedding. I felt quite ashamed, and grateful for second chances.

On the Sunday there were thousands of people present at the site for the many services of remembrance going ahead, as well as a Russian Orthodox service in the Chapel of the Resurrection. The liturgy was alien to many people watching, and seemed to be operating in its own vaccuum as the main memorial service led by the Comite International Dachau (CID) went ahead. Here were small, Russian women in headscarves and cheap coats genuflecting every so often, bowing and hushing their children. It was a completely different attitude towards Church. I had helped distribute the order of service for the ecumenical service at 9.30am, in which much was explained, there were lots of read out prayers and the entire liturgy hung on the Word. For the Russian Orthodox service the Liturgy was something else and women chatted in hushed tones among each other as the Priest incensed the Scripture. I had seen something similar in Jewish Sabbath services. Here Liturgy was not only something in which people could participate in, but something the people seemed to be breathing.

I wandered to the other end of the site for the main commemoration. We stood and listened to the main speeches being delivered in German and French before embassies, consulates and other organisations laid wreaths at the International Memorial. Survivors peppered the audience. Later, when we were at a commemoration at the SS Shooting Range in Hebertshausen, a few miles away from Dachau, they were in the front row, listening in silence and through a translator. One or two dabbed their eyes every so often with a handkerchief. None wept strongly. Here Irina delivered her speech to those present, focussing on the fact that for decades these survivors were forgotten, their courage and suffering not recognised in Soviet times. Hers was the most moving speech, perhaps also because of her contact with the survivors staying in Dachau. There were members of the Communist Party of Germany present, who laid their red roses by the memorial before making a salute, their fists clenched and their eyes closed.

***

It was a moving few days, and very disorientating as well. It was wonderful to meet so many survivors, particularly those from the former Soviet Union, but at the same time the cultural difference was painfully apparent. In Dachau there were people speaking in Russian, translated into German, then I had to translate that into English (I have not yet learned to think in German). In the process something gets lost, and I found myself often wondering what I sould say. How should I say it? I wanted to make small talk, but that's something that doesn't really exist in former Eastern-bloc countries. I also didn't exactly want to interject with 'So tell me about your time in Buchenwald!" or something similar. As a result, I often shied away from them, unsure of my place in their presence.

This is not to say I didn't have good moments. One of them came up to me outside the Landtag and got my attention. Through an interpreter he said, "What was your aim from meeting us?" I replied I didn't have one. Perhaps I should have had one, the chance to meet this generation so rare. "Did we meet your expectations?" I replied it was wonderful to meet them. He then extended his arm and gripped my hand in appreciation.

It is hard to write about these experiences here, and as I shook ther hands and said goodbye to them on the last night, I wondered if I would ever have the chance to meet anyone from the East from that generation again. They had lived hard lives within a system that had not treated them well and yet we communicated as human beings. They had the scars of the century, and they were willing to share them with someone like me, young and with no clue whatsoever what it means to suffer.

I'm very conscious of the number of times I've used the word 'grateful' in this post. 'Gratitude' sums up the last few days for me really. For the chance to share this history; for the patience of those who bear the modern scars of the camps in their societies, for the opportunity simply to be present and watch them as they spoke with each other; for the second chances we receive and the ability to learn from mistakes. For all this, I will always be grateful.