History of Sorts

“On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a “school of violence” for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve years of its existence over 200.000 persons from all over Europe were imprisoned here and in the numerous subsidiary camps. 41.500 were murdered. On April 29 1945, American troops liberated the survivors.”

The text at the start is from the official Dachau memorial site. It is a reminder that Dachau was the pilot for so many horrors, and 90 years later, people are still shocked and upset by it.

I had the opportunity to visit Dachau this summer. Our tour guide was Irish. I had considered asking him if people took him seriously as a tour guide, coming from a country which wasn’t really involved in World War II. I decided not to ask him.

I have often been asked before and even accused of writing about the Holocaust without ever having visited a concentration camp. And, because I am not Jewish, my motives are questioned. In the past, I have tried defending myself, but I stopped. Just because I am not Jewish—doesn’t mean that World War II had no impact on me. It did! The execution of my paternal grandfather by the Nazis has always been like a dark cloud that has followed me throughout my life. The experiences my parents, aunts, and uncles had during the five years of occupation have also left an impression on me.

In June of this year, I was on a short holiday in Munich and decided to visit Dachau too. I appreciate that this might be the wrong expression, but I know no other way to describe it. It was the highlight of this year.

I know people say “Never Again” or “Never Forget,” but as time goes on these words become hollower and hollower, up to the point where they have no real value because people don’t actually care anymore.

I just want to repeat the story of the first man to die in Dachau.

Arthur Kahn, a 21-year-old Jewish German medical student—enrolled at Edinburgh University in Scotland, had returned to Germany to pick up his student records at the University of Wurzburg.

Arthur Kahn, together with Ernst Goldmann, Rudolf Benario, and Erwin Kahn(not related), had been arrested around the 22nd of March 1933, for being members of the Communist party and sent to Dachau. Although Arthur Kahn had no Communist affiliation, he had at been at one point involved in an anti-Nazi organization.

Upon arrival in Dachau, the men were identified as Jews and tortured. On 12 April, a group of drunken SS officers handed the four young men shovels and made them march to the outskirts of the camp and executed. Arthur Kahn was the first one shot, which made him the first Holocaust victim, according to historian Timothy Ryback. Goldman and Benario followed and died immediately. Erwin Kahn was also shot but died from his injuries four days later in a nearby hospital. He did get a chance to make a statement disputing that the four men had tried to escape, for that was the reason given for the executions.

Postwar investigation established that Robert Erspenmüller, the camp’s deputy commander, and two other SS guards, Hans Burner and Max Schmidt, committed the murders. The next morning, the remaining Dachau prisoners were alarmed by the sound of the shots and fearful of what they portended. They were informed the four prisoners had been shot while trying to escape.

For me, the visit to Dachau is something that I will never forget.

Sources

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/dachau-the-first-days-the-holocaust-12682

Dachau Concentration Camp 1933–1945

https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/29-april-1945-liberation-of-dachau-concentration-camp/

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/dachau