This photograph displays a large banner with the words, "National Socialist Health Care, Dachau Germany-1945" over the corpses of poisoned concentration camp victims of the Nazis at the gas chambers that were used to liquidate as many Jews as possible during the Nazi realm in Germany before and during World War II. This banner was prominently waved above the heads of Congresswoman Michelle Bachman (R,MN) and Congressman John Boehner (R,OH), and many other prominent Republicans (who oppose health care legislation that assures coverage for all citizens regardless of ability to pay) and several thousands of people who rallied in opposition to the pending Democratic health care reform bill. There were many other signs and banners displayed at this rally that attacked the Democratic bill as a form of Socialism or Communism. Actor John Voight joined the Republican legislators at the rally voicing his opposition to the health care bill and virtually everything else that President Obama is trying to accomplish. Imagine this scene where prominent Republican leaders are stirring up thousands of citizens under a banner likening the Democratic Health Care bill to the genocidal acts committed at the Nazi Concentration Camp at Dachau under Adolph Hitler's orders to exterminate all Jews and other undesirable people.
Several years ago while in Germany on business I went to the Dachau Camp Memorial Site that is maintained by the German government as a reminder of the indescribable starvation, murders, and torture of thousands of Jews, Russian prisoners of war and others who Hitler deemed to be undesirable. The stark gas chamber (called a shower room) and crematoriums still stand as testimony to the horrendous acts that humans committed against other humans. Death and the smell of burning skin haunts the place and will do so forever. The photographs take after Dachau was liberated by American soldiers are displayed at the Memorial Site and viewing the photos that show mounds of skeletal bodies piled on top of one another as sunken eyes stare as if asking for help glare at you and you are forced to look away from the ghastly reminder of man's inhumanity to man.
The banner above displays bodies that are shown in the photographs at the Dachau Memorial Site that was the first of Hitler's extermination camps built in 1933 and used for mass murders until it was liberated on April 29, 1945. No one knows exactly how many innocent men women and children were exterminate at Dachau during the 13 years it was in operation exterminating people. However Dachau and the 19 other major and over 1,500 smaller Concentration Camps probably accounted for the extermination of more than six million people, mostly Jews.
Those of us who lived before and during WW II at least have some memory of what took place on the major battlefields during the war. Few of us have any recollection of life and death in a concentration camp. The Holocaust survivors are few and will soon all be deceased. The memory of these horrendous atrocities against fellow humans will never fade. the Republican rally at the White House displaying naked bodies of Dachau victims was as surreal as the acts committed at the Dachau Concentration Camp.
How could Republican opponents including members of Congress stand below such a banner and compare a piece of legislation to help assure health care for all American citizens to the Nazi atrocities at Dachau? The souls of the dead must have regurgitated as they witnessed the so-called civilized Republican use of the innocent victims of Dachau. Apparently Hitler's Ghost haunts us in the form of Republican opposition to universal affordable health care for all. Will the demons of hate ever recede? Will the souls of the dead from Dachau ever rest?
2 comments:
Dear Phil,
You have written an excellent article on the hate-mongering of the Republican party and it's deplorable use of photos from Dachau. Kathy and I have visited Dachau Memorial also, and we were tremendously moved by the horror of it all. I is still an incredible example of man's inhumanity to man in the middle of the 20th Century. Never should the Holocaust be used as a political pawn for the purpose of objecting to ANY legislation in this country. The Republican Party must come to terms with its own deep-seated hate that was started with Newt Gingrich and other during the Reagan Administration. All Americans should be ashamed of these hate tactics being used against the proposed health bill. Thank you for writing, and I think you should send this article to any and all of the National Newspapers.
Craig
Thanks very much Craig and Kathy for your comments.
Post a Comment