Improved Clinch

Reflections After Visiting Concentration Camps

Philosopher Douglas Rasmussen has been traveling in eastern Europe this summer and writes of his experiences at two former concentration camps, one Communist and one Nazi:

“Last week I saw the Sighet Prison in Romania which is very close to the Ukraine border. From about 1948, the Communists used it as a place for political prisoners and torture. It is a memorial now, and it shows all the prison camps and labor camps that were in Romania. It also shows a history of the Romanian resistance to the Commies. They fought in the mountains for years—indeed as late as the 60’s. I have known of this for years, but to actually see the place, the names, the faces is overwhelming. I realize now that I came here to see this prison as much as anything else. It is amazing how bland and simple a place of terror can look. You think it would be in red and orange and look evil. Two days ago, I saw Auschwitz. Well, what can one say? German efficiency is a marvel! I knew what happened there. Indeed, I have read much and seen movies, but to walk under the gate with the words ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ is unbelievable. To see huge rooms filled with human hair, shoes, brushes, to see the tickets that Greek Jews bought to go to Auschwitz thinking that it was to be a new land for them, to see the rooms smaller than a broom closet in which people were forced to stand all night and day, to see the gas chamber, the crematoria, to see it all this is more than one can take. I could not sleep after seeing it, and I cannot accept such a moral obscenity! Nothing can remove this stain, and it is something that can NEVER be forgiven or forgot. Justice demands no less. A very good philosopher and friend, Jon Jacobs, was with me. Jon is more or less sympathetic to classical liberalism and more or less Jewish, and he said the central point quite eloquently: Once you accept the proposition that people can be used without their consent, this is where you end. Philosopher Doug den Uyl then added, ‘And the first step towards thinking people can be used without their consent is to claim that the individual exists for the sake of society.’”

Bold by editor.

Via Stephen Hicks’, Professor of Philosophy at Rockford College, website. Entry dated August 6, 2007

Posted by on 08/22 at 01:18 PM