Hamburg

Our next stop on the trip was Hamburg. Although I do think that many students involved in the program were disappointed with our sporadic and slow-moving access to the Internet, a lot of fun was had by all. By far, the highlight of the town was the rathaus (city hall).

The city of Hamburg, much like many other German cities, is a city-state that controls the whole surrounding region. Accordingly, a city senate and council meet to decide the area’s fate in the town’s rathaus, which is by far more elaborate and beautiful than most American government buildings I’ve seen, city, state, or federal. During the tour we learned that the only reason the building is still standing while the rest of the city was destroyed in World War II is because the bomb that was placed in front of the rathaus was a dud and never detonated. The failed bomb is proudly on display in the building today.

Another highlight of Hamburg is the Beatles museum. Few may know fully (I certainly didn’t) the role that the city of Hamburg played in helping the Beatles get their feet wet on stage and get their careers started. I personally liked the CVs that the band had sent to a Hamburg bar to try and reserve a gig. Who knew that rock n’ roll was so formal?

Neuengamme

On day two of our Hamburg stay, we made it to a guided program on the Neuengamme concentration camp. Frankly, the day was absolutely miserable -- and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The cold rain pelted us throughout the day, a biting wind reduced our clothing to a mere front; it felt as if we were wearing shorts and flip-flops out there on the tour.

Some would probably complain about the weather that day, but I think it serves as a reminder of what the people at the camp had to face. See, Neuengamme isn’t a famous camp for several reasons. It didn’t have gas chambers. It wasn’t an exclusively a camp for Jews. And instead of instant death, the prisoners there encountered a sort of living death with a small glimmer of hope that freedom may once again be possible someday.

Neuengamme was a “work camp,” and prisoners viewed it as a final shot at life. We, of course, learned otherwise. Prisoners came from varying places, with the large predomination being Soviet political prisoners and prisoners of war. Otherwise, there were a lot of political prisoners from Germany and other Nazi-occupied countries. Crimes landing you in Neuengamme spanned anything from being found as partaking in the French Resistance to listening to American or British music or even making a joke about Hitler. If the S.S. found you doing any of those things, you could be sent to Neuengamme to literally work your life away.

World War II was the 20th Century’s version of slavery, as the S.S. used forced labor for much production during the war. When you think about it, it really makes sense -- I’ve never known how Germany could match the incredible production boom of the United States after having already been involved in war for years. Wars suck away resources, and production lines must have been spread thin. Yet somehow, even with all the Rosie the Riveters in the United States, Germany was able to match the production of a unified, focused country of, at that time, more than 250 million people. Neuengamme explained how that could and did happen.

The prisoners had to literally build their own death camp at Neuengamme. Most of the enslaved were tasked to dig clay for brick-building, often with their bare hands. As you might imagine, the prisoners were incredibly malnourished, being only fed a watered-down coffee “substance” in the morning, a watered-down soup mixture in the evening, while being forced to work a 10-12-hour day in harsh conditions with minimal tools and insufficient wool clothing. Prisoners would only take in 700 calories a day. If they were unfit to produce enough work for the Nazis, they were killed. If they were sick, they were killed. If they stopped working, they were killed. It was horrible, and I was absolutely humbled to learn of their experience.

Many prisoners were said to have only lasted a few weeks after arriving at the camp, and I’m not surprised. Those who did last were worked and worked, producing materials that their captors needed to keep them and others oppressed. A precious few who were known to be skilled laborers got to be “moved” to a different part of the camp, as private companies during the Nazi period used forced labor to produce things like arms (the Walther Company, for instance) for the war effort. Forced labor is obviously cheaper than traditional labor, so companies (Walther was not unique; many large German companies partook in such nonsense) made use of the advantage available to them to produce goods at well below market costs.

As I was walking through the tour, I couldn’t help but think to myself, over and over, “Well, it looks like the bar has been set for absolute evil, hasn’t it?” Then Lance Noe brought up a great point. We’d like to think of this as an isolated event -- and I certainly hope that nothing like this ever happens again -- but let’s face it, evil does happen, all over the world, day-in and day-out. He’s absolutely right. If we had lost the war, we would have museums in California about the detention camps that were set up for Asians living in America. The Holocaust is most definitely the most pervasively known evil event in modern history, but it’s certainly not the only one. And this only happened a number of decades ago -- this was absolute oppression, total enslavement, and it took place in the time period when we had supermarkets and electricity and cars and many of the luxuries that we use to label this era as the most advanced in human existence.

The tour ended with us visiting a tall, stone monument in the shape of a chimney, as prisoners were told that the only way to escape would be through the chimneys. Neuengemme, like the rest of the Nazi concentration camps, is an example of the darkest side of humanity, and we must remember it and acknowledge what these people faced. Hopefully with remembrance, we can avoid something like this ever happening on such a grand scale ever again -- or on any scale, for that matter. I feel both honored and humbled to have been able to learn of what happened there, and I will do my best throughout the rest of my life to advocate the education of anyone who may benefit from the knowledge I’ve gained on that cold, wet Monday morning in March 2010.

-Zach Spittler