Dachau's Blue Triangle

I was looking over websites documenting WWII tonight. In particular I was looking at concentration camps; one in particular, Dachau, which I visited on June 25, 2003.

The visit was a somber one, filled with ignorant respect because I was not completely au fait with what had happened there. Dachau is the granddaddy of concentration camps having been set up 1933 to house political prisoners. Although those who lived and died there might disagree, it is not the worst of camps; "a luxury camp" was how one Auschwitz survivor described it to me in the supermarket while using his SS tattoo for his lottery ticket numbers.

Dachau is housed next to an SS headquarters. Terrible things happened there; medical experiments; mass executions; death from disease; torture; live cremations - the list goes on. Goering was cremated there. Germans, Jews, Gays, Russians, French, British, Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies all died there. People of all race and religions were killed including Catholic priests and ministers.

What was missing as I tramped around the dusty complex on that Summer afternoon was the outrage. Where was the outrage that such a place existed? That such terrible things had happened? That the ashes of the dead cushion the soles of our feet as we walk around the killing area?

The reality is that it's old news. Something that happened a long time ago. Something that has to be dusted away into the closet of history and not talked about. An embarrassment. An event that happened that we don't talk about any more.

On my left wrist I have a small tattoo of a inverted blue triangle. It is a component of the camp insignias given to prisoners to differentiate them by reason for being there. An inverted triangle was used. Different colors signified the offense; red for a political prisoner; blue for an emigrant; purple for a Jehovah Witness; pink for a homosexual; green for criminals; black for asocial (gypsies); and a special addition was added just for Jews, an upright yellow triangle that made the badge a Star of David.

I have a blue triangle as I am an emigrant. The purpose of the tattoo is so that I never forget what I saw, and what happened there. I want to remember everyday. And to know that no matter how bad my day is going it was - is - worse for many people.

We all need triangles. We need to remember that these terrible things did happen and the world did nothing. Or it will happen again. Will the world do nothing this time also?