Auschwitz-Birkenau latrine
On my return visit Auschwitz in July of this year, I saw things I missed or forgot I saw on my first visit in 2017.
In 2017 I was overwhelmed by the scale of the camp--so many people murdered, so many German soldiers and civilians running the camp.
One of the horrible sights was the latrine in a barracks at Birkenau. The guards herded the inmates to the latrine. They used the latrine together, dozens at a time. The guards used a stopwatch. When time was up, the inmate had to get up or be beaten.
When I try to imagine how horrible life truly was I think of times when I lived and worked in close quarters large groups of men--the Army and Teamsters loading docks. One lament common to both places was, "Can't I take a shit in peace?"
No one wants to be rushed in a latrine.
And even men I have known who care little for privacy would occasionally want "to shit in a latrine with a door."
When I was on German gunnery ranges in the 1970s, some of the ranges had a place we called a "Make A Buddy" Shitter. It was an outhouse with two boards with three holes connected by a narrow floor space. When it was full, three men sat on each side facing each other with interlaced knees. The inside guys had to wait until the outside guys were done to get out. Sometimes men would wear their gas masks to use that latrine.
And yet, these laments of dock workers and soldiers hardly touch the deep humiliation of prisoners in Auschwitz and other concentration camps forced to use latrines on a stop watch.
The Nazis who marched in Charlottesville represent the very same things as the guards at Auschwitz. They see me and everyone who is not in their tribe as less than human. Nazis are never "fine people." We can never have peace with a government that tolerates Nazis. We are fortunate to be delivered from a government that numbers all American Nazis among its voters.
Nazi and rebel flags together at Charlottesville,
both flags represent the losers in racist wars.
