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GERMANY
We entered the Sachsenhausen
Memorial Grounds, on the outskirts of Oranienburg, Germany,
with the intention of collecting soil for the creation of
Common Ground 191 from a site with a poignant significance
in the story of humanity. The day was gray and damp. A light
mist was falling by the time we arrived at the gate, and a
sense of apprehension seemed to grow as we drew closer. There
was a perceptible density in the atmosphere, a weightiness
under which the prisoners are sure to have lived.
Impressions of poet and scientist, Jacob
Bronowski, loomed in our mind. In his television series, “The
Ascent of Man,” Bronowski walks into the bogs of Krakow,
dressed formally in suit, tie, and dress shoes. Reaching down
into the swamp, he grabs a handful of mud and says, “We
must reach out and touch the ashes of our dead to stay in
touch with all our family. We must remember who we are!”
The most powerful moment in the episode dealt with absolutism
and showed that every time science breaks one boundary and
recognizes the discovery of the smallest “this”
or the largest “that,” it is a mere breath away
from the world being turned on its ear by the “next”
discovery. “There are no absolutes,” concluded
Bronowski.
In the 1940’s, Hitler was selling “Absolutism,”
willing to sacrifice, even murder, all who fell outside the
lines he defined as “fit.” Prisoners from the
Emsland camps built Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp during
the summer of 1936. The first camp established after the appointment
of Heinrich Himmler as chief of the German Police, Sachsenhausen
was designed as a model concentration camp to give architectural
expression to the Nazi worldview and symbolize the subjugation
of prisoners to the absolute power of the SS blackshirts (the
Nazi police). Located outside the imperial capital of Berlin,
the camp was used as a model training center. At first, Sachsenhausen
housed mostly political opponents of the Nazi party, however
shortly thereafter, they were joined by members of groups
the National Socialist ideology (Nazi = National Sozialist)
condemned as racially or biologically inferior. Next came
people from the occupied countries of Europe. There were men
and women, old and young. More than 200,000 people were imprisoned
in Sachsenhausen between 1936-1945.
Sachsenhausen’s status in the National
Socialist system was reinforced when the administrative headquarters
for all concentration camps under German control were transferred
from Berlin to Oranienburg. Sachsenhausen prisoners were used
to construct the world’s largest brickworks factory
that was to supply the materials for the reconstruction of
major towns, such as Munich and Hamburg, and for preparing
Berlin for its role as the seat of the “Great Germanic
Empire.” The largest building in the world, the “Great
Hall,” was to mark the culmination of the project, and
ultimately, in Hitler’s estimation, secure their victory.
Prisoners detailed to the “Klinkerwerk” (brickwork
factory) commando were not expected to survive the dangerous,
hard labor; they died in a matter of months, sometimes weeks.
Tens of thousands of Sachsenhausen prisoners
died of starvation, malnutrition, disease, forced labor and
draconian torture, or were systematically murdered. Thousands
died on death marches when the SS evacuated the camp. Those
left behind were liberated by Russian and Polish troops in
late April of 1945.
In August, the same year, just three months
after the end of the war and the liberation of Europe from
National Socialist rule, the Soviet secret service moved their
Special Camp No. 7 into the heart of the former concentration
camp, and this time, it was the Soviet military tribunals
who sentenced prisoners to the camp.
The remains of the execution trench, the
guillotine and the gas chamber bear witness to the inhumanity
that occurred in this encampment. Gnarled, barbed wire that
secured the walls of the camp, the sign, “Neutral Zone,”
that warned prisoners they would be shot without warning,
the guard towers and the public address systems shout the
atrocities that were suffered here. All remain, but the cries
of the prisoners and the stench…yet their cries echo
in the heavy air that shrouds this place… Such was the
atmosphere as we stepped into this space that was only history
in our minds, until in its presence, the reality of the force
humans are capable of imposing on our fellow man crept into
our conscious awareness.
Oftentimes, what begins as ideology
turns to tyranny, explains psychiatrist and author, David
Hawkins, who specialized in mental processes, and today dedicates
his time to spiritual teaching and research. The nature of
force, he states, is that it invariably inflicts its material
values. A distinctive characteristic of force in politics
is that it cannot tolerate dissent. Hitler put millions to
death, relying on his SS, as did Stalin, using his KGB. Hitler
assembled the greatest military machine the world had ever
seen. On the simple level of force, his military was unbeatable;
yet he could not defeat a tiny island across the English Channel
because of the power expressed by Winston Churchill, who unified
the will of his people through principles of freedom and selfless
sacrifice. When power and force collide, power inevitably
succeeds. Force is pompous; it has all the answers. Power
is unassuming. Stalin, who strutted military autocracy, has
gone down in history as an arch-criminal. The humble Mikhail
Gorbachev, who wore a plain suit and easily admitted to faults,
has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Force is divisive, and through that divisiveness,
weakens, whereas power unifies. Mahatma Gandhi was aligned
with power and demonstrated the power of selflessness versus
the force of self-interest. Nelson Mandela demonstrated the
same principle quite dramatically in South Africa. In our
lifetime, we have witnessed the downfall of communism in Russia
as a governmental form, after half a century of military confrontation.
How do we transcend the atrocities of Hitler
and find meaning, faith and the courage to move forward?
We must remember who we are. It is out of
the tragedy that tugs at every chord of humanity that arises
the rebirth of life and the triumph of the human spirit…
in self-evident principles. The Declaration of Independence
states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Common Ground 191 is a tribute to these inalienable
values…the connecting thread of humankind, thus we reached
deeply into the ashes to the last remnants of our Common Ground
at Sachsenhausen and retrieved our soil…to stay in touch
with all our family…to remember who we are.
-- Michael
& Kay Rosness
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