MY GERMANY TRIP

- Ramesh Sunar

I recently visited Germany to attend a conference. I was in Frankfurt, a beautiful ultramodern city. One cannot help notice how developed their infrastructures are. Their roads, transportation and train system probably the best in the world. However, while witnessing such success of the country, one cannot help to remember its past also. Germany was involved in the worst kind of ethnic cleansing in the history of mankind. German Nazis were single handedly responsible for killing of 14 million Jews and various other races during WWII and it took them only four years(?) to do such an atrocity. During this trip, which was my first to Europe, I decided to take a trip to Dachau, a concentration camp right outside of the city of Munich about 4hours south of Frankfurt. I wanted to know what were the mindsets of the Nazis, in these concentration camps. How could they kill so many people and not give a second thought about what they were doing.

DACHAU: WORK TO FREEDOM

An eerie place the moment you step into its compound. The front gate has a sign saying “WORK TO FREEDOM”. Jews were brought from different parts of Europe to Dachau to become slave and ultimately achieve freedom which meant death. The first thing they did to Jews, once they were brought to Dachau was stripping them naked and then take away their identity. Once you were admitted in Dachau, you are no longer who you were. They provided them clothes with symbol of the Star of David, identifying them as Jews. It was mandatory for them wear the label. Very much similar to Caste system where your identity is recognized the moment you utter your last name in Nepal. In other words, your last name is your label. Once you are in Dachau as a slave, your job is to work for Nazi party to maintain their war machine. If you did not do what you supposed to, your fate is either a bullet in your head or the gas chamber. It was just as simple. People were shot dead on the spot for just stepping into grass ground because grass grounds were forbidden for Jews to step on.

Jews were housed in over cramped barracks. 2000 people were crammed into a space with a capacity for 200 only. You can imagine what the living condition might have been. They were given meager meals so everybody in these concentration camps looked underfed with their sunken faces and ribs showing like x-rays. Hundreds of people simply died in these living quarters from diseases and the living conditions. It is very hard to go through the tour. The pictures of cruelty are so vividly documented that you feel the pain under your skin. They tortured Jews by hanging them from the ceiling with hooks through their skins……it is indescribable. They ran medical experiments on live people as if they were animals.

Here we are in the 21st century and people fighting for animal rights in developed countries. But in such concentration camps, people were used for human experiments.

I saw gas chambers also. It’s a surreal experience to go through the tour of the gas chamber. At Dachau, the Jews were led to a chamber by lying to them that they were having a disinfection shower in a room where they were gassed to their death. Adjacent to the chamber is a crematory where the freshly killed dead bodies were incinerated. They used to have only two incinerators but the supply was so high that they had to build four more to meet the demand. Nazis had drawn up a plan called “The Final Solution”, right before the Americans won the war, according which they were planning to rid the world off Jews. That was the final solution.

While going through this tour I kept on wondering why did Nazis hated Jews so much. What could be the reason? In my simple way of thinking, I drew a conclusion that Jews were living in Germany/Europe for centuries and adopted their culture and spoke their language. However, they were in a foreign land and considered foreign, and burden to their economy. The German economy was at shamble during this period of their history. Inflation was astronomical. So, Nazis thought that the source of their misery were Jews and decided to rid them off from their world. Contrary to this, Brahmins/Chhetris hate people of so called lower caste in their own land where they are and have been a positive force for their economy and the nation. They are condemned no matter what they do.

PRESENT GERMANS

One cannot escape to notice in the present Germany that how much Germans are regretful and ashamed of this part of their history. That is why they have spent millions of dollar to preserve this part of the history such as these concentration camps which has become a museum. They did this to remind themselves and rest of the humanity so that such history is never repeated elsewhere in the world. They not only have preserved such artifacts or monuments of their history but they provide billions of dollars to Israel as reparation for their past mistakes. This is their way of saying they understand the pain Jews had to suffer under Nazis regime. At this juncture of the world history, Israel and Germany are allies, however uncomfortable their history may be. This is the greatness of Germans. They humbly accept their mistake and take responsibility. Can we, honestly, expect this from Brahmins/Chhetris of Nepal? I doubt that. They are still busy conspiring against the so called lower caste people of Nepal.

BACK TO HOTEL ROOM

During my train ride back to hotel and in my hotel room, I kept on thinking about the concentration camps and Jews. It made me [feel] very sad and couldn’t sleep well that night. I still get chills down my spine thinking about Dachau. After a while it dawned on me that the so called lower caste people of Nepal are no different than those of Jews of Europe under Nazi regime. Jews were brought to the concentration camps; we were born in the concentration camp called Nepal. Jews were subjected to physical/mental trauma and death in these concentration camps under Nazi gun point; we were subjected to similar trauma under Brahmins/Chhetri’s metaphorical gun point of social disgrace and humiliation. They were killed instantly for being Jews; we were killed every day for being born. The biggest and gravest difference between Jews and us is that they suffered only few years and lost millions of lives; we on the other hand, suffered and are suffering from time immemorial; and I can’t even give you how many so called lower caste people of Nepal were killed by Brahmins/Chhetris, because there is no documentation. But I can confidently say Brahmins and Chhetris have killed, psychologically and physically, millions of people of so called lower castes ever since the Nepal became the country. Their hands are just as blood stained red as Nazis of Germany. They are SS soldiers in plain clothes. For the people of so called lower caste concentration camp is still going on under the Brahmin/Chhetri regime in the concentration camp called Nepal.