A Bad Sign

photo of Dachau sign by Dorsm365

There has been much reporting about the attempt of Jewish families to reclaim works of art that had been pilfered by the Nazis. The recent discovery of 1280 works of art in the Schwabing apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt the son of Hilldebrand Gurlitt, an infamous dealer who preyed on Jewish collectors is one of the most famous examples of the phenomenon of Raubkunst or stolen Nazi art (“The Devil and the Art Dealer,” Vanity Fair,  4/14). The Times recently reported on the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from Dachau (“Gate Bearing Notorious Slogan Is Stolen From Dachau Site," NYT, 11/3/14) According to the Times this wasn’t the first time this kind of theft had occurred. The sign which welcomed the doomed to Auschwitz-Birkenau was stolen but later recovered in 2009.  Such signs are artifacts rather than art, but looting a concentration camp is a little like grave robbing to the extent that it’s defacing a memorial to one of the greatest atrocities of human history. The Times stated that the earlier Auschwitz-Birkenau theft had been the work of “a Swedish neo-Nazi and two Polish accomplices.” Perhaps an inquiry into the intent of the earlier theft can unearth a motive for this latest crime. If, for example, the current perpetrators were also neo-Nazis, was the intent to remove evidence of the Holocaust the way say a criminal removes the fingerprints and even a murder weapon from a crime scene? Or were they some how revisionist Nazis who didn’t approve of the euphemistic sound of the words of above the camp? In the best of all possible worlds, where a sequel to the Holocaust, would someday begin again would they have preferred the words Dante placed above the Inferno, “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrata,” “abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

The Twilight Zone New Year’s Marathon II: "Death’s Head Revisited"

It’s American television, so the nationality of the portly central character is telegraphed by his fake German accent. He has returned to the small Bavarian town of Dachau, site of the former concentration camp. The receptionist at the hotel, dressed in native folk garb, nervously answers his questions about the camp. The gentleman, a former Nazi living in South America, wanders into the now deserted camp, where he meets the apparition of a former inmate, Becker, whom he had sentenced to death shortly before the Americans arrived.  Becker is still adorned in his prisoner’s stripes, but the roles are reversed. He is now the interrogator. At first, the former Nazi scoffs at the notion that one of “the pigs” would interrogate an SS officer, but when he attempts to leave, he finds that the gates are locked.

  

The Nazi throws himself against a stanchion and is knocked unconscious. He was once the mouthpiece for irresponsibility, claiming that he was only taking orders. Now his punishment will be to live through all the tortures he inflicted, from being strung up over a hot pipe, to marching in the cold, to being the subject of unspeakable experiments on the human body. He soon goes insane and is discovered by a German doctor, who says that the man is suffering a madness in which he actually experiences excruciating pain.  The doctor blames this insanity on the proximity of the camp, and exclaims that he doesn’t understand why the camp, which is a reminder of a kind of evil that would drive anyone mad, is allowed to exist. It would be so much easier, the doctor insists, to destroy both the structure and the memories it elicits.