Preserving the Abomination

Recently, while diving into the dark depths of Ebay, I came across an item put up for auction that made my skin crawl: a complete and purported original concentration camp prisoner uniform. If this wasn’t bad enough, the seller was also trying to hawk an electric wire insulator from Auschwitz, which had been authenticated. I posted the link on a WW2 collectors forum that I am a member of and the overwhelming feeling is that the uniform is a recent reproduction, probably for a film production. What I did learn was that there is an actual collectors market for Holocaust artifacts. Armbands, uniforms, documents, children’s dolls, shoes and photographs are all available for the highest bidder. I suppose I shouldn’t really be shocked by this…..people have been collecting Nazi regalia even when WW2 was still going on. In fact, the market for German WW2 militaria is so great; the majority of items being sold today are a clever fake or reproduction. While plenty of original items are still around, the demand far outweighs the supply.

When I was active in the militaria show circuit, I used to hit all the local shows and flea markets and after a while you got to know most of the regulars. The folks who collect militaria can be dived into three categories for the most part. Reenactors/collectors who use their items for living history displays or to trade with other reenactors (I was a member of this category) Hardcore collectors who were not reenactors, but loved to buy items for their own personal collection which would never see the light of day and the third category……the Scary People. The Scary People dealt only in SS regalia and by the tattoos on their arms, it was clear where their sympathies lay. These folks used to scare the piss out of me. I would see them at the local shows dealing amongst themselves, buying and selling anything connected with the SS. Many of them wore SS rings and sported Nazi tattoos which they flaunted openly. Most of my friends at the show didn’t pay these guys much heed and some even traded with them, but I would avoid them like the plague. So I suppose if the market for SS regalia is so hot, then the market for items connected to their victims must also be popular as well. After a fashion, I stopped attending the various shows……..mostly I couldn’t take the carrion bird atmosphere of the dealers and vendors, but also the pro-Nazi bullshit was starting to get on my nerves. I simply didn’t want to be in the same space as these tattooed yahoos who think that Hitler was a neat guy.

All of this brings me to my main point. What really is the best way to preserve the memory of the Holocaust? To date, the various camps that make up the Auschwitz complex are falling apart. The camps were never meant to survive for more than 65 years. Once the de-population of the Jews from Europe was complete, the camps were to be torn down and the evidence destroyed. The Nazis wanted all memories of the Jews to be eradicated from the collective consciousness of its master race. To this end, Synagogues were burned down, Jewish cemeteries destroyed, grave tablets broken up to be used as paving stones and the entire Jewish population centers systematically liquidated. Today in Warsaw, Poland, only a very small section of the original wall that ringed the Jewish Ghetto remains……the Nazis destroyed the entire Ghetto….every building and just about every resident. Modern markers and memorials abound, but not much is left that is original to those terrible days of WW2.

Much has been written about Auschwitz concerning its fate. Scholars argue how to best preserve it. One school of thought says do nothing….let it fall to decay. Others say keep it from falling apart, but don’t repair anything that may have been built by the Nazis and still others say restore it as a future memorial. One of the surviving gas chambers at Auschwitz was rebuilt by the Soviets after the war as proof of the Nazi atrocities that were committed. Today, that rebuilt gas chamber is used by various historical revisionist assholes as “proof” of the myth of the Holocaust. To that end, the overall restoration of Auschwitz is generally not looked upon favorably. For now, the site is being kept from falling apart, but no serious restoration work is being done.

Many feel that the camps serve another purpose other than reminding people of the genocide that took place there…….the camps are mass graves where millions of their relatives died. Their cremated remains lie just below the surface. It is unknown how many tons of human ash is buried at the various camp sites, it’s simply impossible to know for sure. In the recent past, visitors could pull up sections of sod and see the pale calcified ash mixed with soil underneath. At the Majdanek camp, the human ash pile is said to be as large as a modern football field. This perhaps will be the eventual fate of the camps. When the wood rots away, the concrete is reduced to pebbles and the wire rusts away to dust, people will still come to these sites to mourn their long dead relatives or perhaps it will become a memorial park where future generations of school children will go to learn about one of the largest crimes in history.