My Grandfather was a Dachau Holocaust Survivor

I seriously had to look up the word Holocaust before writing that title. I was not sure whether it applied only to Jewish persons. But checking with the dictionary, it applies to anyone who was a victim in Hitler's brutal concentration camps.

--- TRIGGER WARNING -- the drawings shown below are graphic and could be upsetting. ---

Denmark was occupied by Nazi troops from April 9th, 1940 to May 5th, 1945 as Hitler sought to rule all of Europe. My grandfather (born in 1906) immediately became part of an underground resistance movement.  Eventually he was caught by the Gestapo, processed/interrogated/tortured, found guilty and sent south to Dachau concentration camp near Munich as marked on the map.

There are members of my family alive today who witnessed this (in terms of his arrest and in terms of his return after the war). They could probably tell the story better than I can (I hope they do so). 

I was born just over 16 years after the war, but the stories about the Nazi occupation of Denmark, stories of his resistance work, and stories of what he went through, about Nazis and what they stood for are vivid in my memory to this day. Some were told by my grandfather himself -- mostly ones about his resistance work. He never once spoke to me of Dachau. According to family members, he did some speaking tours in the late 40s to share his experiences, and after that he never talked about it again -- that is, apart from publishing this book:

 The red triangle means political prisoner. Every prisoner had a big mark sewed on his clothing on the back, so he or she could be identified easily. A mark that was not easily removed from clothing.

This is one of his drawings of Danish prisoners from the concentration camp. He drew with pencil on pieces of cardboard from discarded boxes, scraps of paper, whatever he could find, and his drawings have survived along with him.

His own prison numbers and designations are here

My grandfather survived because the Swedes (who were neutral in WWII) made a deal with Hitler at the end of the war that they would supply medications for Hitler's troops if Hitler would let them travel down through Germany and rescue Scandinavian prisoners from the concentration camps. You can read about that here http://www.newsweek.com/count-bernadottehimmlereisenhowersecond-world-warjews-europeconcentration-604859 .

Poul Mahler, March 2, 1906 - January 19, 1981

He returned, very weak and sick to Sweden until the end of the war, and then returned home where, if I have the story right, it took him over two years leave of absence from his work to recover from the abuse, torture, neglect, disease, and general bad conditions he experienced during his concentration camp time. 

Here are some more of his drawings, which I hope speak for themselves:

My grandfather was a caretaker of sick people while he was interred. The pictures above feature 30-40  of their fellow prisoners dead from typhoid that  they had to drag out of the barracks daily. The dead were then stacked on carts and sent to the crematorium.

The chimney loomed large behind the barbed wire.

I am writing on this as the theme Neo-Nazi came up this weekend in the context of a rally that turned violent in Charlottesville, VA. It upset me greatly that our nation's leader equivocated Neo-nazis with those who are opposed to Neo-Nazis. Neo-nazis are admirers of Nazis, followers of Nazi ideology.

Nazis committed unspeakable crimes, such as were committed against my grandfather, one of the few fortunate enough to survive the horrors of the concentration camp. Not only did he survive. He was resilient enough to return home and be able to survive the abusese to his body, and also to live emotionally with what he had experienced in Dachau and Neuengamme until he died of natural causes at age 75. (Many Danish prisoners returned home and killed themselves, they could not live with the horrors they had both seen and felt on their own bodies.) 

Please, America, do not go with our current president and equivocate Neo-Nazis with those who want to resist Neo-Nazies. The two are not the same. 

Those who marched with Red Banners with Swastikas, with Confederate flags, armed with semi-automatic rifles, in Klan gear or in riot gear with shields CANNOT, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT be equivocated with Civil Rights movements like Black Lives Matter. The counter protestors are minorities (+their allies), minorities who have been ill-treated through much of this nation's history, concerned American citizens who have multiple reasons to fear the growth of movements such as Vanguard, or Identity Evropa, Neo-Nazis, or Klansmen. The counter protesters were American citizens who themselves (or their parents) have experienced racism in America, including the scourge of Jim Crow. Understandably they want to resist the re-awakening of Jim Crow.

Lastly, let me share these two pictures of another Danish prisoner Hans Peter Soerensen, who was interred in Neuengamme. I know they are disturbing images of death and despair, but look at them, please!

 Remember, that this is the work of Nazis -- actively exterminating races and political views they deem not worthy. (To say nothing of exterminating the mentally ill, the disabled, and persons with low IQs
 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/a-memorial-to-the-nazis-disabled-victims/379528/)  Their aim is --- TO PURIFY THE WHITE RACE --- to save WHITE CULTURE.  (I am white, I love white culture, but ....)

Neo-Nazis are admirers of such people. Neo-Nazis advocate totalitarianism, racism, and political eradication of views they do not agree with. --Our president said that some of the people who marched with the Neo-Nazis and Klansmen were  'Fine people'. NO!!!  I am sorry, but "fine people" do NOT march in company with Neo-Nazis, White Nationalists, White Supremacists, or Klans men. 

How I wish our churches would rise to the occasion, CALL EVIL EVIL, and how I wish they would shout this from the roof tops.