Sunday September 13, 2015

I've Been Thinking:

Buchenwald, a place synonymous with Nazi horrors, is now housing 21 Middle East refugees.

The town explained that it is an emergency situation and they converted one of the only remaining buildings of the camp into a residence for the refugees. The refugees will get 135 Euros each ($150) as a stipend.

It sounds very unusual. Buchenwald is a memorial and a museum today. It is located 5 miles from Weimar on the outskirts of a small town named Schwerte.

56,000 Jews were murdered or died at the hands of the Nazis in Buchenwald. 250,000 prisoners were interned there from the time it opened in 1937 until it was liberated by the US army in 1945.

It was one of the largest camps and one of the only camps of its kind in Germany itself.

There were 168 sub-camps in the region affiliated with Buchenwald.

Is the local Schwerte government doing the correct thing by housing these refugees in Buchenwald? Or is that camp a holy site for memorializing and for teaching.

And do the refugees being housed there know the history of the place they are now calling home?

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