FATHER FRANK’S LOG: 14th – 21st MAY
My reflection last week on La Faruk Madonna, painted by a prisoner of war in La Faruk war camp, evoked another memory from some years back. At the time I was the Novice Master for the Passionists in North Europe, and I had gone to spend a couple of weeks with our Passionist Community in Pasing, near Munich in Germany. One day, while looking at the map, I realised that I was not very far from the Concentration Camp Memorial Site at Dachau. I decided to take an afternoon off and visit the site.
I took the train from Pasing towards Munich for two stops, and then changed trains, travelling for another two stops to arrive at the railway station in Dachau. From there to the Camp it was a 3 kilometre walk, following much the same route that many of the prisoners would have been marched along in the days when the Camp was operational, from 1933 to 1945. As I walked the route I could see a building site in the distance, but it was only when I got nearer that I realised what was under construction, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw a big M, and I thought to myself, it couldn’t be true, but sure enough, a McDonald’s hamburger joint was being built on the approach to the Camp, on just the perfect spot to catch the tourists.
I would like to say that my visit to the Camp was very moving, but I think it was all too numbing to say that I was moved. Everything was understated, nothing was too much in your face, and it seemed all the more effective for that. I remember the simplicity of the museum, mostly of photographs and documents. There was a short film of the kind we have seen many times before, with prisoners being brought through the famous gates, above which was the cynical inscription, Work Makes You Free, little knowing what their true fate was to be. I remember the great monument in the drill square, a sculpture in bronze of a chain and intertwined skeletons, with various inscriptions on all sides. The inscription that struck me most was the one that simply said, Never Again. There were the gas chambers and ovens of course, and the prisoners’ huts, one of which had been used specifically for Catholic priests.
But somehow it was the construction of that McDonald’s that I couldn’t get out of my mind. A year or so later I was talking to someone who visited the Memorial Site after the restaurant had opened, and he told me that the Dachau sign at the bus station in the town now had a big M around it, and that they were handing out flyers on the approach to the Camp that said, Welcome to Dachau, Welcome to McDonald’s. I still struggle with it.
No doubt you will be familiar with this poem, perhaps the most famous of all the Holocaust poems, by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
My reflection last week on La Faruk Madonna, painted by a prisoner of war in La Faruk war camp, evoked another memory from some years back. At the time I was the Novice Master for the Passionists in North Europe, and I had gone to spend a couple of weeks with our Passionist Community in Pasing, near Munich in Germany. One day, while looking at the map, I realised that I was not very far from the Concentration Camp Memorial Site at Dachau. I decided to take an afternoon off and visit the site.
I took the train from Pasing towards Munich for two stops, and then changed trains, travelling for another two stops to arrive at the railway station in Dachau. From there to the Camp it was a 3 kilometre walk, following much the same route that many of the prisoners would have been marched along in the days when the Camp was operational, from 1933 to 1945. As I walked the route I could see a building site in the distance, but it was only when I got nearer that I realised what was under construction, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw a big M, and I thought to myself, it couldn’t be true, but sure enough, a McDonald’s hamburger joint was being built on the approach to the Camp, on just the perfect spot to catch the tourists.
I would like to say that my visit to the Camp was very moving, but I think it was all too numbing to say that I was moved. Everything was understated, nothing was too much in your face, and it seemed all the more effective for that. I remember the simplicity of the museum, mostly of photographs and documents. There was a short film of the kind we have seen many times before, with prisoners being brought through the famous gates, above which was the cynical inscription, Work Makes You Free, little knowing what their true fate was to be. I remember the great monument in the drill square, a sculpture in bronze of a chain and intertwined skeletons, with various inscriptions on all sides. The inscription that struck me most was the one that simply said, Never Again. There were the gas chambers and ovens of course, and the prisoners’ huts, one of which had been used specifically for Catholic priests.
But somehow it was the construction of that McDonald’s that I couldn’t get out of my mind. A year or so later I was talking to someone who visited the Memorial Site after the restaurant had opened, and he told me that the Dachau sign at the bus station in the town now had a big M around it, and that they were handing out flyers on the approach to the Camp that said, Welcome to Dachau, Welcome to McDonald’s. I still struggle with it.
No doubt you will be familiar with this poem, perhaps the most famous of all the Holocaust poems, by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
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