Unimaginable Horror

A few weeks ago, I told one of my lifelong friends about my visit to Auschwitz last summer, and further, how beautiful I found Poland.  I was a little shocked when my friend said something like, “Poland?  I thought Auschwitz was in Germany. I thought the Holocaust took place in Germany.”  My friend is a very smart, well-educated person.  It made m realize that all of my study on The Holocaust may benefit my small audience of readers.  I know more than I want to know.

Warning, this is not pretty reading.  It isn’t intended to be.  But I think we need to know.

Auschwitz may be what comes to mind when people think of the Holocaust.  The reason you have likely heard of Auschwitz is likely because thousands of people survived Auschwitz and lived to tell about what happened there.  The Russians liberated it before the Nazis could destroy the evidence of their mass murder.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl HarborI.  President Roosevelt said that it was a date that will live in infamy.  There is another reason that date should live in infamy.  It was the day that Nazis began their planned mass murder of Jews in Poland in what they called Operation Reinhardt at a place called Chelmno.

Most people have never heard of these other murder camps.

Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka.  These were the other Death Camps in Poland.  There were few survivors.  In some, fewer than 10, others a hundred or so.  The Nazis completely obliterated their evil work at these camps.  Today there are only memorials left where those camps were.  These places were sites of the unimaginable.

Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka existed for two reasons:  (1) to steal the very last traces of wealth from their victims down to gold teeth and the hair of women and (2) to kill them. 

Auschwitz, on the other hand, existed for the same reasons but in addition it was also a source of slave labor for surrounding industries.  One would never say you were lucky to be sent to Auschwitz but compared to the other four death camps, if you did get sent there, you had at least a chance to be chosen for work to survive another day, as long as you weren’t too old, too young, too weak or a thousand other random whims that might get you selected for death upon arrival.  Thousands were chosen for work upon arrival at Auschwitz, giving them the slightest chance to survive for a few days or months and for some, even years.

In Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka, most were dead within hours of arriving.

These were tiny camps.  There was no need for many barracks.  Except for a few hundred selected to work in the camps, thousands arrived and within hours their remains were either dumped in a mass grave or, later as the killing machine became more advanced, burned.  In fact later, to attempt to cover up their crimes, all of the bodies were exhumed and burned.

Remains of human beings killed in Majdanek. There are no known photos from Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka except for pictures of perpetrators.

They were remarkably efficient. Almost all people were dead with in 90 minutes upon arrival.  These camps used exhaust fumes tank engines piped into the sealed chambers.  These death camps, except Auschwitz, were in operation for under two years.  In that time the killing was almost nonstop.

At Sobibor in fewer than 18 months as many as 250,000 human beings were gassed by exhaust fumes from tank engines.  On October 14, 1943, inmates revolted.  About 58 people survived.

In Belzec in about 15 months as many as 600,000 men, women and children were murdered.  Only two people are known to have survived Belzec.

Treblinka, the second most murderous place in the Nazi killing machine, in about 15 months, 600,000 - 900,000 people died.  On August 2, 1943 workers in the camp revolted, and set fire to much of the camp.  Two hundred people escaped half of them were killed in the next few hours.  Around 70 survived the war.

Chelmno worked a bit differently.  There was no camp.  Three gas vans were used.  Each van held about 50 people.  The people would be forced into the vans.  The exhaust of the van was piped into the compartment where the people were crammed.  The driver would drive to the graves which had efficiently been chosen because it took just the right amount of time for everyone to die of suffocation.  Then Jewish prisoners were chosen to empty the bodies from the vans, remove any valuables including gold in teeth, and then put them into the mass graves.  At the end of the day, a couple of the Jewish workers would be chosen and told to lie down on the graves.  They would be shot and replaced by new arrivals the next day.

At Chelmno, 320,000 people were gassed in mobile vans and buried in mass graves.  A handful of survivors lived to tell their stories of horror.

It is important to remember that it is difficult to take in these huge numbers.  Each one was a person with a story.

 “I look around and think: Good God, what kind of hell is this?” ― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

Coming Out Day 2018

Coming Out

Today is National Coming Out Day.

 

I've been thinking a lot about coming out in the past week or so.  I got a call from a young man I hardly knew.  I had only met him a couple of times over the years but found him to be so energetic, full of life and promise.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew this call would come.  I think I hoped it would.

 

From the moment we met, I knew something about him without being told.  I guess you could say, "It takes one to know one."  And I have impeccable gaydar.  And no, I don't think everyone is gay.

 

So, he called and we've talked and talked for the past ten days.  And we've laughed, cried and compared notes on growing up gay in similar, while at the same time very different, circumstances.  My friend is on his journey of coming out.

 

Coming out was a most terrifying prospect for me.  When you've hidden a part of yourself since childhood, the fear grows with the years.  I remember coming home on the school bus and putting in my Barry Manilow cassette and playing All the Time, over and over.

 

All the time I thought, "there's only me,

Crazy in a way that no one else could be”

I would have given everything I own

If someone would have said "you're not alone"

 

All the time I thought that I was wrong

Wanting to be me but needing to belong

If I'd've just believed in all I had

If someone would have said "you're not so bad"

 

I didn't come out until my early 30s.  I started with the people whose potential rejection mattered the least to me.  Close family came last.  My parents were the last to know.  I listened to the advice of a wise therapist and tried to believe him when he told me that for most people coming out as gay to family quickly becomes no big deal.  He was right.  Sure there was an awkward time of learning and adjustment but soon everybody realized that I was still me.  Except I am a much better me.  I stopped living in fear.  I was no longer constantly sick. as I had often been with chronic sore throats and stomach troubles.  I wasn't hiding behind the closet door anymore.

 

There are well-known maladies that often share the closet space with its inhabitant:  Self-disgust, self-hatred, low self-esteem, negative self-view, chronic depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, alcohol/drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts.  The closet can be a dangerous and even deadly place.

 

I was constantly restless, never staying in one place.  Looking back at those last four or five years in the closet.  I think I moved to a different country or state every year.  Since coming out, I've lived in the same zip code for almost 20 years.  I've worked for the same firm for 18 years.

 

My fears about coming out were mostly unfounded.  I can't say that I've lost any friends.  Well, maybe two.  And those two are a blip.  And those two are toxic people who were not really my friends.

 

Coming out just doesn't change the person coming out.  It changes the person's friends and family.  As Harvey Milk said, by coming out we "break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions" that are believed about gay people.  I've marveled at what advocates my family has become for all marginalized people.

 

It can also help others who are closeted watching.  The young man who called me didn't know me well but he knew I'd come out and survived and more than survived.  Thrived.

 

I've seen tragic results of not coming out.  I had a friend that I'd known since we were both teenagers.  My gaydar was right about him.  We never talked about it until we were both into our 40s.  We didn't have much contact after college.  FaceBook brought us back into contact with each other.  He was living a miserable life.

 

I invited him to spend the weekend with me in New York.  We did all the things he wanted to do in NYC.  We saw Broadway shows, ate the biggest steak at Peter Luger’s, and just enjoyed a renewed friendship.  He went to church with me and was shocked that they actually had me, an out, gay man, leading parts of worship.

 

When he left, he cried really hard and said it was the best weekend he'd ever had.  He didn't know how he was going to go back.

 

But he just knew his family wouldn't accept him if he came out.  He may have been right.  About a year later, he was found dead at home.  He drank himself to death.  It appears that he did come out to one family member.  He was not accepted as he was.

 

Most of the people reading this don't need to come out.  But you may have someone in your life that does need to come out to you.  You can be vital to a loved one who is coming out.  You can be the kind of person someone would feel safe coming out to.  Are you? Do you make jokes and derogatory gay jokes?  Do you talk about "that lifestyle?"  Just stop.  There may be a good reason someone is reluctant to bare his or her soul to you.  A little self-examination goes a long way.

 

Coming out doesn't solve everything.  My young friend has some hurdles to jump over as a result of living in the closet, as he goes through the process of living authentically.  But he's finally not living in fear and he's found that he has so many people who love him on his side.  I'm so honored to have received that call.  And my friend is going to be great.

But, um, who is my neighbor?

Governments make and enforce cold-hearted laws. They do it all the time. All of them. It is what they do.

But if you call yourself a Christian and you cross your arms and defiantly say, “Well, they broke the law so they have to pay the price,” and you have no compassion for people fleeing to save their lives and especially the lives of their children, then I call bullshit on you and your alleged faith. If you can look at children in detention centers and just casually accept it as the way things are and so, that’s just how it is, then you need to re-examine who you think you are.

Don’t take Bible verses about obeying laws out of their context. The same Bible that says, “Obey your government rulers,” also says, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

Maybe you need to read the Gospels and see what Jesus did. Because your Jesus is on one side of this issue and I promise you it is the side of the children.

Don’t ask, “Who is my neighbor?” You know good and well who your neighbor. The question is will you love your neighbor?

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Make sure you’re not being polluted by your Party (and they both pollute).

We will never know what would have happened if German Christians had put Hitler on notice in 1933 that they would not stand for injustice. (And please don’t talk to me about Bonhoeffer. I know all about him but not enough Christians listened, did they?) They were happy to let what they hoped were the ends justify the means and so could peep through the curtains while this neighbors were first dehumanized then carted off to “detention centers.”

I hope it isn’t too late for America. But when people use their Bible to justify evil, ill treatment of the neediest and we don’t defy them, then I’m afraid it is too late.

I'm mad as hell

I’m as angry as I have ever been.  I just balled my eyes walking home for ten blocks.  I’m must have seemed like a lunatic to the early-Puerto Rican day revelers.  I probably just seemed like a morose drunk, which I would be if I were drunk.

I wish I were drunk.

I just talked to my Mexican friend who just this year got his green card. That seems like something to celebrate. But then he told me about the experience.

It wasn’t just the fear of leaving his wife, his five year-old son and two year-old son here in the States while he went back to Mexico so that he could come back with a green card.  That process in itself seems a bit cruel and barbaric. Hearing him tell how his son held to his leg begging him not to go and begging him to take him with him belies the fear that has been created in the process. Even a five year-old can tell that something is not right.

But the thing that made me boil was what he told me about the reentry process as his wife and sons waited for him at the airport. The agents made him wait for 30 minutes while he heard them cruelly talk (as if he couldn’t understand; his English is exceptional) about perhaps not letting him enter. Of course, they didn’t have a legal foot to stand on. His papers were in order. But in the current climate, they could afford to entertain cruelty.

And his experience is mild compared to what is happening on our border to the south.

I’m ashamed of America. Merely kneeling during the national anthem is not enough. I stopped the pledge of allegiance years ago. Yet, a sentimental tear would often find its way out of my eyes during the Star Spangled Banner. No more. Not now. It may sound cliché but if this is what we’ve come to, they let’s tear down the Statue of Liberty and especially the Emma Lazarus poem at her feet. It is, to be blunt, BULLSHIT.

There is no conscience in the White House or Justice Department.  It is trickle-down cruelty.

I have offered some assistance where I can. I think it is time for more. I don’t’ know what yet. I will find out.

Speak English! This is America!

In the past few days I’ve had conversations with a few people about the ugly incident with the New York attorney, an absolutely horrible person by all accounts, who complained obnoxiously about two workers in a restaurant who were speaking Spanish to each other.  He threatened to call immigration authorities on them because they were not speaking English.

“People who come to America should learn English,” a couple of people said to me while we were on the subject.

I agree.  But probably not for the reason they think people should learn English.  People who live in this country should learn English because it makes their life here much easier than if they don’t.  Speaking English doesn’t make you a better American or a smarter person.  A lot of very stupid people speak English (and nothing else).  And no, English is not the official language of the United States.  There isn’t one.

I’d like to point out that NOT ONE of the people who said to me, “People who come to America should learn English,” speaks another language besides English.  And they don’t have to.  They live in America where they can get by just fine in English.  And to a person, NOT ONE of these people has lived outside the USA.  And they don’t have to do that either.

A couple of things you need to remember.  Just because you hear two people speaking Spanish or Chinese or Swahili, doesn't mean they can't speak English.  They may just be more comfortable speaking their native language, just like you would be.  And I've never met an immigrant to this country who didn't want to learn English

BUT what all of thes "they must learn English" people probably fail to realize is how difficult it is to learn another language.  I know.  I've tried.  Twice, seriously.  It is hard.  So hard.  It is gut wrenching.  If you want to see a grown man cry, go to a language school where is seriously trying to learn a new language.  I've seen it happen many times.  I might have even been the grown man crying more than once.

 But even more than hard work of learning and memorizing new words and rules, it takes daily, meaningful interaction with people who speak the language you’re trying to learn.  Without that it will never happen.  And that's where empathy and compassion should come into the picture.

Has anyone thought about how hard that is?  You’re in a new place and you just really need people to talk to in your new language.  Been there.  Done there.  Hated it.  Most people don’t have time and don’t want to make the time to talk to you.

So if you’re one of those people who says, “Well, I DO think they need to learn English,” then how about this?  Find some of them.  It won’t be hard to do.  I promise.  If you look, you’ll find an immigrant longing to become more a part of the community but with no idea how to start.  Invite them to your house for a meal.  They will probably bring something to eat that will change your life.  Invite them to a party, to church, to a ballgame.

It will enrich your world and change someone’s life forever.

How Far Are You Willing to Go?

There is so much talk, especially on social media, such, let me say, bravado. And I confess I have played no small part in it. But I want us to think about a few things. Maybe if we think in advance, we will equip ourselves to do the right thing.

If you know me at all, you know my obsession with genocide, particularly what we call The Holocaust, but also Cambodia (I had friends in college who lived through it.) Rwanda. Serbia. I have read more about The Holocaust because there is just more to read. I bet I've read more than you. If you think you've read more than I, we need to talk.

When injustice presents itself, it is pretty easy to see myself, and I bet it is for you as well to see yourself NOT as an active perpetrator. For example, there was the story out of Rwanda of the Seventh Day Adventist bishop. A group of Tutsi pastors and their families was holding up in a hospital. They sent a letter to their bishop whom I will not give the honor of naming. The pastors sent him a letter that said in part, "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families." They were begging for him to intervene. What they didn't realize is that he was actually the mastermind planning their murders. [You can read the book by Philip Gourevitch]

Yeah, most of us know we aren't that person. We aren't going to plan any murders nor are we going to actively set out to hurt a people or a person. 

But what about walking down the street in early 1930s Germany and seeing thugs mistreating an orthodox Jewish man, pulling out his beard or ear locks or pushing him into the muddy, streets, at that time still filled with horse shit? What would you do? Early on, it didn't appear to get someone into too much trouble for telling the thugs to stop. They were in the early stages of thugness. What would have happened if the public had just let it be known that they wouldn't put up with it?

What are we doing?

What about when they painted "Jude" on the front window on the shop where you went every day. When the brown shirts asked people to boycott them, most appear to have obeyed. But I've read quite a number of stories where people went right on shopping in these stores and suffered nothing.

Which would you be? Which would I be?

What would have happened on  Kristallnacht if neighbors had flooded the streets to resist. It appears most stayed in their homes peeking through the slit in the curtains. What if? When it happens, and it will, if you are there, will you risk it? Will I?

What about when it gets more intense? What about when the stakes are higher? When the mother and father come to you and ask you to take in their child before they are deported, it sounds reasonable enough. How could you not? But what do you do when you find out that if you are caught, you will be killed. "Fair enough," maybe you you think, "It is he right thing to do." But that's not all. They will not only kill you but your entire family and sometimes even your entire village? What then? I don't know. 

Certainly more people in occupied Europe turned their backs. There are great stories of those who risked their lives to save people. Often when they are asked why they did it, it is like they don't understand the question. Because it was the right thing to do. Oh I hope I could be those people.

What if you are a soldier? What if you're supposed to obey orders and the order today is to shoot innocent civilians into a mass grave and not to waste a bullet on the children, just throw them in. You know it is wrong. Everything you've ever known tells you this is wrong. But if you disobey, you end up in the pit too.

All of these genocides are mass murders, or course. But at the same time each murder was an individual murder. At some point individuals made decisions. It was a human being deciding to do the wrong thing. 

To pass by on the other side of the street when someone is being mistreated. To choose not to get involved. To close the door when the refugee comes knocking, and you can year the wolves at their heals. When a hand with a tin cup reaches through the cattle car slats and asks for water, the SS man says "No!" Will you risk it? Will I?

Millions of decisions were made in the moment. Most chose to obey. Most chose to do that which they knew was wrong.

How far are you willing to go? I ask myself this question. Am I willing to believe that there are things worse than my own death. I often wonder about those perpetrators that went on to live long lives. And I wonder if in their nightmares, if they thought their lives would have been better cut short by doing the right thing.

Happy Holidays! Merry Xmas!

Bah! Humbug!

I'm getting tired of Christians at Christmas. Just this week I saw a post on FaceBook, a picture of a nativity scene, with the caption that FaceBook had banned such pictures. Never mind that the post was not removed. That one comes around every year and has been proven time and again to be untrue.

I'm not sure where this obsession with wanting to feel persecuted for one's faith comes from. But come on! It isn't happening. There is no war on Xmas. Xmas is alive and well in all its glory, sacred and secular.

I'm going to get mail because I used X in place of Christ even though the use of X for Christ goes back long before the word Christmas was born.

So some people prefer for you to say, "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Xmas!" So what! "Happy holidays" is quite useful, killing two turtle doves with one stone.

If you worked where I work, it just doesn't feel right to say, "Merry Christmas!" to an observant Jew, not that any of them I know would truly take offense.

And what his "holiday" anyway? It's a holy day. So you could say that when someone wishes you a happy holiday, they are recognizing that you are celebrating something holy.

But I don't know. Maybe it just makes people feel more devout if they think they are being persecuted.

I hear too many sermons this time of year on recapturing the true meaning of Christmas. Many of these inevitably turn into a rant on commercialism and the fact that someone somewhere called the tree a holiday tree.

It seems like a wasted opportunity to me. While wasting words on how we are approaching the end of Christendom as we know it, they might instead be truly telling a story of hope and redemption, a story that God came down.  Someone might be waiting to hear such a story.

I don't think God cares if you say "Happy Holidays." I don't know. He didn't tell me that. I don't think Jesus cares if you celebrate his birthday or not. He honestly doesn't seem so much a birthday kind of guy. I mean he did seem to like a good party but in the end, I don't think he'd give a rat's, eh, wait, maybe I'm starting to rant. From all I see of Jesus, he wouldn't have been preaching about how the nation was going to hell in a hand basket because people aren't allowed their nativity scenes in public spaces. In fact, he'd be more likely to come into your church building and turn over your American flags, Xmas trees and offering plates and yell, "What do you think this is all about?"

I think it is easy for the church to take the easy road. It's easier to talk about the meaning of Xmas and lament its demise. It is an easy sermon to preach. 

What's hard is to do what Jesus did. If you believe the narrative, he got pretty humbled. From the throne of heaven to a stable in Bethlehem, born to a poor family, and you know the rest of the story. It was quite a come down. We Americans aren't good at that.

Even if it should turn out to be that Christians in America are persecuted, should that surprise? Christians should be surprised that they aren't. And if they are not feeling the scorn of the world, they should wonder what they are doing wrong. 

So far I don't see it. Not here. There are Christians in the world severely persecuted even today in the 21st century. Some say more there are more people killed for their faith today than ever before. It's just what I heard. You can research it.

Bing Crosby surely started the war back in 1942 in the Xmas classic film Holiday Inn when he sang, "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas, darling. Maybe that's where we started on the slippery slope down Mount Crumpet.

I think that people spend their time ranting about the war on Xmas have a problem with the meaning of these tidings of great joy. I don't think they believe it enough. Somehow, they think this two-thousand year-old story is going to be lost. 

Maybe they are right. It is being lost. It is being lost to those who might hear the story of heaven come down to earth, Emmanuel, God with us. Instead they hear that Xmas is being taken away because some don't want a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn or some store employees are asked to say, "Happy Holidays."

If concern about how people don't celebrate an ancient birthday the way you think they should is the biggest thing you have to concern yourself with at this time of year, I'd say you need to get out more.

Turn off the noise. When people start talking about the war on Christmas, turn them off. The true message is cheapened. It is making good news bad news. If it bothers you that Christmas is being lost, then I suggest you turn off CNN, FoxNews and the Kardashians and get out and be meaning of Christmas.

It was Jesus himself who said why he came. It was Jesus himself who said why he came, "...to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free." St. Luke 4:18

Good grief people! Where have you been? No one can keep Christmas from coming. Haven't you seen Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas? It came! It came just the same.