DACHAU, Germany - Never again.
People said what two Army National Guard divisions found inside Dachau Concentration Camp in April 1945 must happen "never again." The words were carved into memorials and painted foot-high in multiple languages on banners. But in Bosnia, Darfur and elsewhere, their promise was broken.
"I say that's more a prayer than a promise," LTG H Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said after a visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site on May 6.
Blum was en route to the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) Adjutants General State Partnership Conference in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a gathering of National Guard leaders from states that have partnerships with nations in the USEUCOM area of operations.
After that, he was scheduled to attend a historic State Partnership Program (SPP) Regional Workshop bringing together 10 Balkan countries and their National Guard partner states in Dubrovnik, Croatia. At this event, representatives from countries that fought less than two decades ago after the former Yugoslavia collapsed in civil war would engage in formal meetings and informal social activities.
The SPP fosters cooperation via military, socio-political and economic conduits at local, state and national levels through 56 partnerships between U.S. states or territories and foreign countries.
The SPP is one tool that can help make "never again" a reality, Blum said. At the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, the general saw photographs of Nazi atrocities committed before and during World War II. He walked through a gas chamber disguised as a shower room. He turned abruptly away from a line of ovens where the dead were burned, saying he had seen enough.
"It focuses me on the importance of why we have to have the 10 Balkan countries that are our partners in the State Partnership Program working a regional approach and a collaborative approach," Blum said. "Rather than concentrating on their differences, we need to maximize all of our efforts as a team of teams toward a common purpose, and that is democracy and human rights for everybody in that region and maintaining a stable and secure Balkan region, which has not always been the case, but today there is great potential for that promise to become a reality."
The Dachau Concentration Camp operated from 1933 until 1945, when it was liberated by two Army National Guard divisions. According to memorial curators, 41,566 is a conservative estimate of the number of people who died here.
"You can never forget these kind of things, because if you do they're destined to repeat themselves," Blum said. "It's unfortunately occurring on other parts of the planet, in Darfur as we speak."
Dachau opened within weeks of Adolf Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor, and more than 200,000 people were imprisoned during the 12 years it operated.
"You think of the lives that were ruined," Blum said. "The lives that were lost. The generations that were lost. The human genius that was wasted here. It's a human tragedy, and unfortunately it will occur anytime that humanity allows it to reoccur. ‘Never again' are good words, but it will take significant deeds by people who are willing to stand up and prevent this kind of nonsense and absolute folly from ever reoccurring."
It was not until 20 years after World War II that Dachau reopened as a memorial, and now up to one million visitors annually walk through this place that was the model for the Nazi concentration camps. The majority are young people learning what happened here, curators say.
Visitors including LTG Blum quickly lapse into silence as they walk the grounds. Groups break up, and people stand alone, as the chief of the National Guard Bureau did, contemplating the black and white photographs that document what happened here and the components of the machinery of death that remain, such as a rack inmates were strapped to before they were lashed with wooden whips.
After his visit, Blum said, "Elie Wiesel put it best: Many of these people were killed twice not only were their bodies killed, but their spirit and their minds were killed as well."
The place is overwhelmingly gray gray photographs, gray gravel, gray concrete, gray history. In April 1945, it was relieved by a rainbow.
"The two units that converged on Dachau ultimately to put an end to this madness were the 42nd ‘Rainbow' Infantry Division and the 45th ‘Thunderbird' Infantry Division, both National Guard divisions," Blum said. "One came in from one side of the camp, one came in from the other, and together they put an end to this suffering and the madness that was going on here."
The Americans found 42,000 people crammed into the camp, including tens of thousands evacuated from other concentration camps during the Third Reich's fall.
"The Guard has throughout its entire history been responsible for saving lives and preventing suffering and returning abnormal conditions to normal," Blum said. "We do it at home and we do it all around the world. We've done it for over 367 years, and we continue to do it today, and we'll do it as long as there's a United States of America."
Blum paused at the black wrought iron gate at the camp's entrance. "Arbeit macht frei," inmates read in the iron above the gate. These words were neither prayer nor promise, simply a lie that "work will make you free" when in fact extermination through work became Nazi policy.
"When you finally get to the end of this and your see the inhumanity to man that went on here and then the ultimate destination being either the crematorium or the gas chamber it's quite powerful and sobering," Blum said. "It helps me remember why we do what we do and why it's important."