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Horrific images must help us ‘heal’

“So many disgusting images, but one figure, the man in a shirt. Auschwitz on it. Auschwitz! To see this punk with that shirt on and his anti-Semitism that he has bragged about to be part of a white supremacist raid on the Capitol requires us to have an after-action review, to assign responsibility to those who are part of organizing it and incentivizing it.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 15, describing Robert Keith Packer who participated in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“To heal we must remember.” Then President-Elect Joe Biden at Lincoln Memorial, Jan. 19.

“To heal we must remember.” My Dad’s brother, Hugh Colopy, left a prominent law firm in Akron, Ohio, to enlist in the U.S. Army as a private early in World War II and became Tech Sergeant in the Counter Intelligence Corps. After Officers’ Training School, he was promoted to First Lieutenant and sent to Germany as a war crimes investigation team officer.

The team’s duty was to follow the advancing Allied armies toward Berlin and investigate charges of mistreatment of prisoners and civilians. His investigations played an important part in the Nuremberg Trials after the war which helped decide the fate of Nazi officers and others responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and thousands of others thought to be “enemies of the people.” Sound familiar?

During these trials, the world learned the full extent of the crimes against humanity perpetuated by Hitler and the Third Reich. The world learned about Auchwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Treblinka and more than 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites including ghettos established by the Third Reich and its allies.

“So many disgusting images, but one figure, the man in a shirt with Auschwitz on it.” In October 1976 my husband, George and 12 other Fulbright scholars and their spouses were given a tour of Auschwitz, the death camp in Oswiecim, Poland. “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Brings Freedom) were carved on the archway by the forced labor of those who would later be gassed. Those words reverberated in my brain as we entered the grounds.

We saw oh so many baby blankets, crocheted booties, doll babies, snowsuits, toys. Just baby items alone filled one room from floor to ceiling. Other rooms contained rolls and rolls of human hair, artificial limbs, eyeglasses, suitcases, teeth. We stepped into the showers where thousands tried to claw their way out, stared in horror at the ovens where the bodies were burned 24 hours a day as farmers nearby plowed their fields and on a windy day, wiped the human ashes off their faces. Everybody knew. Everybody knew.

Nancy Pelosi recently described her visit to Auschwitz in Poland as a “transformative moment” and was “overwhelmed by the dehumanizing of people.”

And then on Wednesday, Jan. 6 a mob of thugs, white supremacists, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists, stormed the U.S. Capitol, smeared the walls with their feces, shouted, “Hang Pence,” “Kill Nancy,” attacked the police, and killed a police officer. The words Arbeit Macht Frei Auschwitz were printed on the shirt of Robert Keith Parker. Others wore shirts saying: Death to Liberals, RWDS (Right Wing Death Squad), Rope. Tree. Journalist.

The President of the United State’s response to his insurrectionists? “We love you. You’re very special.”

Now Everybody knows. Everybody knows.

• • •

Today, Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum will commemorate the 76-year anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. The main theme will be the fate of children in Auschwitz. Due to COVID celebration will be online.

Rose Sebouhan is a Fredonia resident.

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