The Paradox of Dachau

In Dachau, Germany, the concentration camp used in the Nazi era can still be found.  The gruesome reality has become a museum, and seems to be a witness to a sincere commitment to truth, regardless of how painful and incriminating it may be…The screams and shrieks that once permeated the air of Dachau have been muted, entombed behind glass windows.  A barrack has been built to exact specifications, a perfect replica of the original, but it is antiseptic and clean, utterly devoid of the stench of death, untouched by the indelible stain of human torment and degradation.[1]

            These are almost the first words of Dachau – A Silent Witness by Art Katz.  This little book is a meditation on the reality of God’s apparent silence during the Holocaust.  He reaches the conclusion in the form of a question, “Could God’s failure to acknowledge us in our extremities be directly related to our failure to acknowledge Him?”[2]

            Katz worries that the clean and museum-like quality of Dachau is not conducive for the visitor to ask the right questions – questions that would challenge the very foundations of the viewer’s way of life.  Katz asks these questions, and even though he is addressing his fellow Hebrews, the same meditation can be applied to the persecution and torment suffered by the Catholic priests in Dachau.

            The phrase, “Nazi concentration camps,” evokes images of multitudes of Jews, starving, and being packed into gas chambers.  Yet this atrocity is not the entire picture, nor can it be stated that the concentration camps were about the annihilation of the Jewish people.  There was something more, and the presence of the Jews was only a result of a greater cause.

            This cause was what seemed to puzzle Father Jean Bernard in his memoir, Priestblock 25487.  He was one of the many priests interred in Dachau, and he supposed his presence might have been because he was from Luxembourg.  His memoir, however, does not delve into the political reasons behind his internment; rather, it focuses on what happened to the priests in Dachau.

            Lists kept by the interred priests indicate that there were over 2,700 priests who entered its confines, and at least 1,000 died.[3]  The clergy were kept isolated from the rest of the prisoners, and while they were given preferential treatment, this treatment was degrading.  Father Bernard recounts how the clergy were given a daily ration of wine. “Not everyone is capable of drinking a quarter liter of wine in one gulp.  As soon as our cups were empty we have to hold them upside down above our heads.”[4]  Once, when one of the clergy choked on the wine, an SS guard slammed “his fist into the bottom of the cup so violently that the metal rim sliced a semi-circle through his lips and cheeks, all the way down to the bone.”[5]

            Throughout Father Bernard’s account of his experiences, he doesn't dwell on how the sufferings are affecting him, other than the physical debilitation that occurs.  By not dwelling on his mental anguish, he is able to help the reader see the suffering of his fellow priests with greater clarity.  The only times that he dwells on his emotions are when he describes the first Mass he heard in Dachau and later when the Holy Eucharist was smuggled into his area.

            Even though Father Bernard does not dwell on the reasons behind the existence of the concentration camp, the reader can begin to get a sense of the underlying motives of the Nazis.  The intense hatred shown by the prison guards and the SS officers, the brutality with which the priests were treated, the systematic starvation of everyone in Dachau all point to an intense hatred – a hatred for everything not in perfect accord with Nazi ideology. As Roy Bainton, who visited Dachau to explore his German roots wrote, “Dachau goes beyond the major Jewish tragedy to demonstrate the brutal breadth of the spiteful heart of fascism.”[6]  But is Fascism the issue?

            Fascism is an authoritarian system of government, but authoritarian governments are not necessarily evil.  The level of evil would have to depend on the dictator.  Hence while there might be inherent problems with an authoritarian system of government, the evils of Nazism do not necessarily flow from a strong authority figure.  So what is the source of that evil?

            William O’Malley, writing in the journal America, provides a clue.  “As for the Czech and Slovak priests (109) and the Yugoslavs (50), the reason for incarceration was, as with the Jews, racial. Hitler believed Slavs were ordained by Providence to be slaves to the Aryan race, a fact their very name ‘proved.’”[7]  The evil was the worship of man, and not just humanity in general, but in the Arian race.  This worship even prompted the development of an Arian religion.  As Roy Bainton writes in “Hell was Here”,

The Fuhrer's pet philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, drew up a 30-point plan for a "Reich Church"; points 18-20 decreed that: ". . . the Bible be removed from all churches, to be replaced with the one true book, Mein Kampf. A sword must be placed on the altar; all crucifixes shall be replaced with the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika . . . "[8]

            The deification of the Arian race brought with it its own form of inquisition.  If one was not Arian or if one did not accept the teachings of Nazism, that person was to be eliminated.  The hatred directed against the priests in Dachau bears testament to the religious fever of the Nazis.

            Could it be, then, that the Nazis were merely repeating Satan’s “I will not serve”?  Could it be that the attempt to systematically eliminate anything that was not Nazi was nothing other than a repeat of the motives of the first sin of man?  Could it be that the Nazis chose to “be as gods” in their own way and on their own terms?  It may be that the answers to these questions about the Nazis are not as important as the questions that we should be asking about ourselves.

            In the face of such evil, whether we are sufferers or mere bystanders, we should consider how we stand in relation to God, for He never allows an evil unless He sees that a greater good will come from it.  The question Katz stated above is the door to understanding the presence of such evil, “Could God’s failure to acknowledge us in our extremities be directly related to our failure to acknowledge Him?”[9]  The horror of Dachau has the potential to shake us out of apathy and force us to consider things that really matter.

            Father Bernard, in a brief passage, lets the reader know how he saw his role as sufferer.  After he first arrived in the Dachau priestblock, he was surprised and uplifted by a blessing given by the Bishop of Leslau.  Commenting on the blessing, he said,

And we have the feeling that the bishop’s blessing gives meaning to our suffering, lifts it above the purely human and joins our small, personal suffering to the sea of injury and persecution that the church of Christ endures and must endure.  His blessing lets us share in the graces and comforts and sources of strength that fed the first martyrs.

O miracle of the communion of saints, which becomes our experience here!

Even our sleep is illuminated by the great certainty: Et non prevalebunt…And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.[10]

            For Father Bernard, the war of Hell against God and all that is God’s is the reason for Dachau, and as the Apostles rejoiced to suffer with Christ, the priests in Dachau saw that their suffering had value.  Its value is found in the divine paradoxes: “He that shall loose his life for me, shall find it” (Mt 10:39 DOUAY) and "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5:10)
            Dachau serves as an opportunity.  Those imprisoned were given the opportunity to find God or, if they had already found God, to unite their sufferings with those of Christ so others might find Him.  Dachau also serves as an opportunity for those who were not behind its gates.  For them, it challenges the very concepts of human decency, forcing the viewer to question.  And this is good.  If we question, we can be led to the truth, and once the truth is found, then one thing remains evident: that if we want God to speak to us, then we have to be where He is speaking.  The horror of Dachau is necessarily not a moment of despair.  Seen in the right light, it is a moment of hope!

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[1] Art Katz. Dachau - A Silent Witness. Kindle Edition

[2] Katz. Dachau

[3] William J. O’Malley “Priests of Dachau” America 175, no. 14: 351-353. Academic Searc Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2015) 351

[4] Jean Bernard, Priestblock 25487 A Memoir of Dachau. (Bethsada: Zaccheus Press, 2007) 34.

[5] Jean Bernard, Priestblock 25487.  34.

[6] Roy Bainton “Hell was Here” New Statesman & Society Vol. 8 , Issue 350. Academic Search Premiere, EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2015)

[7] O’Malley. “Priests of Dachau”. 352

[8] Bainton. “Hell was Here”

[9] Katz. Dachau

[10] Bernard, Priestblock 25487.  35, 35.