Bearing Witness
When I was the staff photographer at the College of Architecture at Virginia Tech, I did a personal photography project that involved driving over to Richmond and photographing the crowds (both protesting and in support of) that gathered at the Virginia State Penitentiary whenever an execution was scheduled. After making that trip far too many times, I asked the Dean of the College of Architecture if the College would support me printing a portfolio of images to submit into a documentary photography contest and exhibition. The College did and it was my first foray into preparing a portfolio in addition to printing black and white images on high quality graded fiber photo paper. The images were moving, some very disturbing. Even now, I’m proud of the project. I called it “Bearing Witness.” I didn’t win or place and the images were returned.
That was not the first time I was cognizant of national and international social and moral issues. But it was the point I now recognize that I decided I would not ignore the ills of the world around me. I may not be able to do much, if anything, about them, but I would not ignore them nor will I deny those ills. That, for example, led to a substandard housing photography project in conjunction with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community development as well as paying attention to world, US and local events. That includes not just the present, but also extends back into history, particularly if that history is recent. It’s what made me feel obligated to take a tour of Dachau when I was in Germany with the military for REFORGER in 1990, and it’s what made me recently suggest we make a trip to Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught one rainy Saturday earlier this month when I discovered it while trip planning. Camp Vught, officially known as Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch, was the only SS concentration camp outside Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It’s in The Netherlands, about an hours drive from our home.
Living here in Europe (as opposed to visiting it), I’ve come to see that history is present here in a way that it is not in the US. Much of it is old history, far older than the United States as a country, even predating the discovery of the Americas. That history, though ancient, still has its imprint in how nations are configured, languages spoken and shared, and cultural similarities and differences. They form the basis of long-held animosities and stereotype jokes. Other history, namely that of the past century, is not of a history past, but of a history lived and still being lived. Holidays are not simply days off from school or work, but are days of remembrance for peoples that have not forgotten the ravages of two world wars and of a cold war that seems not to have gone away. They are felt here in a way not typically felt by most in the US, perhaps because, save for Pearl Harbor, the US has not been the battlefield of any major international war. Here, it is a history that people are still wanting to learn from so it is not repeated. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is present here in a way that it is not in the US. If there is to be any blowback from NATO member support for Ukraine or lack thereof, or even for supporting Ukraine, folks here are very aware that this is where the blowback will occur.
The national monument includes a museum, several of the original historic buildings, several recreated structures and some memorials. It is what one would expect from a monument about a camp where people were sent to be detained, treated poorly and often sent to other concentration camps, to one of the extermination camps, or to “other locations” where they were simply executed.
One of the things that impressed me was the museum exhibit was careful to explain that this is not about “good guys” and “bad guys,” that even events like this are not only black and white. Sure there were instances of pure good and sheer evil, but there were many shades of gray in so many people’s actions. This was an important point because nobody was at the camp willingly and people would do whatever it took to keep their families or themselves alive, even if it mean misfortune for another prisoner. Yes, some stories were simply horrible, examples of black and white. But other stories presented the difficult decisions people had to make that offered no clean options for the prisoner to choose from.
Another thing that impressed me was not only was there a children’s audio tour as well as an adult audio tour, but there were at least 3 families I observed that were carefully going through exhibits with their children, several elementary school age, explaining to them what happened and answering their questions in addition to helping them through a work-book about what happened. It was moving and a bit painful. Painful because I know so few parents in the US are willing to even address the shameful parts of our own history relating to slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, racism and prejudices that persist even now. How are we to overcome these terrible practices if we don’t even admit they happened? Denialism is not only about the holocaust. Here at least, they admit what happened, admit the roles Dutch citizens played in these actions, and even recognize the post-war role the camp played in a post-Nazi Europe and during the fall of The Netherlands’ own colonial empire. Facing up to our shortcomings is what democracy is about and is what makes us better and stronger. I can only commend those parents who are trying to educate their children, to help them understand that people can do terrible things to other people unless the majority of us say no, refuse to cooperate and especially refuse to stand-by and do nothing.
One of the original remaining buildings is the crematorium, used to cremate the bodies of over 750 prisoners who had been executed or died. One of the areas in the crematorium has a recreation of a detention cell from the original bunker detention facility - Cell 115, the site of the Bunker Tragedy of January 1944 where 74 women were thrown into a 9 square meter cell for protesting the detention of one of their barracks mates. 10 of them died.
And of course the crematorium has the cremation furnaces. Two of them. And a mobile furnace.
Walking around the museum with its original artifacts and stories, and then wandering outside to its re-created facilities, only to return to the museum helps break the intensity of the experience, although shifting from observing things to suddenly being behind the fences makes one feel rather than just imagine what it might have been like for the prisoners. At least we could voluntarily leave.
As you reenter the museum there is a memorial in honor of those who died at Kamp Vught. Like many such memorials, it is a moving place. Ann and I spent way more time in the room than I’d expected.
While most people were Dutch, there were frequently people from Belgium, France or even Germany (likely displaced Jews). We didn’t find anyone from Didam, but Ann did see a person from Zevenaar. At one point I shifted from looking at where people were born to when they were born. There were many older people as you might expect, unable to endure the difficult conditions. I was surprised at the number of people in their 20’s that were on the wall. Perhaps they had been executed instead of succumbing to illness. When I saw the name Rosa Prins, only 6 months old, I pulled out my camera to make a photograph. Only to realize after the fact that David Pomeranc was even younger.
In the early period of Kamp Vught, the camp was nestled in the woods, well out of town and more than an hour’s walk from the nearest train station. Eventually a spur line was run to the camp - to transfer prisoners to other, more appropriate camps, and to quickly evacuate the prisoners as Allied troops advanced. One prisoner wrote in his journal, how could a place like this be located in an area of such natural beauty?
How can we tolerate such a place anywhere?
One could spend hours at the Kamp Vught museum, reading details from the many stories, and not read them all. Too many of them are heart wrenching, even the stories of those who survived.
People tend to want to forget their worst moments, ignore their worst qualities. At a personal level, that is perhaps a part of personal growth, a means of allowing us to move on to become a better person, if that’s what one does. But we need places like Kamp Vught, the Holocaust Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of the American Indian to remind us of what we can become, the horrors we can do as a society and culture if we let it, and so we consciously do not let it happen. Otherwise, the phrase “NEVER AGAIN,” in all of its contexts, is a meaningless catchphrase.