A plea for compassion rings against an ideology of hatred

On a temperate, sunny day in Dachau, the scenic Bavarian landscape does not whisper of horror or of death. Yet a little more than 12 miles from Munich, the town holds the sad distinction of birthing one of the ugliest chapters in human history.

On the outskirts of the city, the wooded roadside gives way to the high brick walls of Germany's first concentration camp, the model for a network spanning the Nazi Reich in which millions would perish. Dachau, and the other camps throughout Europe, shows the depths of human cruelty and serves as a lasting memory to the millions who perished in the Holocaust that claimed the lives of 11 million, including six million Jews.

I visited Dachau, which has roughly half the population of Greenville, 11 years ago today while in Europe. My journal recounts a consuming sadness from the visit, as well as the importance of having witnessed, first-hand, a place of such vile inhumanity.

That it remains intact is due in part to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who visited the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp in south central Germany shortly after its 1945 capture by Allied forces. His experience prompted him to order that the horror there and elsewhere by fully documented, so that “if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.'”

Eisenhower's fears proved precedent, as the worst atrocity in modern human history elicits creative denunciation from those who deny it occurred. James W. von Brunn, charged this week with murder in the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C., is one such adherent to that ideology.

Von Brunn is a white supremacist and Holocaust denier, a status confirmed by the virulent and ugly writing on his Web site.

What emerges is the profile of someone driven by anger and an irrational hatred of Jews, blacks and other minorities, and who believed unquestioningly that the Holocaust was fictitious.

Sadly, that farcical philosophy is shared by people across this country, from which North Carolina provides no safe harbor. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, counts 30 organizations in this state espousing separatist, racist and supremacist views that defy both reason and understanding. It was only two years ago that law enforcement arrested five Pitt County based members of a racist skinhead group, who were convicted of several felonies, including kidnapping, assault and conspiracy to commit murder.

It would be comforting to call him an aberration, but von Brunn was not born with a heart full of hate. Rather, he was imbued with rage by his life experiences and found an outlet in an ideology that dismisses the gruesome and systematic extermination of Jews during World War II. It is a tale that repeats itself, even in communities like this.

The best antidote to such sickness is that which has helped to combat racism and other forms of discrimination.

The truth must be given unequivocal voice at every turn. As President Barack Obama stated plainly in Cairo on June 4, “Six million Jews were killed, more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless. It is ignorant, and it is hateful.”

As such, individuals must take it upon themselves to relate with others using tolerance and understanding. Signs along the roads into Greenville issue a challenge, not a declaration: “We are building an inclusive community.” Success is measured in how we interact with one another, whether we approach those situations with anger, contempt and distrust or with openness, charity and compassion.

Those who operated the camp at Dachau made their choice as, apparently, did von Brunn in Washingon this week.

We make our choice by rejecting such hatred in favor of building a stronger community and a better world together

Brian Colligan is editorial page editor of The Daily Reflector. Contact him at (252) 329-9507 or bcolligan@coxnc.com.