Chilling Vocabulary

Today's vocabulary word is Konzentrationslager.  Yes, it is German and if you do not already know it, here is a visual cue:

Image published by Museon in Europeana, CC BY-SA

tRump's recent immigrant round ups have necessitated a resurrection of the term.  Actually, that is only a partial-truth since the Adolescent-in-Chief can only work with the infrastructure he inherited, which is nothing short of inhumane.

A post on USUNCUT.com this week shows images of amerikanishe Konzentrationslagern (KZ Lager, as they were called) which are likely being used right now, or similar ones, in the wake of last weekend's round up of undocumented immigrants.  Here's the lead image in the story:

http://usuncut.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ice11.jpg 

This image of detained mothers and children was released by Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar.  Maybe this is only slightly less disturbing than ones from a different era in which a "strong" leader promised to put the needs of his country first and to get tough on immigrants and undesirables:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Belarusian State Archive of Documentary Film and Photography, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Oh, I should point out that Cuellar's image was not published this past week after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) raids were carried out under tRump's command.  His image was published in 2014, during the Obama Administration, so the stench of these centers/camps is far older than just tRump.  The USUNCUT.com piece leads with this chilling question, "U.S. immigration authorities rounded up hundreds of undocumented immigrants across six states in the last week, which begs the question — where do they go?"

Of course, there are significant differences between the Nazi KZ Lager and the US detention centers in the facts that detainees stay for shorter periods of time, are not forced into hard labor, or sent to the Gaskammern (gas chambers).  But to children fleeing with their mothers from violence, oppression, and hopelessness of countries to the south, are those differences really all that meaningful?  Probably not, since it has been reported that they experience some similar horrors.

A 2015 complaint filed by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) on behalf of detainees in Arizona noted that they had to endure 

painfully low temperatures without proper clothing or blankets. Indeed, CBP [Customs and Border Protection] officials force detainees to remove extra layers of clothing before entering...frigid cells. CBP officials regularly ignore detainees’ complaints about the cold cells, and it has been reported that officials threaten to make the cells even colder as punishment for complaining about the temperature.

The text of the suit notes that many detainees arrived in the centers "exhausted, thirsty and hungry, and often are suffering from dehydration, heat stroke, diarrhea, bleeding and blistered feet, and other health conditions requiring medical attention," which were sometimes denied them (p. 1).  The USUNCUT.com post illustrates this pattern by referring to a report from the Guardian about a similar center in Pennsylvania that includes a photograph of a little girl's blouse covered with blood she vomited over the course of four days before she was given medical attention.

http://bit.ly/2lj3kXu 

The NILC complaint further asserts that detainees were kept in unsanitary conditions, were denied food and water for long periods of time, were not given adequate bedding, and were deprived of sleep because CBP officers left the lights on 24 hours a day (p.2).  The Guardian report tells of a guard being convicted for raping a Honduran woman and being given an absurdly light sentence.  As one who has a developing interest in Holocaust memoirs, I am haunted by these complaints and how similar they are to accounts from Birkenau, Buchenwald, Revansbrueck and other KZ Lagern.

Again, these incidents were documented under the Obama Administration (you know, the Nobel Peace Prize winner), but, given the ferocity of tRump's anti-immigrant Sturm und Drang (literally "storm and impulse"), it would take ungodly naivete to believe that conditions today are any better.  In fact, some predict that given his promise to deport millions of immigrants, the private prison industry will see a boom.  Maybe tRump would rather Lady Liberty's right arm raised in a salute than holding up a torch.

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