They visited the apartments of some of the Danes and other well-known prisoners. The visitors attended a performance of a children’s opera. In order to minimize the appearance of overcrowding, many Jews were shipped off to the death camp Auschwitz before the arrival of the delegation. A prominent Jewish prisoner was appointed “Mayor”. But not in Theresienstadt, where “Operation Embellishment” had been going on for months prior to this visit. The goal was to dispel the rumors that were spreading about how Jews were being ripped from their homes and from the arms of their loved ones, thrown into detention centers, where they were starved, frozen, imprisoned in locations rife with filth and disease, and finally murdered by, among other means, gunshot, electric fence, medical experimentation, and gas. On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted four representatives, on behalf of the International Red Cross and the Danish government, to visit Theresienstadt (or Terezin, as it is sometimes known), a concentration camp in what was then Czechoslovakia, only 30 miles from Prague. These are, as firm as I can find, the facts. This story is not to be modified, denied, or normalized. However, that sounds as if it might be an oft-told tale, open to interpretation and embellishment. I was about to write: Maybe you already know the story. But Democracy isn’t the only thing that dies in darkness. So I ask again, why was access strictly controlled and why were the reporters allowed in only one immigration detention center? Why aren’t there reporters in every detention center, asking penetrating questions, insisting on detailed answers, bearing witness to this tragedy? The Washington Post has it right when it emblazons on its front page: Democracy Dies in Darkness. If the government was concerned about the children’s welfare, the children would be with their parents. Why were the reporters given only strictly controlled access? For the security of the children? I doubt that. The events as reported were horrific, but – this may surprise you – the sentence that finally sank its fist into my gut was this one: A small group of reporters were given strictly controlled access earlier this week to one immigration detention centre where some children forcibly separated from their parents, or crossing the border alone, are being held. As I went on, each sentence was more disturbing than the one before. The headline in The Guardian (June 16, 2018) read: 2,000 children separated from parents in six weeks under Trump policy.
0 kommentar(er)
