This is not about Dachau, although
\nthese things happened there.<\/p>\n
When my son and I visited the Denkmal<\/em>, We walked around, peering and then we stepped into the \u201cDuschbad<\/em>,\u201d Finally, I stopped to look at the bronze memorial leaving a pebble on the pedestal, as I had been taught, My son had lingered behind.<\/p>\n Fifteen, tough and big; he slowly reached up between wet thumb and forefinger,<\/p>\n tipped the brim.<\/p>\n Graham Forst<\/strong>, PhD, taught literature and philosophy at Capilano University until his retirement and now teaches in the continuing education departments at Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia and Banff School of Fine Arts. From 1975 to 2010, he co-chaired the symposium committee of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is not about Dachau, although these things happened there. When my son and I visited the Denkmal, as the Germans refer to Dachau, it was late afternoon, and it was deserted. The weather was rainy and cool. Vancouver weather: warm for December in Bavaria, I was told. We walked around, peering curiously into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5067,5066,53],"class_list":["post-16342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-dachau","tag-denkmal","tag-holocaust"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nas the Germans refer to Dachau,
\nit was late afternoon,
\nand it was deserted.
\nThe weather was rainy and cool.
\nVancouver weather: warm for
\nDecember in Bavaria,
\nI was told.<\/p>\n
\ncuriously into the barracks
\nwhere the living dead stared with eyes
\nlike those of African night mammals
\nat the stunned American cameramen,<\/p>\n
\nand then into the crematorium
\nand then back outside into
\nthe drizzle \u2013<\/p>\n
\nto the \u201cUnknown Prisoner\u201d: a stooped, skeletal
\nMuselmann
\nin rags, ashy and green from the wet Bavarian winters;<\/p>\n
\nI turned to leave.<\/p>\n
\nstanding quietly in front of the pitted bronze,
\nhis black football jacket dripping rain,
\nsloppy, untied Adidas hightops
\nand blue\/white acid-dyed jeans soaking through \u2013<\/p>\n
\nto his soggy old Detroit Tigers
\nbaseball cap,
\nand politely<\/p>\n