Munich

We arrived in Munich on a large pink bus.

Some of the students headed straight for Oktoberfest (which eventually led to me learning the virtues of socialized medicine, but that's a different story). Those of us prone to curiosity and thought headed towards the city to explore. Wandering the old streets of Munich in modern times could make one forget that this city had been the birthplace of one of the greatest atrocities mankind had ever committed against itself.

Then I saw the gate and could not forget. "Arbeit macht frei." Work makes you free. The Nazis had made it their slogan to mask their true intentions for their concentration camp system - the systematic murder of all people they did not like - Jews, gays, immigrants, minorities, Jehovah's Witnesses, communists, social democrats, and anyone who disagreed with those in power.

I had been fascinated by the existence of war since I was a child. Some of my first news memories were of the Beirut hostages and the bombing of the US embassy. I was fascinated by the Genesis video for "Land of Confusion." I was in 8th grade when I watched the Wall come down with sledgehammers and jubilation. The Soviet Union crumbled, Clinton was elected POTUS, the European Union came into reality, Fukyama proclaimed the "end of history," and I thought the world had finally decided enough was enough. I spent all of my formative educational years during the Clinton administration, including that junior year in Europe and an internship in a peace and reconciliation center in Ireland. It was truly a time of hope.

Dachau was the first time I had come face to face with the actual relics of conflict. I had been to Arlington National Cemetery and the American and German Battle of the Bulge cemeteries in Luxembourg, but Dachau was different. Dachau was a concentration camp. Dachau was hate, fascism, Nazism, the Holocaust.

As one of the first concentration camps, Dachau was established to house political prisoners who criticized the regime. Himmler justified its existence as "a way to restore calm to Germany." (Make Germany Great Again!) It originally could hold 5,000 prisoners, but the regime used prison labor to double its size. As the Nazis invaded more countries, their captured soldiers were also sent to the camp. In the end, there were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp; the true number will never be known.

I was 20 years old when I passed through those gates. I had walked through a portal that took me to a reality I had never known growing up in sheltered Ohio. I was forever changed by that experience, one that raised more questions than answers. Eventually I went to two more camps - Terezenstadt on the outside of Prague, and the one that housed the gates of Hell itself - Auschwitz. Both of those experiences shaped me in profound ways, but Auschwitz chipped away at my soul. I will never shake the feeling I had on that day. It is as strong now as it was then.

I've since spent most of my life working on conflict issues and with people who've suffered under authoritarian regimes.

I just can't believe Americans have let it happen here.