Today you get a simple (could not echo the rhyming) translation of a poem that appeared in a German newspaper yesterday. Written by Cornelius Oettle and titled My Homeland, it captures for me something essentially true for us here in the US as well, including the current debate of labeling camps as what they are – but also other developments. The tenor about willful blindness and subsequent surprise applies to this discussion as well, as was so perfectly demonstrated yesterday by Ta-Nehisi Coats.

Photographs were taken at Ravensbrück, a German concentration camp that was not officially an extermination camp.

Where Nazis teach school, Where Nazis complain on the internet, Where Nazis appear on nightly TV, Where Nazis buy Facebook friends, Where Nazis use tricks to cheat on taxes, Where Nazis trend on Twitter, Where Nazis are not blocked, Where Nazis fly to Mallorca, Where Nazis are contributors to Focus (weekly German magazine,) Where Nazis remain in the police force, Where Nazis serve as soldiers in the military, Where Nazis dine with reporters, Where Nazis invite Reinhold Beckman, Where Nazis don’t threaten anyone’s reputation, Where Nazis blog for Springer (rightwing mainstream publishing house,) Where Nazis vigilantly jog through Chemniz, Where Nazis run soccer clubs, Where Nazis wave fan club banners, Where Nazis walk alongside of Hoecke (AfD), Where Nazis don’t see any Nazis, Where Nazis prepare for war games, Where Nazi rap runs high in the music charts, Where Nazis bring rock to Themar, Where Nazis sing a song for you, Where Nazis means number of clicks, Where Nazis ring bells for Hitler, Where Nazis appear in throngs on the talk shows, Where Nazis interrupt book expos, Where Nazis demand upper limits, Where Nazis order true fruit smoothies, Where Nazis support Victor Orban, Where Nazis protect the constitution, Where Nazis listen to Rainer Wendt (a former German policeman and since 2007 Federal Chairman of the German Police Union (DPolG), Where Nazis disrupt the rescue of drowning refugees, Where Nazis shred the files of Nazis, Where Nazis destroy memorials, Where Nazis grieve for a dog, Where Nazis regret the comment of birdshit (inhalation to the Holocaust,) Where Nazis found Nazi villages, Where Nazis like to burn down refugee homes, Where Nazis form alliances, Where Nazis shoot foreigners, Where Nazis annually whistle to Wagner, Where Nazis kill members of the CDU (a prominent government director was shot to death on the terrace of his own house by a neonazi last week – the first assassination of a politician since the Weimar republic) – there everyone is wondering right now, where do all these Nazis come from? 

The Reuters photo below was attached to the publication.

Music is from an album by the Grenzgaenger who collected songs from the anti-fascist resistance, many derived from interviews with camp survivors who recalled what was sung.