"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

This is pretty much going to be a combination of what I learned in Berlin and Munich in relation to hearing so much about the worst parts of humanity. During one of my tours, a tour guide pointed out these bronze plates amongst the stones. It's a common sight throughout the city of Berlin especially. If you're not paying attention, they're easy to miss. It’s to symbolize that a person that went through the Holocaust, survivors and those that were murdered alike, had either lived or worked in that spot. It gives you their name, and what happened to them. It’s supported through the Stumbling Stones project. These three stones were shown to us by our tour guide. At the location the family owned a magic shop. The stones show two parents and their youngest daughter. Arthur and Charlotte's older two daughters left Germany when they saw which way things were going and were lucky enough to get a visa out as Hitler came to power. But Arthur, Charlotte and Meta were not so lucky. After losing their magic shop business, simply because they were Jewish, Meta was called away and taken on a train to Auschwitz, where she was murdered. Her parents, knowing the fate of their daughter, and what would soon be in store for them, committed suicide together by drinking poison.

Their stones were not funded by their family, they were funded by the magic community.

The tour guide said something that stuck with me (and I’m paraphrasing). “Although we have a tendency to put people into their boxes, whether it be for their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. it’s important to remember that there’s also the cheeky, the smart, the funny, the creative and the magical.” Even re-reading the paraphrased version of what she said still makes me emotional.

In the 20's, if you were a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Berlin was the place to be. They were attempting to do studies to prove that people were born gay. The first gender re-assignment surgeries were happening in Berlin. It never ceases to amaze me how a place went from being so incredibly progressive and ahead of it's time, to being the hotspot for such grossness in humanity. I went to the train stations that people were deported from, and those train stations were surrounded by houses. People that watched thousands of men, women, and children be shipped off to a horrible fate. Granted, people didn't necessarily know they were being killed at these camps. But in documentaries I've watched where they've interviewed these bystanders the feelings were "Well the sacrifice was worth it, I could put food on the table."

It's important for people to remember it didn't escalate quickly, it took a solid decade. Germany was in financial turmoil, and a group of people found a way to give people hope, by providing a common enemy. Actually, they provided a lot of common enemies. Anyone that was different, was the enemy. If only these people didn't exist, then you would be able to have money and a better life. It started with words, then went to book bans, then book burnings, then reframing history, then putting anyone that spoke out into a camp to torture them into submission. It was years of this before they got to what they called the Final Solution, the attempt to eliminate Jewish people off the face of the Earth.

My main complaint about the United States is how we deal with the darkness in our history. I feel we should be looking to Germany as the example of how it should be done. Any statues or memorials that the Nazis put up, have been taken down, and replaced with memorials to the victims, survivors, and the upstanders. The big argument of why we shouldn't take Confederate soldiers statues down is that it "erases history". But in Germany taking down anything related to the Nazi party didn't erase history. In fact, those that go to school in Germany are very aware of how the Holocaust happened, and they're educated in making sure something like that never happens again. Hitler's former offices have been turned into museums educating the public on various parts of this portion of Germany's history. It is illegal to do the famous Nazi salute in Germany. So they took the statues down, yet the history is not forgotten. I wish in America, we could take the statues down from those that tried to overthrow the government, and replace them with museums providing the full context to that time period so people can get a full education.

When I went to visit Dachau, which you are able to easily do from Munich, I was flabbergasted at the people smiling and taking selfies. This is why it's so important to educate people on the past. The Holocaust is a not a social media moment. This is not something to celebrate. This is where we pay our respects and learn about the evils of the past so we make sure history doesn't repeat itself.

I am truly troubled by humanity and where we are right now with the world. It feels that history is repeating itself, and we may not make the right choices this time. I'm having a difficult time figuring out how to end this post. I am struggling with the idea of having hope. I can only say in this trip I decided if we start to truly take a turn for the worse, I'm going to speak up. I will fight to make sure that everyone has equal rights because they are human beings. I decided I would rather know I have my morals, than have a large savings account. I can't buy my way into heaven. But I know I will be able to look God in the eye and say I did everything I could to accept others as they are. And if I don't get into heaven because I supported a LGBTQ+ person's (or anyone elses's) right to exist, then so be it.