Echoes of Dachau

Echoes of Dachau

This essay began as a thread on Mastodon, which is here.

Dachau is a small town in Germany. It is twenty kilometres from Munich. The Duke of Bavaria — one of the seven Prince-Electors of the Holy Roman Empire — had a palace there; but until 1933, that was the only thing that was particularly notable about the place.

Bear with me, this story has a point.

In 1933, the Nazi regime established its first concentration camp on the site of a former munitions factory there, initially to house political prisoners — people very like those of us who choose Mastodon as our social media: leftists, communists, anarchists, queers, trans people, gay people. Imprisoning them would, the Nazis claimed, 'restore calm to Germany.'

The camp was not far away in a wasteland; ordinary Germans walked or cycled past it every day.

My wife's (very sadly, we're no longer married) maternal grandparents were Jews from Munich, who escaped to Britain in 1939 and were interned in a camp on the Isle of Man for the duration of the war. I knew them well. They had passed that fence, many times. They told me that prisoners in Dachau would write notes begging for help which they pushed out through holes in the fence.

I want to to imagine that a young journalist would cycle past the fence and notice these messages, and take them to their editor, who ran a newspaper, perhaps called the Münchener Zeitung, in Munich.

I want you to imagine that that editor published the first of these notes on the letters page of the newspaper.

I want you to imagine that every day there were more of these messages. Many of them were begging desperately for aid; some of them said angry things against the Nazi regime, or against the camp guards.

I want you to imagine that the editor said 'I can no longer publish so many of these messages; there are too many of them, they are too depressing, they're all the same, and, actually, some are seditious.'

I'm writing this, because something very similar is happening right now, right here on Mastodon.

The people of Gaza are trapped in what has become, in effect, a giant concentration camp. They are being deliberately starved. They are being bombed daily. They are frightened, they are hungry, they are desperate.

Mastodon is one of the few chinks in the fence through which they can push messages.

It's not surprising that many of those messages are begging for aid. It's not surprising that many of them are similar. It's not surprising that some of them say angry things about the Israeli regime.

It's not surprising that the moderators of mastodon.social, and other Mastodon instances, feel that there are too many of them, that they are too repetitious, too depressing, and that some of them are seditious, or offend against Germany's laws about hate-speech towards Jews.

The moderators' job is to ensure that Mastodon remains an interesting, varied place where people can share pictures of cats, and moss, and trees, and odd or obsolete computer equipment, or just silly jokes and small notes about their daily life.

The moderators' job is like the job of the editor of that imaginary newspaper. The feed — like the letters page — should be varied, interesting, and engaging; it should not be overwhelmed by one subject.

I am not drawing an analogy between the moderators and the concentration camp guards; they are nothing like the guards. They are trying to do an important job in keeping Mastodon running as a vibrant media experience where people can share all sorts of things. They are like the editor. They are, also, mostly volunteers.

But Palestinians are being silenced. Palestinians who are hungry, who are desperate, who are frightened. Who are being bombed.

Which brings me back to my friend Bara'a.

Her husband was killed. Her two daughters were killed when their house was bombed. She has one remaining child, Ibrahim, who is five, who is becoming increasingly weak from malnutrition and has been seriously ill several times already this year — and yes, I know this to be true, I have spoken to both of them over video link this year, I have seen his condition deteriorate.

This is Ibrahim.

Her account has been suspended by the moderators. She is now desperately trying to satisfy them to get it reinstated. Edited to add: it has now been reinstated, but the problem remains for others.

Yes, she was begging. She has lost so much, her last surviving child is at desperate risk, of course she was begging. If you were in her position, would you not be begging?

You can help Bara'a here, and it's important that you do, because while her Mastodon account is suspended she has no effective way of appealing for aid.

Bara'a is only one person. There are thousands in Gaza in similar situations — and I know of many who have also had their Mastodon accounts suspended.

It's easy to understand how the moderators may feel overwhelmed, may lose patience, may harden their hearts.

No one wants to read a stream of misery and suffering. Because I have chosen to engage with people in Gaza, my own feed is full of misery and of appeals from people I cannot afford to help — and yes, that's depressing, it's hard to read, some days I can't bear to look at Mastodon.

But please, everyone — and especially moderators — can we have a bit of tolerance, a bit of compassion, here. Gaza is one of the great crimes that is happening in our world right now. These are the people who are suffering.

It's not the only crime — Sudan may be worse — but it is the people of Gaza who are reaching out to us here on Mastodon.

Can we not find some room in our hearts to welcome them?