Non-State Actress Special Addition #2: Chocolate Bars and Crocuses

Mar 01, 2023

Review: Sometimes the best way to understand how a defense alliance works is to imagine its role in keeping your neighborhood bar free of creeps.

BLUF

I visited the Dachau Memorial Site a few days prior to the start of the Munich Security Conference, and I’ve been wrestling with how to write about the experience (if at all) since my return.

It’s a trip I’ve anticipated and feared for at least 20 years. On the one hand, talking about a trip to Dachau is a bit outside the form and function of NSA and deeply personal. On the other, it was too significant to ignore and is so closely connected to my motivation for Non-State Actress skipping it felt strange too. Good strategy and policy is led by values and my values (like many Jews post-WWII, especially in America) are shaped by the atrocities committed at Dachau and other camps and places across Europe. If NSA is going to offer a values-forward understanding the world and the potential power of individuals, I should be able to account for where *I* am starting from.

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Press Play

What do you listen to at Dachau? Or when reading about it? Is music even appropriate? Honestly, I go back and forth. Chalk this one up to personal preference? I’m sharing Leonard Bernstein conducting his Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish”. If you’ve never heard it, press play.

Context, Please.

I’m not going to provide a comprehensive history of the Holocaust, also called the Shoah, but I am also not going to assume everyone knows everything. The ‘Gimme More’ section of this issue of NSA is quite long, and intentional but:

In 1932, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte or National Socialist German Workers' Party (also known as the Nazi Party), won a majority of seats in Germany’s democractic parliamentary elections.

In January 1933 Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany (he renamed himself Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934) and immediately begins codifying antisemitic policies and practices. He also begins targeting other ‘undesirable’ peoples like Catholics, queer people, the physically and mentally disabled, resistance fighters, and ‘political enemies’ simultaneously.

While the violence and terror are obvious from the start, Hitler invades Poland in 1939 and in 1941 implements “Endlösung der Judenfrage,” the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ - an effort to systemically obliterate all Jews in Europe.

From 1933 to 1945, Hitler, the Nazi Party, and their collaborators murder more than 12 million people. At least 6 million of those people were Jews.

What is Dachau?

Millions of people were murdered, tortured, and worked to death in an elaborate system of concentration camps. Different camps weighted their “goals” differently - work camps for the creation of materials and products to support Germany’s war effort and economy, prison camps, and death camps for the mass, efficient extermination of human life - but they all contained elements of each. The first prisoners arrived at Dachau on March 22, 1933, and the camp - which served as the model for future camps - was in continuous operation until its liberation by the US Army on April 29, 1945.

Where is Dachau?

Dachau is not only the name of the camp and memorial site, but also the name of the town it is physically in. What is perhaps most striking is where Dachau is in relation to the rest of the town.

I wasn’t prepared for how accurate the infamous Band of Brothers episode is. The Memorial Site, which is what remains of the Camp structures, is RIGHT THERE. There’s a Convent less than 15 yards away, apartment buildings and homes at a similar distance, it is completely visible from the road, and all of this was true in 1933 too.

I took this picture standing next to one of the Memorial Site buildings, facing the private homes next door. I asked the docent at the Visitor’s Center if surrounding buildings stood in 1933, and they said yes.

I’ve long felt those who claimed they ‘didn’t know’ were liars, and my visit confirmed my belief. There is no way you could not see, smell, or hear that kind of violence.

My insufficient attempt at capturing the scale of the ‘Roll Call’ area.

Claiming Your Baggage

I know more about the Shoah than most Americans, have visited more Holocaust Memorial Museums than most Americans, have had the opportunity to hear from more Survivors than most Americans, and spent more time reading, learning, and researching than most Americans. I can’t remember when I first learned about the Holocaust, but I can’t remember not knowing. A quick poll of other Jews in my life suggests this is pretty common in our community, whereas non-Jews seem to remember their first introduction at approximately 12. I remember when my 8th grade classmates first ‘found out,’ and I remember being angry that they didn’t already know…

This level of awareness or baggage I brought on my trip certainly shaped my expectations. I anticipated that I would learn less than I would experience - meaning that this would be the first time I had visited a Camp and the weight of being in the physical space would be unlike anything I had experienced before, could anticipate, or adequately explain after. It would be so heavy in fact that I would reach full saturation from the sensory intake alone.

I was right.

Some things are meant to be personal and for now I am choosing to keep most of my experience visiting Dachau that way. I do not want to offer a play by play of what I can only describe as a sacred experience, and I also recognize I have a moral responsibility to share. I will do my best to satisfy all of these competing criteria while being clear I want to focus on the visit as a deepening of my commitment to my pre-existing values and how those values are relevant to this project.

Sharing Witness

There were a few specific things that I saw that I will be a part of me forever. It’s been more than two weeks and I cannot look up at the shower head in the morning. The words on a carved plaque describing the purpose of the ditch behind it and who dug it made the barbarism and horror so clear I must have let out a sound so primal that the young German military officer standing beside me while I read it could not help but turn and look at me.

The walkway from the Visitor’s Center to the entrance to the Memorial Site. All of this is visible from the road.

I have never felt the kind of darkness and terror that I felt at the Memorial Site. It was mental and emotional, and it was physical. I was freezing cold - the kind of cold that is way deeper than your bones - and I kept seeing *something* move out of the corner of my eye. And the entire time I was surrounded by purple crocus flowers (more on this later).

I am not someone who frequently expresses emotion by crying, but I cried at Dachau. It was the kind of crying that I had only experienced as a kid, where your whole-body heaves and you can’t really explain what the trigger is, and you want to stop crying but you can’t even breathe.

I felt so small and afraid.

I’ve never felt that way before and would never wish it on anyone. That humanity allowed people to “live” out their days in what I am sure was an even greater level of fear is too sinful to be forgotten. Society must carry the shame of this pure evil for eternity and we must use it to do and be better.

Chocolate Bars and Crocus Flowers

I called home briefly before starting my walk from the Memorial to the metro station in silence. I felt a small chocolate bar hidden in my inside jacket pocket and realized it’d been snuck there on my behalf. I took my first bite while passing the Bavarian State Police campus, formally the SS training center and barracks, and thought about the US Army soldiers who walked the same path with chocolate bars in their pockets.

A generation of Europeans tasted chocolate for the first time thanks to Americans and that simple memory in many ways powered the adoption of the post-World War II order.

A picture of the plaque recognizing the US Army soldiers who liberated the camp. I took this picture primarily for one of my closest, truest friends whose family member was part of that group of liberators. It was also a comfort for me during my visit, as a reminder that while I was making the trip alone I am not *actually* alone.

The legacy of the chocolate bar is alive and well and crucial to the influence enabling US national power. Eating that tiny chocolate bar while on what is called the Walk of Remembrance, surrounded by purple and white crocus flowers, I wondered how many people marched the same path dreaming of chocolate bars. How many survivors took the same steps with food, water, and basic human kindness provided by the Rainbow Brigade?

Crocus/Croci/Crocuses

The crocus is one of my favorite plants. They’re hardy, wildflowers that embody the “Life Finds a Way” vibe with enough varieties that there’s nearly always one close by. Crocuses are so common that they are often confused with weeds and totally ignored and undervalued unless you know better.

Why would you know better? Because of what’s inside, of course.

The inside part of a crocus sativus flower is one of the most expensive and delicious spices per GRAM in the world - saffron. Like “Frank’s Red Hot” but not disgusting you can and should put saffron on and in everything - ice cream, soup, grains, meat, broccoli - EVERYTHING. When dried, some varieties of saffron easily sell for $19-$20 *per gram.* $10,000+ a kilogram. It’s so expensive because:

There is a teeny, tiny amount at the center of each flower that weighs even less than teeny, tiny when dried.

Saffron is incredibly fragile, making the harvest super hard to execute. One wrong move and it shatters to the point of uselessness.
It is delicious.

Saffron is in such high demand there is imitation saffron. But crocuses? Not so much.

And there is something about the juxtaposition of this resilient, waxy-petaled overlooked beauty that is keeper and protector of something so desired and yet is so often ignored. This thing everyone wants is not possible without the existence of plant we rip out like a weed.

Kind of like the All-American hunger for freedom and truth with the chronic disdain for the democratic institutions that make those fragile commodities possible…

Living in the Overlap of Chocolate/Crocus Space

So much of American identity and the world as we know it is tied to the end of World War II. It might be more honest and descriptive to say it is a reaction to the end of WWII, and from where I sit that there are no two “places” where this is more true than the US national security apparatus and the global Jewish community. And for those of us who are in both, the reminder is near constant.

I could wax with some level of eloquence about the National Security Act of 1947, the creation of the US Air Force, how the Army is still (mostly) perpetually prepared to fight a land war in Europe. I will probably will at some point. But for now, I’m going to summarize with this: The structure, culture, function, processes, preferences, and fears of it all are defined by the defeat of Nazism.

The same could nearly be said of Jews too, especially the community in America. I say nearly because so much of who we are - our community and family structures, cultures, functions, processes, preferences, and fears are the result the near success of Nazism and the failure of the world to a damn thing about it1.

I exist at the small and powerful place where these two realities overlap.

Living in the overlap comes with its baggage and obligations. For example - an acute awareness that I, we, MUST take care of one another because it is too easy and catastrophic not to, a constant reminder that while I don’t QUITE fit in America it is the only “secular” country in the world in which there is even a whisper of a promise of belonging. There’s a recognition for the role America played in destruction and liberation, a relentless commitment to institutions and democracy with the inability to let go of a deep, often subconscious, fear of what is at stake at any moment2.

There is also something really beautiful about it, I think.

Saffron Chocolate

Saffron chocolate is one of the most decadent, luxurious foods on the planet. They are delicious separately and unrivaled together - more than the sum of the parts. And while I still have the self-awareness to recognize I may be taking this a bridge too far; I’ve got enough liberal arts and practical idealism in me to do it anyway -

My values, the values fueling this project, are chocolate bars and crocuses and saffron chocolate. Human decency, the right to thrive, the need to find sweetness in the world and allow it to sustain us through the dark winters - and relentless growth, beauty, simplicity, and hidden value of crocuses. If chocolate bars and crocus can be at Dachau, then there is no darkness that cannot be driven out by light as long as we don’t wait for someone else to do what we can offer up ourselves.

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Gimme More

There lots of wonderful resources about the Holocaust, and I’m not going to try and record even a comprehensive list here. Instead I’m going to offer a few things you may be less familiar with, institutions that aggregate a huge diversity of resources, and non-Holocaust, WW II related resources.

Museums and Online Resources

Yad Vashem World Holocaust Memorial

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Online Encyclopedia

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Bibliographies

Dachau Memorial Site

Auschwitz Memorial Site

Books and Reports

Masks of War: Carl Builder

Memory, History, and Trauma: Essays on Living with the Past: Dr. Michael S. Roth

Maus: Art Spiegelman

A Woman of No Importance: Sonia Purnell

Shows and Movies

Angelyne - Mini Series, Hulu

Band of Brothers - Mini Series, HBO

Catch-22 - Mini Series, Hulu

M*A*S*H - Series

The Long Long Holiday - Animated Series (French)

A League of Their Own - Series (Amazon)

I realize this is a significant statement to make to an audience, made more significant by the fact that I don’t spend a ton of time explaining it further. Check out the Gimme More section, or honestly take a look at Anne Applebaum’s work, Emily Tamkin’s books, or feel free to send me an email.

Ken Burns’ recent The US and the Holocaust is helpful. So is the NSA on Jewish Lizards Not Running the Government.