Return to Dachau

By Baron Bodissey

After seventy years, a camp has been opened again at Dachau.

But it’s not the kind of camp that was there in 1943. No, not at all.

Now the German staff wait on the Untermenschen who have been welcomed into Germany. They cater to their every need and never punish them, no matter the seriousness of the crime. Now the residents of the camp can spend their time watching TV, and may eat as many meals as they want. Now the guards at the camp are required to act as the servants of the “refugees”.

The account below describes the experience of a former Czech policeman who has a job at a asylum-seekers’ camp three miles from the old Dachau concentration camp. The article was posted on January 1 at krimi-plzen.cz. Many thanks to Xanthippa for the translation.

I am a guard in Dachau

We heard from a man from Pilsner, a former policeman, asking whether we would be interested in writing something about what it really looks like in Germany, with the migrants. Of course, we very gladly accepted his offer.

Michal is a considerable man, who has almost twenty years of policing behind him, and who, through an acquaintance, received an offer to go work in Germany, in a migrant camp at Dachau.

At first, he says, he considered it a bad joke, because everyone knows that this is where an infamous concentration camp had been during the war, and that nobody would think of building another one there. Then he found out that this really was a serious job offer from a Czech agency, and so he signed up. Michal went through a selection process, including a language test, and then he really could go to work in Germany.

Q:		Where do you work?
A:		I work near the former concentration camp Dachau, about three kilometers as the crow flies from Karlsfeld, in the administrative region of Dachau, in an inflatable hall which used to house tennis courts.
Q:		What kind of work is this, and how are the pay and working conditions?
A:		Well, the pay is better than that of a policeman in Czechia, but mainly, they accept us differently. In Czech a “sekuritak” [slang for security forces member] is a “povl” [derogatory term for police] and the people treat us accordingly: here, it is completely different.
Q:		How are the migrants housed, what is their [daily] program, what exactly do they do?
A:		The inflatable hall is divided into a sleeping part, which is then divided into 3×3 [meter] cubicles, each of which houses 6 people. They have bunk beds and their lockers there. The other part houses a cafeteria. Everything is brand new, purchased especially for them. I saw that they are much more strict in guarding them then they are in Czechia, which is completely understandable, because first, they had broken the laws in order to enter the country and also a huge number of the people among them have a false identity, which poses a big risk to Europe. The Germans are insane: they do not detain anyone; the migrants have free movement not just in the camp, but they can go into town, actually, all over Germany. It is not unusual for taxis to go off to somewhere or to be returning from places. How the German Secret Service deals with this and ensures that no terrorists are among them remains a mystery to me. The daily routine is not in any way organized. 9-10:30 breakfast, 13:30-15:00 lunch, 17:30-19:00 dinner; in the times between these, there are usually German language classes or other free time activities. Charity officials, city officials and even [officials] from other institutions work there. They organize various sports or cultural events for them. Otherwise, they do absolutely whatever they wish, there is no [mandatory] wake-up call nor an evening curfew.
Q:		And what, exactly, do you do?
A:		We guard fire exists, so nobody opens them, because if a certain number of them were to be opened, the whole hall would collapse, which they cannot understand, and we also keep trying to teach them that there is no smoking inside. We also safeguard the safety of the officials working here. The food handed out is a chapter in itself. Conflicts arise between them and assaults, plus they like to attack the catering staff.
Q:		They attack the employees?

A:		Regularly. You have to understand, they consider all of us as mere servants, who are there for them and must fulfil their wishes. They are permanently dissatisfied with something, the amount of food, the quality, with the provided services and they are constantly making demands for some other rights.
Q:		And how is their food?
A:		The breakfasts are cold: they get salami, cheese, pastries, corn flakes, chickpea products, yoghurt, milk, eggs, fruit and, of course, the menu varies. Lunches are hot meals, all cooking is, of course, done without pork and they have a choice of two meals, always one with meat and one vegetarian. Dinners are like breakfasts, cold, and the selection is similar to breakfast. For example, we watch to make sure that they only take one meal. I don’t mean they cannot go for seconds, that they can, but they like to take two meals, eat only what they like, and throw out the rest. The food wastage here is enormous. It is perfectly normal for someone to take a meal, sniff it, throw it out and go get another meal.
Q:		Is there any attempt by the German leadership to make changes, say with that food waste?
A:		To the contrary. One recent event: vans with winter clothing arrived and the migrants got, for free, shoes, trousers, jerseys and sweaters. Some of them turned around, took the freely provided and new clothing — usually good brands — and sold it somewhere only to come back and get kitted out again. We found out and refused to give out more. The migrants then called the German police on us, who arrived and ordered us to hand out clothing to them a second time.
Q:		Tell us something about the conflicts and fights.
A:		These are part of the daily events. Fights will start for the most minor things. In the camp, we have Nigerians, Pakistanis, blacks from the Ivory Coast, Senegalese, Afghanis and they will fight amongst each other over every tiny thing, like cutting in line. As a rule, Arabs and blacks cannot stand each other and there are always conflicts between them. Conflicts between us, meaning the members of the protective staff and the migrants, always arise because they think that we are their servants and must do their bidding. The Germans enforce this point of view; the norm simply is that if a migrant has a wish, it should be fulfilled. We are forbidden to participate in any fights and we are forbidden to use force. The only thing we are permitted to do is to try to reason with them and if that does not work, to call the police. They’ve already even stoned us; they love to do that. They are very afraid of physical contact, and are happy to step back a few meters, and then a whole horde will start throwing rocks. This is very easy here, because underneath the tent there is crushed rock and all around, there are many rocks about the size of a fist, absolutely ideal for throwing.
Q:		They stoned you? By God, why?
A:		They are not permitted to bring food into the bedrooms. A co-worker reminded one of them that he can’t go there with food, so the black guy threw the food at him. The co-worker lost it and reached for him. Right away, a huge brawl erupted. We stepped back, the police arrived again — something like our ‘keeping order’ [name of policing unit in the Czech Republic] — but, as always, they did nothing, just lined up and the cops from their anti-confrontation team started yakking at them. They just explained to them that we, in Europe, do not stone people, and of course, no repercussions ensued. In the evening, that same co-worker was again attacked and stoned. We called the police again, and they only explained things to them again. No punishments were handed out.
Q:		What means and tools to you have for self defense?
A:		(Laughter.) Weapons in Germany? We are strictly forbidden from having any weapons, not even tear gas or batons, we have nothing. The worst work is in the children’s camp, which is what youths between 16 and 20 are called. We knew a Somali, who threw his breakfast out in the morning — some hard cheese, chicken mortadella and fruit — because he said he would not eat this. The same way, he then threw out lunch — it was fish fillets and potatoes, saying he’s going to go eat in town. He returned completely drunk and demanded food. We showed him that dinner will be in three hours, but he penetrated into our guard room and started going through our things, saying we have to give him something. My co-worker took exception to this, so the Somali grabbed a broom and started breaking things. And we cannot, under any circumstances, interfere, because this is a child. But this particular one paid for this, because the police found out that this “child” is twenty-two years old and that they were dealing with a former member of a Somali paramilitary unit.
Q:		How many migrants do you have there? And can you estimate how many of them are truly fleeing war and how many are “economic” ones?
A:		Our camp has 300 migrants. I don’t think that any of them are truly war refugees, but they rather came for economic reasons, and 95% of them do not want to work. Real facts support my opinion on this. Only about 15 migrants are engaged in camp’s self-government. The rest spend their days lounging around their rooms, watching TV or loitering in the area. It is insane that the Germans do not demand any engagement from them; they don’t even have to clean up after themselves. With my own eyes, I have seen them get into arguments and throw around metal garbage cans, then stomp the spilled trash into the ground. The only ones punished were the German cleaning crew, who had not cleaned this up fast enough.
Q:		Why do you think the Germans behave this way?
A:		I think this is a complex resulting from the war, that the Germans are trying to hysterically prove to all of Europe, but mainly to themselves, that now, they are completely different Germans.

Read more at Gates of Vienna.