fma. It happened during a discussion of a group of theology students late one evening in an inner city pub in Bonn, Germany. The subject turned to the last judgement and hell, and a highly theological speculation ran its course. Until a shy student remarked, “I simply can’t imagine Jesus no longer being able to love someone. I believe that in the end he will love Satan out of hell just because he loves him.” It has long been forgotten how the discussion ended and what theological consequences the remark of this young man had. Yet it turned up again at the gates of the concentration camp at Dachau, and along with it the certainty that God’s love had touched each stone, each blade of grass, each inch of this place, which stands for incomprehensible, inhuman, unforgettable human contempt and cruelty
The deaf Jewish artist, David Ludwig Bloch, who arrived in the Dachau concentration camp in November 1938 – one of the 10,911 Jewish men confined there after the “Kristallnacht” pogrom – was able to emigrate to China after his release. He only returned to Germany in 1976, and after a visit to the Dachau holocaust memorial was able to digest his personal experiences on an artistic level. One of his pictures shows a typical Dachau situation designed to humiliate its inmates. It was the roll call on the huge parade ground. It showed grey, anonymous rows of men watched by clear-cut triangular cones of light. It is symbol that is highly meaningful to Jewish and Christian believers as a symbol of God at work. Also at a place where inhumanity still cries to heaven. This picture by David Ludwig Bloch can be viewed at the invitation of the Bavarian dioceses of the Schoenstatt Family during a pilgrimage to Dachau on 6 April. Those taking partbring along a triangular symbol that stands for precisely this reality to which they want to testify: God entered the hell of Dachau not for a fleeting benevolent visit – he stayed there. In the midst of the hatred, sickness, despair and inhumanity. He was there in people, who in the midst of this “hell” of lawlessness, dishonour and defencelessness gave others food, arranged for vaccines, listened, encouraged, hid them from the attacks of the guards, sidetracked them from talking about their hunger, gave them tasks and hope for the present and future, and sometimes managed a raise a smile, or a hearty laugh. They showed that there is human dignity in rags and despite beatings, a dignity no one can take from you.
Dignity no one can take from you
The triangle they bring along on that day in Dachau has already spent some years travelling around the world. During this journey it has seen joyful festivals and moving celebrations, it has brought thousands together and been reported on in the media. It was in an Aids Orphanage in South Africa and the ruins of a Jesuit mission in Paraguay, it has been placed on the beds of the dying and the ruins left by earthquakes.
It is a symbol that Fr Kentenich gave the Schoenstatt Family in 1967. In that same year he again visited Dachau, where he was interned from 1942-6 April 1945. It was as though to imprint on all who had joined his Movement: There are no places which cannot be reached by God’s love. There is no reason to hesitate to place your own hands and eyes at God’s disposal anywhere. There is no reason to stay at home instead of going to the outskirts of society, as Francis has said.
Whether it is Syria, or the slum dwellings in Asuncion, the homeless outside the supermarkets or the unloved colleague at work. Not with the Father Symbol in hand. Yet this idea of taking this Father Symbol to Dachau on 6 April is a motivation and commitment to do so.
The Bavarian Schoenstatt Family is doing something courageous, and if you want to be there, you are warmly invited.
Since God’s love doesn’t surrender before barbed wire and human malice, we will also not do so.
Original: German. Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester, England
Further information in Flyer (Download here, German).
