Lessons of history diminished by careless rhetoric

Dear Editor,

I did very well in school. English was my best subject in school. It came easily to me. A close second was history. I read books, watched documentaries, you name it! That is why it is so frustrating (to say the least) when I hear people comparing detention centers to concentration camps. Have our history teachers failed to teach how truly awful concentration camps were? Has time dulled the memory of how the Roma/Gypsy’s, homosexuals, dissidents, Jews, mentally ill, authors, pastors, non-Aryan looking people were treated? How they were loaded by the hundreds into one cattle car, standing room only, for hours, no bathroom breaks, no water?

How they were humiliated, beaten, made to stand nude while being “processed”, experimented on, starved, forced into showers that weren’t showers at all, having to bury their own friends who had been murdered? Chosen by how they looked, if they would live or die? How were they treated as less than human? No heat, threadbare blanket if lucky. Or even the poor Vietnam Vets who were held prisoners in terrible conditions. Those are the characteristics of a concentration camp.

What they are doing now are detention centers. They have a roof that doesn’t leak. They get fed. They see doctors who don’t experiment on them if needed. They get blankets. There are groups who pay attention and make sure they are taken care of. Did the Vietnam Vets have this? Did the people at the mercy of the Third Reich have this? NO! I don’t care what your opinion of these centers is. History shows they are not concentration camps. People who are calling them such are doing a HUGE disservice to every person who has been in one. You make what they went through to be not that big of a deal. And it was! It was horrible! This may not be an ideal situation, but PLEASE, for the sake of everyone who has ever been in a real concentration camp, quit referring to detention centers as concentration camps.

Sharon Holmes, Palisade, Neb.