The interview of Mr. Dahm and „the hidden stone“

           Seven years ago, an interview of a neighbour to the Camp was made, Mr. Dahm. He talked about the railway which connected the village of Neuengamme to the concentration Camp. At this time, he was a child.

“The branch line used to be up there – there’s a commemorative plaque there now – it was a single track line. The trains used to stop and wait here while the points were being reset before carrying on to the camp. And there used to be a barbed-wire fence here – about so high. But only on the one side – it wasn’t more than a few metres high – for when the train stopped; on the side where the houses were. I can’t remember anything else. They forgot to demolish the fence foundations there in one spot. Nowadays, people sometimes come to have a look at it.” Mr. Dahm

            On Monday, Hyewon, Karin and I went to look for this stone. We knew approximately where it should be, but because of the high herbs, we could not find it. Therefore, we asked the help of Mr. Dahm to find this stone again. This very generous man took us to the path of the former railway and he found the stone.

Mr Dahm said in the interview an interesting but also chocking story :

“In this area the prisoners – we used to call them “ zebras ” – kept the ditches clean and did a certain amount of agricultural work under SS guard. And one time a kapo beat one of the prisoners to death with a shovel, about 50 metres along from here. We children were standing there and we watched it all – there was no television or anything in those days, you see. Or when one of the trains stopped here, we always came and watched. It was a bit of excitement for us. And then we went up to the SS, to the guards, and we told them what had happened. They simply said: “ We just have to make sure they don’ t escape; if they fall out with each other, there ’ s nothing we can do about it. Then they loaded the body onto a wheelbarrow and took it away.” Mr. Dahm

And now, a small parenthesis in our tough labour…

Mr. Dahm, who is a generous man, a gifted artist, is also a perceptive observer of nature. He showed us one of the beauty that only nature owns.
Two trees, next to each other came close and link up. Mr. Dahm has no idea how it happened, but doesn’t grow tired to look at it.

Nature has a soul; trees also have soulmates ?…

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