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From Bergen-Belsen to El Salvador
Echoes of History in Trump’s America
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, a somber milestone that invites reflection not just on historical atrocities, but on concerning parallels to the current policies being crafted by the Trump administration. As we commemorate this dark chapter of human history, we find ourselves confronting uncomfortable similarities between past and present approaches to human rights, due process, detention and confinement.
The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen
When British forces arrived at Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, they encountered a scene of unimaginable horror. The Nazi guards had already fled, abandoning approximately 55,000 prisoners who were too ill to escape on their own. Scattered across the grounds were thousands of unburied corpses, victims of starvation, disease, and systematic neglect.
“What we saw was utterly beyond human imagination,” recalled Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, one of the first British officers to enter the camp. “There were no words to describe the horror.”
Bergen-Belsen’s history reveals how monstrous systems of oppression and death can evolve incrementally. As historian Deborah Dwork notes, “The camps didn’t start as death factories. They evolved…
