The Trees of Dachau: Heed Their Warning

by Karla Lester

Nie wieder 

The poplar trees lining the pathway of the Dachau concentration camp memorial site in Germany, were planted to bear silent witness to the atrocities that happened there. The Dachau concentration camp was the longest running concentration camp, started in 1933 to imprison Nazi political opponents and dissidents. The camp was liberated by U.S. forces in April, 1945. The number of deaths documented at the Dachau memorial site is 32,000 with many more undocumented. Most were murdered by the Nazis. Thousands died from disease, malnutrition or suicide. 

It was July, 2019 and our family of five had a trip planned to Germany and Austria. I had been a student abroad in Germany in 1989, months before the wall came down and two summers after President Reagan, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” My host family in Eutin, Germany was addicted to Dallas reruns. “Karla, wir haben Dallas!” David Hasselhoff was a pop superstar in Germany in the 80’s. I’m still scratching my head over that one. Our study abroad group made a visit to the Dachau concentration camp memorial site. I remember riding the train there and how the somberness of the atrocities have stuck with me decades later. I didn’t remember the trees. 

As my family of five with my kids ages 18, 15 and 12, was headed to Germany and Austria in 2019, I had a real sense of hesitation and dread when I thought about going to Dachau. There was no question that we would go and I steadied myself to let them absorb the memorial site on their own and to take it in and tour what they believed was important to them. 

What I noticed during the 2019 visit were the poplar trees lining the paths of the camp and flanking the barracks where the prisoners were kept. I found them ominous, like soldiers I was too afraid to walk past. Prisoners at Dachau drew the trees that covered up the barbed wire and hid what was going on from the Germans walking by. Trees were used to hang prisoners. 

Father Korbinian Aigner was imprisoned at Dachau for openly criticizing Hitler and the Nazi regime. During his internment, he planted and cultivated apple trees and introduced new varieties to the world. Trees that Father Korbinian cultivated are still planted today as a sign of hope and resistance. 

"The ideas of the Nazi movement strove towards a 'racially pure national body'. All 'elements' that 'weakened' it or which did not 'fit in' were to be removed. Such notions gave expression to a racism in which people were classified and treated as superior or inferior according to biological characteristics." 

2019 was during the first Trump administration when children were being put in cages and separated from their families at the border where Trump was building his “big beautiful wall”. Melania Trump wore her custom designed jacket for a best case scenario, tone deaf moment, that stated, “I don’t really care. Do U?” 

Touring the Dachau memorial, I couldn’t believe how the Trump administration was following the Nazi playbook. I found the similarities between Stephen Miller and Heinrich Himmler chilling. During the second Trump administration, they have bore down even harder on their Nazi strategy playbook. I decided to dust off the pictures I took from my 2019 visit to Dachau. 

Juan Nicolas, a U.S. citizen, a very sick 2 month-old baby with vomiting, dehydration, and respiratory distress was detained, along with his mother at the ICE Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Journalist Lidia Terrazas and Representative Joaquin Castro are the only ones speaking up for Juan and sharing his story. Is Juan one of the violent criminals that President Trump is protecting Americans from? 

Propaganda and lies. Censoring and controlling the media. ProPublica and CNN published interviews of children detained at Dilley. The stories are horrendous. Why are none of the major news outlets covering Juan’s story? 

Illegal Writings in Germany and Publications written in Exile

"True-to-life descriptions of the camp could only appear in the German Reich in the underground and at great risk. Spreading illegal material and even speaking about such reports was severely punished. 

The newspapers and publications from exile reported in detail on the terror in the concentration camps."

I saw a post on TikTok about Juan with a call to action to call Dilley Detention Center and to call Congress. I called the ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas where children and families like Juan are sent, including Liam Ramos who was taken by ICE from his school and sent to Dilley along with his Father and released only due to national political pressure. Hundreds of children have been and are being detained at Dilley. When I called, I was referred to Core Civic, the operational organization behind the ICE detention center and then to the Residential Concern Line where I filed a report outlining my concerns for Juan and the children detained at the Dilley detention center. I received an email that they had received my report. The next day, the response to my report was from an entity called FSC Ethics,

Good morning Ms. Lester.

Thank you for report to CoreCivic concerning medical care for someone who is temporarily housed at our Dilley facility.  We understand your concern and appreciate you reaching out.  The facility is staffed with licensed and certified medical professionals, including pediatricians, who provide care, treatment and medication to those in our care and address any medical and dental concerns they may have, which is available 24 hours a day. 

While we cannot provide specific medical information to you based on medical privacy laws, I can share that our medical team has verified that the minor resident in question has received excellent care and is doing well. 

Medical Care

"The medical care of the prisoners was inadequate from the very beginning. The protective custody camp leader decided whether a prisoner was ill and allowed to visit the SS camp doctor. As a rule, the SS doctors did nothing to look after the ill and see that they recovered." 

The problem is that at the time whatever part of the ICE Industrial Complex was hitting send on their email full of propaganda and lies, Juan Nicolas had been sent to the Emergency room, diagnosed with a respiratory infection and then he and his Mother were deported to Mexico, left at the border with nothing. The government is lying. 

Dachau in Nazi Propaganda

The German newspapers impugned the imprisoned political opponents of the Nazi regime as "rabble rousers", "grumblers" and "work-shy", and described the Dachau concentration camp as a work and re-education camp, where prisoners were taught "discipline" and "work morale." 

Trees were planted at Dachau around the perimeter to hide the barbed wire fences from the Germans walking by. We are being lied to about what’s happening in ICE Detention Centers. Videos are being suppressed of what’s really happening in Minnesota. ICE agents are still there in full force. We are being lied to about Minnesota ICE detention centers where the detainees are not being allowed counsel and are being taken without due process. 

Alex Pretti, trying to protect a woman from ICE agents while she was peacefully protesting, was killed before America’s eyes- a dissenter, a protector, an ICU nurse at the VA Hospital. After his death and before any investigation, major news outlets started spouting the lies from DHS and Kristi Noem falsely accusing him of being a domestic terrorist, despite video evidence to the contrary. 

"The Nuremberg doctor , Delwin Katz, was in two-fold danger as Jew and communist. At first, he provided medical care for fellow ill and injured prisoners as official duty, in part also in secret. He was, however, soon assigned to heavy labor in the gravel pit and finally accused by the commandant, together with other fellow prisoners, of having buried a tin can with "atrocity reports" so as to then smuggle them out whenever the opportunity arose. Although no can was found, Delwin Katz was sent to detention in the bunker. He was murdered there on October 18, 1933. 

Arbeit macht frei is a German phrase on the gates of concentration camps that means, “work makes you free”. In RFK Jr.'s press conference about autism, he said people with autism “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, and they’ll never play baseball”. Eugenicists targeted poor, disabled and minority populations. Donald Trump became President of the United States after mocking a journalist with a disability on national television. 

In July 2025, President Trump signed an executive order, "Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets," directing federal agencies to increase the use of long-term, involuntary, and forced institutionalization for individuals with mental health disabilities, substance use disorders, or those experiencing homelessness. The mental health act of 1963 put forth by President Kennedy was when deinstitutionalization started. Trump is unraveling protections for vulnerable Americans.

The Nazis didn’t like what they called the “modernization” of society that included the arts. Congress cut Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding which helps support over 1,500 community public radio and television stations across America. Trump has renamed the Kennedy Center the Trump Center and is closing it for two years for renovations. When James Talarico from Texas, who is running for the U.S. Senate, was recently a guest on The Colbert Show, CBS cowered to Trump’s threats and didn't air the interview. 

It’s trickled down to Nebraska. Governor Pillen is Trump’s mockingbird. Anyone who speaks against Pillen or doesn’t vote for him, he calls a slur that hints of eugenics. He’s building an ICE detention center in McCook, Nebraska. Pillen is putting Turning Point USA chapters in Nebraska schools, which smells of HJ (Hitlerjugend) and stinks way worse than his hog farms. Pillen is attacking the job posting by LPS for a LGBTQ+ student advocate position. Pillen is drastically cutting disability services for vulnerable Nebraskans to balance a budget shortfall that he created by cutting taxes for rich Nebraskans. 

Nie wieder

These aren’t simple nods to Nazi Germany. President Trump recently put up a banner of his face on the Department of Justice, a pathognomonic sign of fascism. 

As the rest of our family finished the end of the Dachau tour at the crematorium, my son, Andrew, and I stayed back by the trees. It would be too much to take in that day. He knew I had been to that part of the tour when I was there in 1989. 

“Mom, you don’t need to go? You’ve already paid your respects.”

Bear witness like the trees around the world to the atrocities that happened in Nazi Germany and the genocides in Gaza, Myanmar and South Sudan. Scream, “Never again,” to the Holocaust deniers. Speak up against the red pill radicalization of boys and young men and to the demonization of black and brown people and the LGBTQ+ community. Do not allow the extermination of science and disenfranchisement of expertise and the dismantling of the department of education. 

Do not fall for their propaganda. Do not allow yourself to be censored. Educate your children about the atrocities of Nazi Germany and show them how to speak up. Plant apple trees like Father Korbinian and raise good children. 

Heed the warning from the trees of Dachau.

Nie wieder

And the drum beats on …

 By Anna Swartzlander

While I was working in the psychiatric provider realm at the Nebraska Department of Corrections (NDCS), I learned more than just medicine and metrics. You cannot heal someone if you are not meeting their basic needs. A favorite mentor once told me, “There is not a pill for the anxiety that comes from not knowing where one is going to sleep at night.”

As I continue to practice as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN), I see firsthand the impact of the mental health epidemic in America. I cannot help but be troubled by how medicine and healthcare contribute to the system of keeping poor people poor – and, I would even go so far as to say, keeping mentally unstable individuals – ill.

For instance, when an incarcerated individual at NDCS was thought to have suicidal thoughts, they were placed in a cell by themselves with nothing more than a strait jacket/blanket and a floor mat. Communication with loved ones, pens, paper and books had to be earned back by having less self-destructive ideations or behavior.

Of course, these policies are in place for a reason, but I personally can’t think of anything that would want to make me end my life more than being cut off from my loved ones … and books.

If you think about it, this practice is not that different than how we handle suicidal behavior outside of incarceration. If an individual is behaving or acting in a way in which self-harm becomes a safety concern, we lock them into psychiatric wards for “rehabilitation.” Electronics including phones are taken away, along with belts, shoestrings, perfumes, and anything else that may pose a threat. Showers are witnessed. A close monitoring system is set in motion. 

It is interesting to me that in an attempt for one to gain more independence over their life, their autonomy is stripped away. A stigma almost instantly develops between those that can live life happily without help (successful members of society!), and those who cannot (failures!).  

And although I understand policies are in place for a reason, and that suicide is not a subject to take lightly, I have long questioned: Is this system working? 

Statistics show that suicide rates have been increasing over the past several decades, and data shows that one of the most vulnerable and risky times for suicide attempts is in the first few weeks following discharge from a mental health facility.  

When an individual was placed on “suicidal watch” at NDCS, they were not allowed out of their cell for a specified amount of time, and/or until their risk level was reduced. As one of four psychiatric providers at an NDCS facility – which held over 1,000 individuals, including the department’s most mentally ill residents – I visited the suicide watch unit to complete daily assessments. Because I did not typically see individuals immediately prior to their cell placement, I cannot say if their mental health was improved by isolation on this unit. In some cases, I suspect it was.

However, in many cases, it was not. I saw so many grown men cry. I saw comatose behaviors daily. I witnessed manic exercise. I saw communication via feces on the walls. And, honestly, although unnerved and disturbed, I understood. These behaviors did not necessarily equate to insanity. Feces on the wall, after all, communicates just as well (or more effectively) as screaming at the top of one’s lungs.

It is getting harder to provide care in the American healthcare system. As an empathetic healthcare professional – someone who got into the field of nursing to help people, to care and provide aid, to minimize harm, and to increase quality of life – I realized too late that healthcare is unfortunately a business. 

Individualized creativity is essential to healthcare in general, and my time with NDCS taught me how correctional medicine is no different. It is critical to think outside the box, especially when policies and practices often limit therapeutic options, and even, sometimes, pens, paper and literature.

Faced with the dilemma of stabilizing mental wellbeing for those individuals on the suicide unit at NDCS, I began to research holistic ways to help prevent mental health crises. And one theme always stood out to me: Rhythm-centered music making (RMM), and how we can learn from other cultures and from history, by practicing simplistically and holistically.

RMM – the use of healing via rhythms or repetition – has ancient roots in Greece, Egypt, indigenous cultures and others, where drumming, chanting, dancing, and other rhythmic behaviors are used for emotional release.

Consider the Drum Circles and Healing Rituals in Africa in which simple drumming patterns and rhythms promote healing by providing a healthy, physical outlet for releasing built-up energy, allowing for overall stress reduction.

Or Sufi Whirling, a spiritual ritual practiced in Islamic cultures that includes rhythmic whirling that is thought to increase body-mind focus, self-regulation, positive-affect, unity and wholeness experience.

In India, Kathak Rhythmic Storytelling involves rhythmic footsteps, meaningful hand gestures (mudra) and emotional facial expressions to create a profound harmony between mind and body.

And in Brazil they practice Pregame Rituals/Rua de Fog with chanting and rhythmic jumping that increases emotional response and unity.

I’m sure some of these rituals sound familiar. Recently, there has been a resurgence of rhythm-related health methods in forms such as music therapy, heart rhythm meditation, yoga, drumming and many others. Almost everything that calms the mood involves some form of rhythm. Physical movement often involves some form of repetition or counting: rowing, swimming, dancing, music. 

These rhythmic behaviors have been shown to not only improve and regulate mood, but also to improve mobility, cardiopulmonary endurance, muscle strength, flexibility, balance, global cognitive function, and quality of life.

Repetitive motions are often associated with helping to calm, such as rocking a baby to sleep, or tapping one’s foot. Even the rhythm of breathing can aid in mood regulation. I constantly use a stress-reduction practice my children taught me from elementary school: four-squared breathing. It works like this: Inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, then exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds. Repeat.

I wonder if I made time, as I did in my childhood, for jump roping, hula hooping, and making friendship bracelets, what effect this would have on my mental health? I remember pen-drumming being popular during my middle school years. Was this just a bunch of anxiety-driven pre-teens attempting to deal with life via desk-tapping?

Could these behaviors also help patients on suicide watch? Although they do not have access to a hula hoop, they do have their fingers and their brains. Could something as simple as tapping out a favorite beat with hands and feet help reduce the mental stress of captivity, loneliness and stigmatization?

I believe we would give suicidal individuals a better chance of recovery from mental health crises if we used rhythmic-centered methods instead of solitary confinement. Policies and procedures aside, imagine walking into a suicide watch unit that was full of music and meditation – versus cement walls and segregation. Imagine leaving the psychiatrist’s office with a prescription for a drum set instead of a lifetime supply of pharmaceuticals.

What can I say … After 20 years working in healthcare, I’m still a dreamer. I hope I’m not the only one.

Governor Pillen: Fundraising plea, right back at you

Dear Jim Pillen, 

I got a letter from you last month in which you made a lot of assumptions about me, including that I am your friend, and I just want to clear those assumptions up, if I may. 

     

You said that serving as my governor has been a privilege. I want to think you feel that way about all your constituents. If that’s the case, why have you resorted to name calling and disrespect of some Nebraska residents? Also, by privilege, do you mean it’s an honor and you are grateful to serve as my (and their) governor, or do you mean that you think you have a special unearned advantage or immunity as the governor, and can do what you want and treat people any way you want? 

You wrote to update me on what “we’ve” accomplished. You told me you’ve been proud to work side-by-side with Donald Trump on important issues facing Nebraska and “America.” (Did you mean the United States? There are several countries in North America, including Canada and Mexico. But I digress.) You say that Trump is endorsing your re-election. 

 

I am a registered non-partisan voter. I believe it is a detriment to your re-election campaign that Trump has endorsed you. He appears to be dismantling our democracy and installing an autocratic form of government in its stead. Why are you proud to work side-by-side with a man who vilifies women? Who shares a glaringly racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama on his social media, depicting them as apes? Who is continuing to harass the city of Minneapolis with ICE and Border Patrol agents, despite their shooting and killing two American citizens exercising their constitutional rights? I could go on. 

The man you are so proud to work side-by-side with has hired as his deputy chief of staff for policy, hardline immigrant hater Stephen Miller. Common Cause, an organization that describes itself as upholding the core values of American democracy, says Miller is a white nationalist who subscribes to cruelty-as-policy tactics. He constantly denigrates immigrants, even though he is a descendant of Jewish immigrants who fled persecution abroad to build a successful life for themselves. He is the chief architect of an immigration policy that pulled a 5-year-old boy from a car and used him to lure his father, an asylum seeker, from their home. 

Your grandfather, Mr. Pillen, is said to have immigrated to the United States from Germany, yet you have decided to carry out the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda in these ways: using the Nebraska National Guard to assist ICE, designating the Work Ethic Camp in McCook as a new detention center for immigrants, and directing the Nebraska State Patrol to pursue an agreement that essentially makes local law enforcement tools of ICE.

You insinuate in your letter that your values are mine. They are not. You have signed laws to criminalize sex changes for minors and take away the rights of women to decide what happens with their bodies.

You have defended gun rights via constitutional carry, but support a president who has said people should not be allowed to carry a gun at a protest (a legally protected Second Amendment right). You have prohibited “America’s enemies (?)” from owning Nebraska farmland.

You want to do more, you said, so you want me to send you money so you can be re-elected. You say you work hard, play by the rules and stand up for what you believe in. Me, too. But your rules and beliefs and Trump’s and his appointees are not mine. By the way, you were not appointed by Donald Trump. You were elected by the people of Nebraska to represent all the state’s residents.

     

Along with my money, you would like to know my legislative priorities. If I am not your friend, will you still take them seriously? 

     

PARENTAL RIGHTS Last year, House and Senate Republicans introduced a bill to protect parental rights from government actions affecting upbringing, education, and health care of their children. Do you understand the hypocrisy of signing bills in Nebraska that take away those health care rights? 

     

VALUES You want me to support your plan to rid our universities and schools of using diverse pronouns, diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and teaching about race and racism. I do not. I believe in education for all, in preschools, K-12 schools, colleges and universities. Educating our young people, teaching them true history, and showing them we care for all our residents are the only ways we come together and survive as a state. I believe in giving all families what they need, by public assistance or otherwise, to become self sufficient.

     

IMMIGRATION We also have a problem with brain drain, with young people moving out of Nebraska to states that better match their values, that support funding for higher education. Your politics and policies are hurting the state. 

     

You say in your letter to me: “You know that I’m not a politician.” You would like me to send you money “to fight for Nebraska and America’s future.” Right back at you, Governor Pillen. I am not a politician and would like you to send me money to fight for Nebraska and America’s future. 

At the top of this letter you will find my request for a donation of $174,000, which is the U.S. Senate salary of Pete Ricketts, whom you appointed to the position as the result of a rather underhanded deal. I believe you should feel lucky I am not asking for the salaries of all the Trump appointees Ricketts then voted for. 

     

Please make the check payable to 5 Women Mayhem and we will distribute the money to people of Nebraska who are suffering as a result of Ricketts’ vote for the Trump budget bill. 

 

Yours truly, 

JoAnne Young

Not a Politician, for real