"Jedem Das Seine" - roughly translated from German, it means "to each their own." This is the message vistors read when they walk through the iron gate into what's left of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
The message is pretty clear - don't worry about your neighbour, you'll be lucky to get through with your own neck intact. That was the message the Nazis wanted their inmates to take to heart - you're in this alone. Concentration Camps were carefully designed to build on divisions; their evil genius was that the Nazis themselves had to do little work in keeping Concentration Camp inmates in line. They took care of all that internally.
What toppled the Nazis? Three things; internal division, external cooperation and brave men and women who fought against the sytem that tried to cleave them apart and fought together for something bigger than themselves - the idea that every man for himself isn't going to work, that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, that we can live together.
As all things are cyclical, it appears this is a battle we're all going to have to fight again.
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