All are responsible

Black text 
on a white field becomes mirror—
erases 
the veil of what they did—
reveals 
every. gouged. line. 
every. gaping. pore. 
of what we allowed 


Eighty years ago, they stood 
in the purple bruise of atrocities 
& said 

		‘done by a few people’  

said 

		‘you cannot blame us all’ 


Eighty years ago, 
an American said: 

		‘This was done by those [you] chose  
		to lead… all are responsible.’ 


In 1945… 
they were responsible. 
For the atrocities we witness every day… 

the mirror 
does not lie


On Tuesday, February 3, more than a thousand people turned out for the Surprise City Council meeting to oppose the establishment of the federal detention center. One of the speakers reminded the council of Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops, on April 4, 1945. He said:

“The U.S. Army brought the leading citizens of Ohrdruf to tour the facility, which turned out to be part of the Buchenwald network of concentration camps. A U.S. Army colonel told the German civilians who viewed the scenes without muttering a word that they were to blame. One of the Germans replied that what happened in the camp was ‘done by a few people,’ and ‘you cannot blame us all.’ And the American, who could have been any one of our grandfathers, said: ‘This was done by those that the German people chose to lead them, and all are responsible.’

The morning after the tour, the mayor of Ohrdruf killed himself. And maybe he did not know the full extent of the outrages that were committed in his community, but he knew enough. And we don’t know exactly how ICE will use this warehouse. But we know enough. …”
—Heather Cox Richardson, Feb. 7, 2026 Substack

by Gale Naylor