The imagery of “Camp in the City” by Andrea Muehlebach is particularly powerful in the way it describes how modern day migrants are abused in the spaces where the injustices of the past once occurred. Muehlebach does this by drawing parallelss between Nazi Germany and the state of the current migrant  “crisis” in Europe. Paralleling these two moments in history  is not only bold, but it is an effective way to to criticize the way people are handling the current  crisis.

I took  Muehlebach’s parallels as a critique of the way that the general public tends to react in instances of human rights crises. In history there seems to be this tendency of the public to distance themselves from the “crisis” or remain indifferent as it is happening. Then, when this crisis no longer exists as a reality of the present, it’s easy for people to aknowledge  how awful it was and swear to never let something like that happen again. We ask, How did things to escalate in Nazi Germany to the degree it did? Some historians argue that a lack of accountability had a role in it. Similarly, a lack of accountability plays a role  in the escalation of abuses in this migrant crisis. It is easy for people to  just accept the current state of violence towards migrants as normal by dehumanize migrants or by whatever other means they see fit . I can imagine that serveral years  from the current situation , there may be a widespread condemenation of this instance , an instance that so many people seem to be indifferent about now. However, I believe that we shoudn’t be waiting years to react appropriately to the violence against migrants. History repeats itself as people are indifferent to injustice until it’s to late. The only way to change this is holding ourselves accountable for injustices even when they may not effect us directly and acting now.