Erinnerungskultur is a German term that translates roughly to “Culture of Remembrance.” Specifically, it references the collective German effort to ensure society memory does not erase the atrocities of the Holocaust through means such as education, memorialization, and archiving.
As first reported by Project Salt Box, the Department of Homeland Security spent over $102 million at the end of January to purchase an 825,620 sq. ft. warehouse in Hagerstown for use as an ICE processing center.
Tuesday, science journalist Sonia Shah and I headed North to Washington County, to get a feel for the site of Maryland’s potential new ICE processing center. We talked to protestors, neighbors, and others who’d be impacted by the presence of the detention center.
But the more time I spent there, the less I felt like a journalist reporting on a story and the more I felt like I was living in an alternate universe where no one knew our history. One where there was no Iraq War, no concentration camps created to detain Japanese Americans during World War II.
So many of the people we spoke to expressed disdain for the idea of the detention center, yet they seemed resigned to its reality — either unaware or unwilling to acknowledge it can be stopped.
In this idyllic snowscape, I’d found myself in the middle of an antierinnerungskultur — a culture that forgets.
1: Semple Run stream runs through the yard of the home closest to the warehouse. Feb. 3, 2026.
2: One-lane bridge on a two-way street that Washington County intends to destroy. Feb. 3, 2026.
Snow blankets a peaceful field. Feb 3, 2026.
Four friends beg for attention. They’d have a view of the detention center. Feb 3, 2026.
One lonely bench faces the backside of the massive warehouse. Feb 3, 2026.
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