Holocaust

[Gerhardt]

I've been reading a lot of online articles about Auschwitz and other concentration camps this week due to today being the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

I have read quite a bit about the Holocaust. And when I was at the Holocaust Museum at one point I was talking with a couple of ladies, one maybe my age and and another much older. I don't always think before I speak but I said something akin to "it's unbelievable" and the old lady broke down crying and said something about it being true because she was there. I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in speaking, but never anything worse than that. It certainly was not what I meant.

I visit a lot of websites with personal accounts. I look at the pictures. I don't know the right phrase to use to say that I'm drawn to them. I don't want to say that I enjoy them, but I am curious and interested. Much like I have watched Escape from Sobibor and Schindler's List many times. I don't think Otto Frank would have published his daughter's diary except maybe he saw it as a way of honoring those who perished.

 

[JOhnH]

I don't think saying "unbelievable" was a mistake. It's a shame that the woman took it the wrong way. It is not as if you said you didn't believe it. And I completely understand what you are saying. The evil that tool place was unbelivable to normal human beings. Trying to understand how that could happen is a mental stretch that has mesmerized millions/billions of people.

 

[mtuomi]

You need to be a very cold person to walk through Auschwitz or Dachau with dry eyes.

 

[Matthew]

I visited Dachau when I lived in Germany as a kid. It had an affect on me even at that age (11 or 12). I wasn't sure what it was, but I could feel it, probably from the adults that were there.

A couple years ago I visited the Holocaust Museum. Not a pleasant experience. In one room I was reading something on a display, and overheard a guy next to me start telling his son about his own father's (or maybe his grandfather, I can't remember now) experience in one of the camps. From the sound of the conversation, I got the impression the younger one was hearing these stories for the first time.

 

[mtuomi]

Dachau, Auschwitz, Hiroshima war memorial. All very certain ways to ruin your day.

 

[MAKG1]

Go visit it. It's near Krakow, and is easily accessible for a Polish city.

Even better, go visit Terezin (Theresienstadt) outside Prague or Dachau in suburban Munich. Both have extensive museums and are quite easy to get to (the former, by intercity bus, and the latter by the Munich subway). They have been very well preserved and don't pull any punches.

The Hiroshima Peace Park and its associated museum will very definitely ruin your day. You can't imagine the scale of the destruction without going there.

 

[Florida Cracker]

There is a memorial in Jerusalem on the side of a hill where you can see an actual cattle car used to take Jews to the camps. It is situated on one single length of track that goes off th edge of the hill towards infinity.

After it was built, I was told a women who lived at the bottom of the hill walked up to examine the cattle car and recognized the car number. It was the one she was packed into with her family.

She was the only one that survived and you wouldn't want to hear why.

When the museum people found out about her, they planted tall trees to hide the car from her view but the story remains.

**** all the modern day fascists. they do not deserve to live. Their crimes were horrendous compared to what so many people think was profane.

 

[Geico266]

I've been reading a lot of online articles about Auschwitz and other concentration camps this week due to today being the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

I have read quite a bit about the Holocaust. And when I was at the Holocaust Museum at one point I was talking with a couple of ladies, one maybe my age and and another much older. I don't always think before I speak but I said something akin to "it's unbelievable" and the old lady broke down crying and said something about it being true because she was there. I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in speaking, but never anything worse than that. It certainly was not what I meant.

I visit a lot of websites with personal accounts. I look at the pictures. I don't know the right phrase to use to say that I'm drawn to them. I don't want to say that I enjoy them, but I am curious and interested. Much like I have watched Escape from Sobibor and Schindler's List many times. I don't think Otto Frank would have published his daughter's diary except maybe he saw it as a way of honoring those who perished.

Don't be disappointed in yourself, be glad. You gave the old lady an opening for her to open up and vent. You helped cleanse her soul of a few more demons. Her soul is more peaceful now for the experience you started. Victims need to talk, grieve, cry. You gave her the opening.

 

[AdamZ]

One of the saddest stories and there are millions of them was told to me by Alon ( Armageddon Aviator) about how his great aunt was turned in and murdered. Perhaps he might share it with the board. I'd tell it but its his families story.

 

[steingar]

The saddest thing about the Holocaust is we as a species learned nothing from it. From the Balkans to Rwanda to Syria and beyond, the reprehensible practices of ethnic cleansing and genocide continue unabated. All those poor souls died for nothing.

 

[flhrci]

The saddest thing about the Holocaust is we as a species learned nothing from it. From the Balkans to Rwanda to Syria and beyond, the reprehensible practices of ethnic cleansing and genocide continue unabated. All those poor souls died for nothing.

You are right. There are plenty of examples of "cleansing" since WWII. They just have not had the high profile that the Holocaust did. What is also amazing for me, if I remember correctly, that the Allies did not even know about these camps and what they were for until the war was over. The Allies knew almost everything else that went on, but not that really huge thing.

David

 

[flhrci]

They knew. Sadly, it wasn't the highest priority. Killing Hilter and destroying the Nazis was.

I thought I had read that they did not know. Oh well. Doesn't really matter either way now.

David

 

[SteveR]

They knew. Sadly, it wasn't the highest priority. Killing Hilter and destroying the Nazis was.

I'm curious, what quicker way to end the genocide existed, other than killing Hitler and destroying the Nazis?

I thought I had read that they did not know. Oh well. Doesn't really matter either way now.

I certainly believe the Allies did not understand the scale of the Holocaust until the final months of the war. Most Germans didn't know the scale of the genocide, although they did turn a blind eye to the rounding up of the Jews.

 

[ClimbnSink]

I'm curious, what quicker way to end the genocide existed, other than killing Hitler and destroying the Nazis?



I certainly believe the Allies did not understand the scale of the Holocaust until the final months of the war. Most Germans didn't know the scale of the genocide, although they did turn a blind eye to the rounding up of the Jews.

We of course would like to think that, but the Allies knew. Sounds nicer to say the Allies rather then us. Not just themilitary folks American civilians all knew. We simply don't want to admit how tolerant of genocide we can be.

 

[SteveR]

We of course would like to think that, but the Allies knew. Sounds nicer to say the Allies rather then us. Not just themilitary folks American civilians all knew. We simply don't want to admit how tolerant of genocide we can be.

Really? That is new information to me. Can you point to sources that show that it was common knowledge to the American public before 1945 that the Nazis were gassing millions of people?

Also, how were we tolerant of it? We reduced most major German cities to rubble. Is that considered tolerance now?

 

[RotorDude]

We of course would like to think that, but the Allies knew. Sounds nicer to say the Allies rather then us. Not just themilitary folks American civilians all knew. We simply don't want to admit how tolerant of genocide we can be.

That appears to be the case. See for example here, and here.

 

[Neal Howard]

My mother was born in Nuremberg in 1930 and grew up under the Nazi regime and rise to power. Her family did not know what all happened in the camps until the end of the war although they suspected the worst. My uncle, her older brother, drafted into the Wehrmacht, died in Stalingrad at age 19 when the ammunition truck he was driving was blown up. Her family was more worried and preoccupied about the Russians coming for revenge than anything else. My father was a 19 yr old GI who served at the end of the war as an MP guarding prisoners at the Nuremberg Trials and had no knowledge of the death camps until he learned about them at the trials. That's where and when my parents met and got married. They're both gone now but I am a direct product of WW2.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Really? That is new information to me. Can you point to sources that show that it was common knowledge to the American public before 1945 that the Nazis were gassing millions of people?

Also, how were we tolerant of it? We reduced most major German cities to rubble. Is that considered tolerance now?

When has war been about saving lives? We bombed German cities for whatever reason kings send their peasants to kill other kings peasants. Kind of silly policy, some king was killing one segment of his civilian population so we bomb another segment of his civilian population. Humans are dicks.

 

[Anthony]

The saddest thing about the Holocaust is we as a species learned nothing from it. From the Balkans to Rwanda to Syria and beyond, the reprehensible practices of ethnic cleansing and genocide continue unabated. All those poor souls died for nothing.

Stalin killed a lot more than Hitler, yet people forget that. A conservative estimate of the number of peope Stalin had murdered is 20 Million, but some reports are as high a 60 Million. But, you are correct, since WWII we've had Pol Pot, and others, many of them communist regimes.

 

[AdamZ]

Unbelievable how a heartfelt thread about a great human tragedy can be dragged so quickly into the sewer.

 

[JeffDG]

Stalin killed a lot more than Hitler, yet people forget that. A conservative estimate of the number of peope Stalin had murdered is 20 Million, but some reports are as high a 60 Million. But, you are correct, since WWII we've had Pol Pot, and others, many of them communist regimes with attitudes very similar to the one in our current Administration who believe the ends justify the means.

Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot combined are pikers comared to Mao...end game for socialists throughout the 20th Century.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Unbelievable how a heartfelt thread about a great human tragedy can be dragged so quickly into the sewer.

Thread is fine all that's happened is people pointing out that genocide is not a unique experience. Some victims have better PR and enough survivors to write their story others not so much.

 

[Everskyward]

Unbelievable how a heartfelt thread about a great human tragedy can be dragged so quickly into the sewer.

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