Auschwitz 75.

[Chelsea14Ian]

Today Mark's the 75 Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.Some story's were told on BBC breakfast this morning.,in which some of the survivors gave account of there time in the death camps.There accounts was very moving and brought the horror to life.

Last summer Marina and I visited  Berlin we visited  the Holocaust museum. That too was very moving. There was story boards from the 30s to the end of the war.What was striking was our the business of killing speeded up.Early on people were shot,over time mass murder speeded up.Peoples lives were charted whole family wiped out.We lift after a few hours drained very very moving. We walked into the sunshine,sadly in the course of the war almost six million people never saw another day.

What ever your beliefs ,faith just spare a thought for those that died or suffered in the horrific time.

[JennyMorgan]

 A good friend of mine was an engineer in the army, he was a bulldozer driver. I think that it was Auschwitz where his unit dug trenches and then my friend bulldozed decomposing bodies into the trenches. He became largely desensitised but he told me that he could only sob when he saw broken children being pushed towards the trenches. In truth I can't believe that it ever left him.  

[Hylander]

So pleased 75 anniversary is being marked correctly.     To me it is beyond belief that human beings can be so cruel to one another and on such a scale.    War is a terrible thing but this cannot even be classed as war.         It doesn't matter what you believe or dont as the case may be , Auschwitz and many other camps are just beyond comprehension.  Intolerance on a grand scale.

 

 

[ranworthbreeze]

51 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

 A good friend of mine was an engineer in the army, he was a bulldozer driver. I think that it was Auschwitz where his unit dug trenches and then my friend bulldozed decomposing bodies into the trenches. He became largely desensitised but he told me that he could only sob when he saw broken children being pushed towards the trenches. In truth I can't believe that it ever left him.  

I am sure the Russian soldiers that liberated Auschwitz never forgot what they encountered on entering the camp.

Rarely soldiers who encountered the horrors of war will speak of what they saw. Tan's uncle Neil would not talk about his time in the army nor would his brothers, he did however visit the trenches with his son.

 

[Polly]

My father in law went into one camp. He only spoke about it once, describing a  prisoner who dropped down dead when he offered him a cigarette. 
 

I have met holocaust survivors, it was humbling.

[Malanka]

Our two eldest have both visited Aushwitz twice, both were immeasurably moved by the absolute cruelty of the place. There is a video at the Holocaust part of the IWM in London from a survivor who was asked if she could forget. 
She said in reply that it’s like a pebble being cast into the lake and there is an initial splash and then ripples gradually spread out and lessen over time but after all the ripples have gone and time has passed there is still a pebble on the bottom of the lake. 
 

God forbid we ever forget what was done there. 
 

M

[twowrights]

We visited Auschwitz early last year and were very moved by the whole experience. I could only shake my head at people taking selfies,  and taking photographs in areas where signs specifically stated 'no photography/video recording.'

[Timbo]

The memorial hits close to home for me. I had great aunts and uncles, survivors of the camps, who still bore their tattoo. Some of my uncles had joined the army to fight only to be sent to concentration camps after they were captured in action. I've written regularly on this forum about a dear family friend, 'Uncle' John, and his antics on The Broads. As a sergeant in the RASC he was one of the machine drivers at the liberation of Belsen. 

We remember those who died, but also those who fought and died so that the like should never happen again.
 

[Ray]

I remember Yelena Mogulskaya

If you go to the I Remember Wall website you can digitally associate your name with a victim of the Holocaust and they are remembered individually by you. I find it quite moving to remember this lady.

 

[Chelsea14Ian]

Perhaps not on such a large scale, but hatred still exists. The most recent form of large scale murder in the middle east .Today some shops in Greenwich were dorbed  with anti Jewish slogans .So many young people  killed for little or no reason, other then belonging to a different group. We need to learn from the past.Otherwise the madness will continue.

[DAVIDH]

I find the  subject so moving. I have read books about the brutality, the inhumanity, meted out to the inmates of Auschwitz.  The Tattooist of Auschwitz chronicles one man's time in the camps. It's the total disregard for human life which is so astonishing. It wasn't just the Germans, it was the prisoners and the local populations who were also guilty. Prisoners were appointed by the Germans to brutalize, even to kill, the people in their  huts, to keep them in check. The local populations helped with construction of the camps, banks loaned the money out to the Germans for the  construction. Insurance companies indemnifying the buildings. Architects, joiners, bricklayers would all enter the camps in the day to work, witness what was happening but still turn up the next day for another days pay. Stories of the selection on arrival, following perhaps a three day train journey, without water or toilets. It was the ramp prisoner's job to swill the human waste and dead bodies out once the inmates had disembarked. Women holding babies sent to the gas chambers because separation would have caused a fracas on the ramp. Apparently, only 25% of each train load were spared death. The remaining 75% marched to the doors of the chambers, followed by a red cross van, which made it look as though they would be cared for, but was actually carrying the tins of Zyclon B pellets which would kill them.

The Jews and Romany people were not treated as animals. It was much worse than that. They were disregarded as a species even. A race of people so worthless that they could be removed from the face of the earth without a second thought. Like stepping on a beetle. Truly, as human beings, this part of our history is shaming. We cannot just put it down to evil people, many were normal everyday people, who somehow had become desensitized to other's suffering. It's frightening that it could happen again. Antisemitism is alive and well across Europe, and even in our country.

[ExSurveyor]

 

 

27 minutes ago, DAVIDH said:

The local populations helped with construction of the camps, banks loaned the money out to the Germans for the  construction. Insurance companies indemnifying the buildings. Architects, joiners, bricklayers would all enter the camps in the day to work, witness what was happening but still turn up the next day for another days pay.

 John Stuart Mill,  said in 1867:

“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

 

 

[YnysMon]

I’m frightened. Full stop.
How have we forgotten the lessons that were learnt after the two world wars of the last century? The populist politics that’s currently emerging all over Europe reminds me of the 1930s. That didn’t go well, did it?  Sorry, I don’t normally comment on politics, and haven’t any faith in any political party. Just wish people were more aware of history and the destructive powers of distrust. 

please don’t turn this post into anything political...that wasn’t the intention.

 

[Chelsea14Ian]

I did not intend to make this political  What I make no excuses is we must learn from our mistakes from the past.We must not turn a blind eye

[Poppy]

The thing that saddens me more than anything is the way the Palestinians are being treated right now .  Google (other search engines are available)  'Nakba'.

Will we hear anything at all about May 15th ?

[MauriceMynah]

I'm afraid I think the problem is deep and not removeable.

Within each and every human being there is a murderer, a rapist and a thief. The vast majority of us have evolved into people who can control these feelings, but we are taught to do this as children, it is not in our basic instinct.  It is called knowing right from wrong, what is acceptable and what is not.

If one watches children in a primary school playground, it is seen writ large. you will see bullies and the bullied. you will see minorities being victimized by the majority, and you will see weaklings being subdued by the strong. That is what the young human does, and it does it to such an extent that schools have to develop anti bullying policies. It is only as the child grows up it starts to develop the concepts of civilized society. That is the way it is, that is the way it has always been and I hate to say it but I believe that is the way it will always be.

Or will it? Do we have the tools and the will to change it? Can we evolve into a better species? 

I honestly don't know, but the way things are going I'm finding it difficult to be optimistic. 

I think the first step is so far away from today's thinking that I shall never see it. Step one will be to accept responsibility for our own actions and end the blame culture we currently live in. This would stop the "I was just following orders" and the variations of that theme.

We need to change the whole concept of insurance. We need to insure ourselves against misfortune, and claim on our own insurance, not other peoples. The "unluckier" you are, the more you will pay in premiums. This might improve your driving, you might start looking where you are going and walking more carefully on uneven paving and who knows, you might even start treating trivial incidents as what they are, trivial and not worth taking to court. This would be the start of being responsible,  just the start.

I hear that we are all better than we were back in "insert period here". We are not racist any more. (Yeah ???) We are not sexist any more. (Really ???) and we are not any other "ist" any more ( oh give me strength.)

We are told we must not be anti-Semitic any more. Look the word up and tell me that it in itself is not a racist comment. Surely we should be treating all religions in this way..

Will human nature ever stop treating some groups as inferior to others? I can't see it, but if and when it does, then and only then are we in with a chance.

[JennyMorgan]

12 hours ago, Timbo said:

As a sergeant in the RASC he was one of the machine drivers at the liberation of Belsen. 

Such a shame that Uncle John, like my friend Jack are no longer here to tell us what they went though. Jack, like John was a sergeant and in Jack's case I wonder if it was Belsen with which he was involved in. Regretfully he is long gone. Like many he kept his thoughts to himself but we were on a boat at Burgh St Peter when two other boats swung together, one lady had her hand hung over the side which was regretfully severed by the impact. Jack calmly retrieved her fingers before binding her hand up. I was amazed at his manner, I felt nothing but revulsion and I said so to Jack. Jack simply replied that after what he'd been through during the war it was nothing, Incidentally the lady's fingers were saved. Curious, I asked Jack's son what that experience had been but what the son knew was pretty vague, Jack had largely kept it from his family.

[Chelsea14Ian]

I agree with what your saying,think part of the problem is lack of respect, role models. And perhaps the speed of reporting. The very thing we are all using now social media. To often now some will pick up a knife, attacking others,with no remorse on there actions.

To return on the whole scale murder.When we went to the Holocaust  museum in Berlin.One story that stack in my mind.It was the account of a German Policeman,not army,SS. He was giving his account of a day to he's wife about killing  children. He said that at first it was slow,but as the day went on he got quicker. How he could relate this to he's wife, passing it of as normal was unbelievable. 

What to do think is very important is days like yesterday, reminding people of horrors of war.Not sure we hold back the tide of hate but let's hope we can slow the tide.

[addicted]

I have  never been able to understand the widespread persecution of Jewish people. It's not as if they are of one race. There are Jews of every race the world over and yet they are the victims of universal hatred. For goodness sake why?  l found the recent events occurring in our own country to be very disturbing and felt very uncomfortable with it all. It was almost as if the clock was being turned back to times we had only been told about. and viewed with horror. Any form of prejudice is disgusting to civilised people but still it rears its head. My great grandparents  were Prussian and during the war were often mistaken for Germans and subjected to hostility because of that. Their feelings for the Germans were similar to those of their persecutors  and my father used to tell the amusing story of how his grandmother was hanging out washing in the garden of their North London home when  some German planes appeared in what was one of the first daylight raids and he heard his grandmother cry out "Ach mein Gott the bloody Germans! . Things were so difficult that their children felt obliged to change their surname. All because of pointless prejudice.

 

Carole

[JennyMorgan]

Back in the early 1960's I was working in Germany. I was there as a civilian whilst most  of the Britons that the Germans met, as it was made abundantly clear to me,  were members of the occupying force and subsequently resented. On the other hand I was made to feel welcome, both by Germans and the numerous refugees and camp survivors that constantly wanted to relate their stories to me. I sometimes felt that I was being sought out by people who clearly felt that I needed to know what they had endured. Until that time I had no idea of the atrocities that were the war. The survivors would show me their tattoos and, often in tears, passionately relate their experiences in languages that I did not understand, it was an unreal experience. Back then Germany was being rebuilt, German society was regrouping, all in all a time that I won't forget. Hatred is abhorrent. I only saw the aftermath but that has stayed with me. On the bright side it was an exciting time to be in Germany as the youth came of age, clearly not wanting to be judged by the atrocities committed by their parents.

[Malanka]

Having lived in Germany between 2003 and 2009 I can honestly say that the German people we met are friendly and approachable and genuinely lovely people. 
 

I’m afraid I don’t feel able to say the same for their political classes at the national level. On the local my neighbour was of a different political stripe to me but we shared many beers whilst he cut his lawn on a Sunday ( illegal) or put out his mums washing on a Sunday ( illegal) or whilst we talked whilst I washed my car on my drive ( illegal), once joined by the chief of the local police too. 
they genuinely didn’t care. Pity the national leaders cannot be so magnanimous 

 

M 

[keifsmate]

My old man was a Squabbling Bleeder in Germany 62 - 65. We went to Belsen, eerie was what sprung to mind, A beautiful summers day but no birdsong. Absolute silence. Later I spent a week on a farm. The buggers would only speak German! Brought my schoolboy German on no end. German master didn't think so! Plattdeutsch rather than Hochdeutsch! Or hayseed rather than BBC! The farmers son took me to a Commonwealth war graves cemetery. We walked around in silence, as we left all he said was Why?