60th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

[JoY]

I know all this. but that doesn't take away the fact, that it simply wasn't the only camp. people -were- treated horribly, but not just there. that's my point. the only thing, that makes the difference between Auschwitz & some of the rest, are the gas-chambers. BUT extermination also took place in Kulmhof, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka & Majdanek. & I don't care if in the end less people were killed there, than in Auschwitz - people were killed. Auschwitz may represent that & be the symbol of the Holocaust, I just think many people forget about the reality of this & how many other places there were, besides Auschwitz, where people were tortured, robbed of freedom, killed, excluded from society, etc.

& you forgot mentally disabled.

(don't think I dislike you, by the way. I'm just quite.. 'passionate' (though that isn't the right word) about this subject.)

[Mr.Fletcher]

Who talks about disliking? we just discuss.
I dont think people forget about other camps, places. I assume they remamber and show their compassion by visiting those places, bringing fresh flowers and candles as a symbol of a memory that still lives inside them.
The fact is Auschwitz was the biggest of them all. Through years it became a symbol of the holocaust. Thats why theres 'the fuss' about Auschwitz.
If for example Kulmhof was the biggest, there will probably be a fuss over the Kulmhof. Thats quite obvious.

[the_GoDdEsS]

Originally Posted by Mr.Fletcher

shatskater, have you ever been in Auschwitz? Have you ever seen the crematory, the barracks, piles of cut hair, empty boxes of Cyclone B on your own eyes? Have ever talked to a person who survived the concetration camp? If not, you should. Maybe this will teach you something and change your behaviour.

Oh dudes, I've seen it all. And the gas chambers and the ovens. It's real thrilling and sick and creepy at times. But definitely worth seeing it all. You'll understand better.

[Tizzalicious]

Originally Posted by the_GoDdEsS

Oh dudes, I've seen it all. And the gas chambers and the ovens. It's real thrilling and sick and creepy at times. But definitely worth seeing it all. You'll understand better.

*agrees* It was so...meh. Dunno. Impressive is the only word I can think of.

[Vera]

For a person who supposedly has studied these things, shatskater, you do not seem to realize the way Hitler's ideology worked.

Born a Jew, always a Jew. Being Jewish did not mean just belonging to a different religion, it meant that you had Jewish BLOOD running in your veins. The same animal blood that had wrecked the originally divine Aryan race during centuries and centuries. It was thanks to Jews that Germany lost WW1.

You can't convert from being a Jew into an Aryan. If it would've been that simple, that many Jews wouldn't have been killed.

The question whether Hitler truly believed in his ideology can be asked and can't be definitely answered but what remains is the fact that the man acted according to his ideology. To rid his Great Germany of everyone who was in some specific way very different, he set up concentration camps that did not only kill Jews, they also killed regular Germans who had something that might poison the Aryan blood. Even people who had epilepsia were sent off to the camps because epilepsia was considered a genetical disease. Children with disabilities (mental or physical) were killed, as well.

It is extremely tactless to make Jew jokes on a day like this, in a topic like this. It is inconsiderate and stupid. Even if you do find it funny, you should realize that there is a time and a place for certain jokes and this was definitely not the correct time or the place to show off your "twisted sense of humor". Not realizing that really makes you more ignorant than your lack of spelling or your often rather stupid comments have previously proved.

Also, you said that it was the peoples fault for following him. Remember 1930's depression? It was then that Hitler's party's support rocketed. Often in times of recession, people seek promise in extreme rightwing or leftwing parties. Hitler appeared to be on the people's side. Anti-semitism had always existed in Europe. Propaganda works. But ultimately, in Hitler's nation, you didn't have the right to think differently. If you did, it was very likely you would be the one sent to the concentration camp yourself. Many Germans did hide Jews in their homes or organized it for some of the Jewish population to flee the country in order to protect them.

In short, no, it was not the people's fault. They didn't go, "Hey let's kill a couple of million Jews!", those who weren't brainwashed definitely didn't support it.

Again, for a person who has supposedly studied these things a lot and knows "quite a lot", you don't seem to know jackshit.

[Eccentric Sara]

Originally Posted by TheUnholyNightbringer

Somethign stirred in my mind, so I googled up and managed to find a poem on this.

Vultures by Chinua Achebe

In the greyness
and drizzle of one despondent
dawn unstirred by harbingers
of sunbreak a vulture
perching high on broken
bone of a dead tree
nestled close to his
mate his smooth
bashed-in head, a pebble
on a stem rooted in
a dump of gross
feathers, inclined affectionately
to hers. Yesterday they picked
the eyes of a swollen
corpse in a water-logged
trench and ate the things in its bowel. Full
gorged they chose their roost
keeping the hollowed remnant
in easy range of cold
telescopic eyes ...
Strange
indeed how love in other
ways so particular
will pick a corner
in that charnel-house
tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
even fall asleep - her face
turned to the wall!

... Thus the Commandant at Belsen
Camp going home for
the day with fumes of
human roast clinging
rebelliously to his hairy
nostrils will stop
at the wayside sweet-shop
and pick up a chocolate
for his tender offspring
waiting at home for Daddy's return ...

Praise bounteous
providence if you will
that grants even an ogre
a tiny glow-worm
tenderness encapsulated
in icy caverns of a cruel
heart or else despair
for in every germ
of that kindred love is
lodged the perpetuity
of evil.

Jeez! How random! We did this poem for GCSE English! It was in the big booklet of poems and stuff they give you to study!!!
Anyway,yeah,I think the Holocaust was hideous,but I have to say I don't know that much about it! We studied it in Year 9 History (when I was 13/14),but I haven't done any history since then,so my knowledge is really patchy. Going to Auschwitz does sound interesting though.

[RXP]

I saw the documentary on the BBC last week. It was awful I didn't watch yesterdays one. I coudln't.

[Mota Boy]

Come on people, the guy has demonstrated multiple times in the past that he's a borderline retard without the ability to reason. I don't think you can get mad at him for posting Holocaust jokes in a thread about the anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation any more than you should beat a puppy for shitting on the kitchen floor. Why y'all would allow one moron to derail this thread is beyond me.

That said, I've been to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. and found it fascinating and horrifying, but not as deeply moving as so many people had portrayed it to be. I think that I've heard about the atrocities committed there so often that hearing about them for the umpteenth time, even as well presented as it was, didn't shock or deeply move me, for I'd already heard everything.

Still, actually seeing some of the ovens, the shorn hair and decaying shoes, and hearing firsthand accounts of time spent there was powerful, but nothing that I wasn't prepared to see.

[Vera]

Why y'all would allow one moron to derail this thread is beyond me.

It pains me when people are ignorant and stupid about this particular crime against humanity. Partly because it happened so close, both geographically and ...timely (?), 60 years isn't that long of a time. It's just frustrating and makes my blood boil.

Also, it's easier to rant at some motherfucker than start remembering every horrible detail you have heard about the death camps. It's a really strange event, the way it has affected future generations so much. It's like this big something that won't leave our minds no matter how hard we might try.

[HornyPope]

I'm surprised there was only one enfant-provocateur in this topic. Usually they form a wolfpack. It's not a question of being mean or ignorant on their part but rather the search for attention. Happens all the time. Don't waste your breath.

Moving on.

I bought a book today on the marking speaches of the 20th century. As I skimmed through it I saw Elie Wiesel's name. I'm a fan of his. Read his two books--L'aube and La Nuit. The latter about his personal experience in the Holocausat and more specifically- Auschwitz. Without any further dues:



I speak to you as a man, who 50 years and nine days ago had no name, no hope, no future and was known only by his number, A7713.

I speak as a Jew who has seen what humanity has done to itself by trying to exterminate an entire people and inflict suffering and humiliation and death on so many others.

In this place of darkness and malediction we can but stand in awe and remember its stateless, faceless and nameless victims. Close your eyes and look: endless nocturnal processions are converging here, and here it is always night. Here heaven and earth are on fire.

Close your eyes and listen. Listen to the silent screams of terrified mothers, the prayers of anguished old men and women. Listen to the tears of children, Jewish children, a beautiful little girl among them, with golden hair, whose vulnerable tenderness has never left me. Look and listen as they quietly walk towards dark flames so gigantic that the planet itself seemed in danger.

All these men and women and children came from everywhere, a gathering of exiles drawn by death.

Yitgadal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba.

In this kingdom of darkness there were many people. People who came from all the occupied lands of Europe. And then there were the Gypsies and the Poles and the Czechs ... It is true that not all the victims were Jews. But all the Jews were victims.

Now, as then, we ask the question of all questions: what was the meaning of what was so routinely going on in this kingdom of eternal night. What kind of demented mind could have invented this system?

And it worked. The killers killed, the victims died and the world was the world and everything else was going on, life as usual. In the towns nearby, what happened? In the lands nearby, what happened? Life was going on where God's creation was condemned to blasphemy by their killers and their accomplices.

Yitgadal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba.

Turning point or watershed, Birkenau produced a mutation on a cosmic scale, affecting man's dreams and endeavours. After Auschwitz, the human condition is no longer the same. After Auschwitz, nothing will ever be the same.

Yitgadal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba.

As we remember the solitude and the pain of its victims, let us declare this day marks our commitment to commemorate their death, not to celebrate our own victory over death.

As we reflect upon the past, we must address ourselves to the present and the future. In the name of all that is sacred in memory, let us stop the bloodshed in Bosnia, Rwanda and Chechnia; the vicious and ruthless terror attacks against Jews in the Holy Land. Let us reject and oppose more effectively religious fanaticism and racial hate.

Where else can we say to the world "Remember the morality of the human condition," if not here?

For the sake of our children, we must remember Birkenau, so that it does not become their future.

Yitgadal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba: Weep for Thy children whose death was not mourned then: weep for them, our Father in heaven, for they were deprived of their right to be buried, for heaven itself became their cemetery.