https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c5yep0l5545t
A day to reflect how lucky we are not having to go through a war.
Man is the animal.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c5yep0l5545t
A day to reflect how lucky we are not having to go through a war.
Man is the animal.
Man's inhumanity to man.
May we remember to never forget.
StT.
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We have a duty never to forget the horrors that happened to people just because they were different. It's a lesson many still need to learn now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve the Tea
If you have been there! it is a horrific place. How anyone could hate people this much i'm not able to understand.
Some great coverage on BBC fair play with some powerful speeches with some scary statistics.
The youth must be educated better and the far right crushed.
The damage social media platforms does cannot be overstated and turning a blind eye for the sake of business wealth makes us all complicit.
The Holocaust has horrified me and been an interest ever since I read Schindlers Ark (which became the truly excellent film Schindlers List) in year 10.
It is unimaginable. What perhaps is most remarkable is how lucky the survivors were. To survive the ghettos and the transportations, then to survive the initial selections and then life in Auschwitz.
I think it's also worth stating that those bound for Auschwitz and other concentration camps were the comparatively lucky ones as they weren't death camps. Treblinka, Sobibor and the like were places where all bar a tiny tiny minority survived no more than an hour or two.
The uprising at Treblinka is one of the most inspiring and fascinating stories of the entire war. There is a documentary on Treblinka here. Its as bleak as our humanity has ever been but it's an incredibly engaging watch and I think we all have a duty to remember in our own ways.
https://youtu.be/x-lKa35g7hA?si=K38En3df59xw8GLZ
It really is hard to believe what humans are capable of doing to fellow humans.
Works of fiction can, I've found, give a moving portrayal of the horrors of life in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, even though they're not always 100,% accurate. Schindler's List, as already mentioned, but also the film Life is Beautiful and the books The One Man and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Unfortunately Europe is suffering war again brought on by a Hitler esque loonQuote:
Originally Posted by Cleve van Leef
Belsen is the sameQuote:
Originally Posted by ToTaL ITK
It’s difficult to comprehend that there are politicians and other influential people who are hoodwinking ordinary people down the same path in this day and age.
I'd add Zone of Interest to that list.Quote:
Originally Posted by Undercoverinwurzelland
Not read that one - I'll check it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swiss Peter
Auschwitz & Hiroshima, indescribable places.
The fate of many, is guided by the hands of few.
99% of the worlds population are peace loving people, but we witness war after war, generation after generation.
About to watch the Tattooists son on Sky History.
It's a film that was getting quite good reviews a few months back. I went to see it twice in a week, which I very rarely do (...partly because there was quite a bit I didn't understand first time around!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Undercoverinwurzelland
How many thousands of infants is Israel currently murdering ? Nobody learns anything. Crimes of the son I guess.
I've been to the holocaust memorial museum in Israel, the genocide memorial in Rwanda, the killing fields in Phnom Penh and a number of other places where atrocities have occurred.
Awful but necessary places to never let us forget.
But the words 'never again' are hollow when the above examples show that it does happen again, perhaps not on the scale of what happened in 1940's Europe, but the evilness of mankind knows no bounds.
Gaza will become yet another genocide memorial site and we will all be saying 'never again', again :(
Very true, Eric.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee
StT.
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Can I ask you (and others here) if they have visited Auschwitz and Birkenau and:Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesWales
1. Did it alter their perspective on what happened back then?
2. Did it leave them feeling that people who could visit these places should do this at least once in their lives?
3. Did the experience change their opinion on what evil could look like?
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem, is a sobering experience for anyone who will visit it. During the Holocaust 1,500,000 Jewish children were systematically murdered. Their only crime was that they were Jewish.
May their memory be a blessing.
The Children's Memorial at Yad Vashem is harrowing:
https://youtu.be/BsJqKdN9B3A?si=xEqID6Ieu9KJaOFz
https://youtu.be/O7I84JLrjD0?si=_GycF3XaUxMshDAU
StT.
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1. I knew a great deal about German history before I visited Auschwitz so it didn't change my perspective.Quote:
Originally Posted by truthpaste
2. I wouldn't be so prescriptive although I understand the sentiment.
3. I don't have a concept of what 'evil looks like' but some of the greatest 'evil' acts in history were, and indeed still are, carried out by those following an overarching collective dogma.
Visits to Hiroshima and The Killing Fields were also very sobering.
"Man has dominated man to his injury".
A truism that hasn't changed over thousands of years.
No amount of education will stop this.
It is a fact of life.
Hardly a day goes by without us hearing news of man's inhumanity to man, sometimes on our doorstep.
There is no solution.
Even now in Britain and the US (let alone in Ukraine and the Middle East - the list is long) decisions are being made by governments which ruin people's lives.
"Man has dominated man to his injury"
1. No. I'd already read 'If This Is A Man' by Primo Levi (an incredible read), seen all the documentaries and films like Schindler's List, The Pianist etc. so already had a pretty informed perspective.Quote:
Originally Posted by truthpaste
2. I think so, yes. Simply because of the immediacy of the environment. It's not a book you can put down or a film you can turn off, being there forces you to seriously think about where you are and what you're seeing.
3. One of the biggest things that struck me there was seeing the bureaucracy of it. There are numerous documents (invoices, memos, inventories etc.) on display that really force home how clinical and 'professional' the whole thing was, as if they were running a business. To them, these human beings were literally numbers, targets to be met, processes to be streamlined and made more efficient. How on earth do you reach that point of normalcy?
An interesting side note to visiting is seeing how other people react to it. Most people have some sense of respect and decorum, some are visibly upset. Some just see it as a tourist attraction. But I saw one guy repeatedly taking photos in the crematorium (despite there being several prominent signs telling people not to) and, bizarrely, even saw one group having a cheery family photo in front of one of the rail carts, smiles and all.
I highly recommend a documentary on Netflix called "Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial". It doesn't exactly break new ground, but it looks more closely at how ordinary people went along with the Nazis in the 1920s and 30s from a modern-day perspective (one of Goebbels' initial slogans was, interestingly, 'Make Germany Great Again'). It also uses AI to recreate William Shirer's original reporting from within Nazi Germany, as well as original audio recordings from the Nuremberg trials. Very interesting and timely documentary.
1. NoQuote:
Originally Posted by truthpaste
2. Yes (and other places, eg Gaza)
3. No unfortunately evil takes many shapes and forms.
Interesting questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by truthpaste
1/ I've never been to Auschwitz. But I have been to Dachau, which was the first camp the Nazis used and remained a concentration camp throughout the war. I guess it did alter my perspective as standing where history has happened is always a powerful and emotive thing for me. I've been to the Normandy beaches and seen where Anne Boleyn was beheaded etc. I really do feel the power in such places. That said, WW2 has been a life long interest so I don't think I had to visit a camp to feel that. I will visit Auschwitz one day. I also want to visit Treblinka which as I referenced yesterday is where I think humanity was at its most evil. I'm not sure why I want to visit but I feel like I want to pay respects in some way and as it was such a secret place I feel like visiting empowers the victims somehow?
2/ Yes, although I must say I don't think people should "do Auschwitz" like people also "do the saltmines" or "Do the old town" when they go to Krakow. I think people should read about it first to fully respect it.
3/. I've always appreciated the Nazis were amongst the most evil regimes in history and that this was most on display in the camps.
Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Website ...
https://www.yadvashem.org/
This is an excellent Holocaust resource.
StT.
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Would echo the recommendation of If This Is a Man/The Truce, Primo Levi was an incredible author but those books are on another level.Quote:
Originally Posted by FormerlyJohnnyBreadhead
Just to expand on the smiling people comment (and I sometimes question my memory on this but I'm glad I wrote it down at the time ) when I was at Auschwitz about 20 years ago I witnessed a family where the mother gave a signal to her teenage son at the exact moment she took a photo in front of the crematorium , and he raised his arm in the air. I wasn't the only one to notice and they were swiftly escorted out. Terrifying to think that people do that.
Edited out the quote
Sick sick sick
agreed and deletedQuote:
Originally Posted by jeepster
Personally, they should just flatten it! i don't know why people would want to walk around a place millions of people were slaughtered at. Next there will be trips to epstien island
Because you'll never fully appreciate the horror that was the holocaust, but visiting the death camps will at least give you an insight into just how awful man can be, when left unchecked.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave St
Ironic, behaving like a nazi in this thread, being the arbiter of what is and isn't acceptable.Quote:
Originally Posted by blue matt
A moderator on a message board is an arbiter by definition and likening his action to that of a Nazi is ridiculous.Quote:
Originally Posted by HiVis
Those who forget history are destined to repeat it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave St
StT.
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Really? a moderators' job is to keep the peace, not to decide whether a post passes their personal standards test. The beauty of humour is that its not for everyone as we are all different, but that doesn't mean it should be removed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie
In a thread about Auschwitz you really need to retract the Nazi comment and grow up.Quote:
Originally Posted by HiVis
Why can't we talk about Nazis when discussing Auschwitz? Do we simply ignore they were the perpetrators?Quote:
Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie
And the old chestnut about growing up, I expected something a bit more erudite from you. I'll mask my disappointment.
I'm not in the least concerned about your disappointment. Your comment was pathetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by HiVis
Horses for courses old fruit. Maybe you could try being a little less sensitive :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie