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Today marks the 76th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops.
http://auschwitz.org/en/home-page-76/
We visited Auschwitz a few years ago, very sobering place. It was in summer which didn't really convey how bad it would be living there in winter, with no heating and bugger all food.
I then read 'If this is a man' by Primo Levi, which recounts his time in the camp, an excellent read, although pretty grim (and he's one of the very few who made it out alive).
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I'm torn about places like Auschwitz, on one hand we definitely can't forget the atrocities that took place there and should try to use them to ensure something similar doesn't happen again. But on the other hand I feel sickened that it's seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
I think some people just aren't adult enough to deserve to visit the place.
I was there on the 4th Jan 2020. It was grim. It's a period of history that must never be forgotten or repeated.
Never been although I’ve visited Belsen. Night will fall is a very good documentary though, and Shoah is astonishing and disturbing (if you can manage all 10 hours of it!)..
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
Does anyone?
I remember visiting whilst backpacking round Europe. The sheer scale of the place is sobering. Don't recall anyone treating the place with anything other than sombre respect.
We visited Auschwitz a few years ago, very sobering place. It was in summer which didn’t really convey how bad it would be living there in winter, with no heating and bugger all food.
same, it was around 40 degrees and we thought how awful itd be in that heat. vowed to go again at the other extreme which would be far worse, but havent done so yet.
very sobering as you say.
It's certainly no theme park. I didn't say a word during the 3 hours I spent there with my then girlfriend. It's one of those places that can really change you and I think everyone should visit in their adult life.
I visited Auschwitz in ‘91 and 3 years go. Back in ‘91 it felt like it had just been left when it was liberated. 3 years ago it was much more like a museum. I think it’s appropriate to visit, to remember and not let us forget what humans can do to other humans.
I happened to be in that part of the world in 1997 so made myself go.
I'd hardly call it a tourist attraction. It's a powerful reminder of how society can dissolve into hatred, and I think more people should go and experience the horrors themselves before taking positions of power and spouting nationalistic bullshit to further their personal aims.
Don’t recall anyone treating the place with anything other than sombre respect.
This. Really can't imagine people pulling duck-face selfies for instagram in front of the zyklon b cannisters.
I take pupils every 2 years,While there were a couple of instances of little scrotes doing nazi salutes a year or 2 back which was publicised at the time, I have never seen anything but absolute respect from the huge numbers I see while there myself. I would make a trip there compulsory for every 15yo.
I visited a few years ago, and agree it was a very sobering experience.
However there are definitely some who visit and do not understand the magnitude of what occured.
I saw a number of people pose for photos in some of the block 11 dark cells and the same in front of the 'death wall' at the same block.
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
I've never been to Auschwitz but sachenhause wasn't like that at all. Two standout things there were "there is still problems now" with the last remaining building torched by nazi thugs the year before and "don't forget the Nazi use of the camp was almost immediately replaced with communist attrocities"
They are sombre places.
Jeez. Well I obviously had a higher estimation of my fellow humans. I take it back. People are just vacuous narcissistic morons.
A few years go went to The Holocaust Museum at Jerusalem, seemed strange at Telaviv asking for a day return ticket to Jerusalem and then a return ticket on the bus to the museum.
But a really interesting lovely well designed place in memory of those who got killed.
Lots of tears and upset in those walls from us and other visitors.
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
Anyone who sees it (& the other camps) as a tourist attraction need some serious education.
I went to Auschwitz with pupils in 2019. The problem with it for me was the same as every other historical site I've visited. It's just a bunch of buildings. Looking at the buildings didn't make me feel connected to the people who were there or the atrocities that happened to them. Reading Primo Levi on the other hand did make me feel that connection. It's the stories not the buildings that matter.
Anyone who sees it (& the other camps) as a tourist attraction need some serious education.
And yet it is a tourist attraction. It's a massive revenue generator.
It is a place where despicable acts were perpetrated.
Acts that some still deny.
It must remain so no one can forget.
I have done tours in Mauthausen, Austria. It is a very sombre but important place.
The camps are left to educate as to why it happened, what happened there and a way to discuss what we should do to make sure it never happens again.
I'm equally as torn by remembrance Sunday. On one hand we should remember the people that fought and lost their lives against terrible regimes like the Nazi's. But not so sure that I feel the same for someone who has a load of medals for fighting and killing in illegal unjust wars in the middle east over oil.
War should be taught to be a bad thing irrespective of whom involved but that doesn't seem to be the case in western (ie American) culture but I digress.
I’ve visited Belsen
My grandfather was an army medic amongst the first in there. He died when Ivwas pretty young and never spoke about it to me but told my uncle some things. Harrowing doesnt even come close.
Yet Nazi's responsible for war crimes went on to be in charge of big pharmaceutical companies and space agencies.
Werner von Braun’s Hollywood biopic was called ‘I aim at the Stars’...the quip in riposte was ‘but sometimes I hit London’..!!
Bayer and Fritz ter Meer
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bayer
NASA and Wernher Von Braun
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/vonbraun/bio.html
God knows how many more responsible for the horrors of the second world war went unpunished.
We were in Munich around 45 years ago and went to Dachau. My wife and I never spoke to each other the whole time we were there. The place was very silent and very few people were speaking and there was certainly no feeling of anything other than respect and sadness. To be standing at various spots in the camp that had photographs of the atrocities being commited at the same place was humbling. I confess to shedding a few tears.
On the drive back to Munich we still never spoke to each other...what was there to say?
So,45 years plus and the memory still stays with me. And it needs to.
On Holocaust Memorial Day this is a poignant image, a survivor being vaccinated today.
https://www.history.com/news/what-was-operation-paperclip
Openly condemn what the Nazi's did whilst actively recruiting the same people.
British and American banks bankrolled the Nazi's
Nazi gold is apparently still about. Horrible to think where some of it came from.
I digress
Understatement.
interesting article in the Guardian today, regarding the reopening of the Holocaust gallery at the IWM- seems to be a trend towards opening up the narrative that these acts were perpetrated by otherwise fairly ordinary people. I'm sure that time and distance is making this easier to do, but I think it's important to remind ourselves that we're probably not the people we'd like to think we are..
But not so sure that I feel the same for someone who has a load of medals for fighting and killing in illegal unjust wars in the middle east over oil.
You want to blame someone? Blame the politicians not the boots on the ground.
I went to Auschwitz with pupils in 2019. The problem with it for me was the same as every other historical site I’ve visited. It’s just a bunch of buildings. Looking at the buildings didn’t make me feel connected to the people who were there or the atrocities that happened to them. Reading Primo Levi on the other hand did make me feel that connection. It’s the stories not the buildings that matter.
We had the tour experience where a guide takes you around and explains what happened to their relatives and why / how etc. I think if you just wandered around you'd miss a lot of it. Eg the Germans started off shooting the Jews to get rid of them but it was too slow and upset the soldiers, so they looked for a more efficient way of doing it. There is a wall there where they used to execute them before they added the gas chambers and ovens etc. The whole thing is almost beyond comprehension, like the layout of Bergau Birkenau - the gas chamber was located at the end of the railway platform so anyone who wasn't fit to work in the camps could be disposed off most efficiently etc - shortest possible walk to their death. The passengers were sorted on the platform my Nazi doctors, those fit were sent one way to a long slow death from disease and starvation and the rest walked 200 yards to be gassed. Wandering round the place realising that 100s of 1000s died where you are standing is quite sobering.
I’m equally as torn by remembrance Sunday. On one hand we should remember the people that fought and lost their lives against terrible regimes like the Nazi’s. But not so sure that I feel the same for someone who has a load of medals for fighting and killing in illegal unjust wars in the middle east over oil.
If doing rememberance Sunday it's long been my view that we should be remembering the combatants and fallen on all sides in a conflict. I exclude from that those in very senior ranks who perpetuated and facilitated atrocities and those who committed war crimes (on both "sides") but the rank and file members of the armed forces do not get choices in what wars they fight, the objectives they are given or even in their conscription. We should not hate or revile those who followed their orders in the lower ranks whatever regime they served (willingly or not).
The Stanford Prison Experiment and / or Milgram's experiment on the power of authority figures would be a good reference point on good people doing bad things.
On the concentration camps I had heard bad things about the conduct of a minority of morons visiting. I'm not sure I feel a desire to visit - I don't think I could take it in and process it in a meaningful way - I'd be more inclined to read accounts of life and death there or watch a well put together documentary.
– I’d be more inclined to read accounts of life and death there
If this is a man by Primo Levi - quite short but it describes in great detail what life was like there and the liberation.
Nazi gold is apparently still about. Horrible to think where some of it came from.
The most disturbing things I saw in Auschwitz are the pile of glasses, shoes, hair (cut from women's heads), suitcases etc. All piled up and sorted in their 1000s to be re-used in Germany supplying the troops etc. Anything of value (gold fillings, false teeth etc) was removed before the bodies went in the furnaces. They specifically request you don't photograph any of these when you're there.
A terrible lesson from history probably more relevant now than at any point in recent times.
Let's not forget that there are still people out there that dont even believe the holocaust happened.
Staggering.
I’m torn about places like Auschwitz, on one hand we definitely can’t forget the atrocities that took place there and should try to use them to ensure something similar doesn’t happen again. But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
I was there in February a few years ago. It's harrowing and hard to comprehend that the atrocities took place less than a century ago. There were a few people taking selfies in front of the entrance but they appeared to be have sobered up very quickly after a walk through the place in the February drizzle.
This. Really can’t imagine people pulling duck-face selfies for instagram in front of the zyklon b cannisters.
It happens - I visited in 2007 and several parties were taking pictures in front of the crematoria despite all the signs asking people to respect what happened there and not take photographs. But that’s the difference- I went as I have in interest in our history and especially the two world wars. Many other people just treat it as a tourist attraction.
It’s harrowing and hard to comprehend that the atrocities took place less than a century ago.
Cambodia was 45 years ago, Rwanda and Srebrenica were both less than 30 years ago. Right now China are committing cultural genocide on a similar scale. In all cases the perpetrators are allowed to commit these crimes with little more than a disapproving tut (or a hastily placed road block) in response.
Let's face it, we can be a nasty, brutal race.
And at other times we can show incredible passion.
Auschwitz (and others) hopefully reminds us that being good is heaps better than being bad.
Well, I sincerely hope that's the case.
I think the scale and the brutal, unfeeling efficiency of the holocaust is simply too much for some people to fathom: 6.5 million people murdered is just too big a thing to get your head around, and requires quite a bit of emotional maturity (if that's the right phrase).
If I'd have gone to Auschwitz when I was anything but an adult - I don't think I would have grasped the full horror either, and I'm not willing to criticize anyone, particularly youngsters, that can't.
For me, that image of a survivor getting vaccinated is extremely powerful - as it illustrates just how recent this was: this happened to peoples parents, and grandparents who are alive today to tell their stories, this isn't ancient history.
If this is a man by Primo Levi – quite short but it describes in great detail what life was like there and the liberation.
If This is a Man is quite simply one of the best and most important books ever written.
We need more memorials to remind us just how fragile our civilisation is and how such atrocities can crop up at any time. Since WW2 and the genocide perpetrated by the Nazi's other atrocities have occurred that significantly surpassed the scale of what the Nazi's did. The Soviets were responsible for at least 20 million deaths and Chairman Mao around 50 million (both most likely under estimates), but there are no memorials you can visit for those periods of time to remind us and not even a formal recognition or apologies from those regimes.
As we're now losing people who lived through these times to tell the tale first hand I think it will become harder for the impact of these atrocities to sink in for future generations so memorials are important to ensure we learn the lessons of the past. And such atrocities such as these are not taught at school like the doctrine of the Nazi's and Jewish concentration camps are. I remember being taught about the murder of the Romanovs, but nothing around the murder and genocide and docterines of the Soviet or the Chinese regimes.
So very true Wobbliscott, and who remembers the 10 to 14 million or so killed by Japanese war crimes in WW2, considerably more than the holocaust............
See https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/9196-sterling-and-peggy-seagrave-gold-warriors/
I went in 98, very sobering.
The two things that stayed with me were
The most disturbing things I saw in Auschwitz are the pile of glasses, shoes, hair (cut from women’s heads), suitcases etc.
and the feeling of walking through one of the gas chambers, never had that feeling before or since - I didn't want to stay in there any long than I had to.
We were in Krakow for a week for a music festival a few years ago and what I found disturbing was that Auschwitz *was* advertised like just another tourist attraction... Tour to see the salt mine, so many zloty, tour to see Auschwitz, so many zloty, listed exactly the same. And if you went to the back of the souvenir shops they sold little figurines of Jewish men with hats and ringlets.
They made a lot of the Jewish heritage of some parts of the city but were pretty quiet about how come there weren't any Jewish people there now...
But TBH it was much the same in southern Spain, quite happy to flog you a gazillion moorish-tile fridge magnet with one hand while giving Muslim tourists grief and hassle in the cathedral (ex mosque) in Cordoba.
People eh :/
I went to Auschwitz in 1990. a couple of weeks later I met up with a group of americans. Upon telling them about the visit they said " bet you got loads of great pictures" I told them I didn't take a single one as it was disrespectful. They could not understand
TBH i don’t mind the selfie takers and smirking teenagers, it’s as good a reminder as any that we live in a liberal democracy and not a totalitarian state. Plus you just know it would’ve driven them (the Nazis) bonkers, so more power to them.
I went to Auschwitz in 1990. a couple of weeks later I met up with a group of americans. Upon telling them about the visit they said ” bet you got loads of great pictures” I told them I didn’t take a single one as it was disrespectful. They could not understand
yet another tj dig at americans.
vinneyeh
I spent 3 weeks with this group touring the USSR on motorcycles. they split into two groups- those that were respectful and those that were not. the disrespectful one caused loads of trouble. the entitlement in them was really abhorrent.
I could tell many tales like refusing to take their baseball caps off in churches, like attempting to take banned things thru the USSR border that delayed the whole party at the boarder for hours. like taking photos where they were banned etc etc.
I was sent this link yesterday by a work mate.
I spent 3 weeks with this group touring the USSR on motorcycles. they split into two groups- those that were respectful and those that were not. the disrespectful one caused loads of trouble. the entitlement in them was really abhorrent.
see, I'm not sure why you bothered to mention their nationality. It's of no relevance.
not going to derail this any further.
They made a lot of the Jewish heritage of some parts of the city but were pretty quiet about how come there weren’t any Jewish people there now…
forgot to mention this. I went with a school trip (to help out) and our tour guide was an old Polish Roma grandma, who it has to be said, didn’t miss an opportunity to emphasis the numbers of Roma going through the camp and how they didn’t “deserve” to be treated like that. She wasn’t overtly anti Semitic, but one could tell it was only just under the surface. I wasn’t the only adult in the group to start to feel a little uncomfortable after a while.
TBH i don’t mind the selfie takers and smirking teenagers, it’s as good a reminder as any that we live in a liberal democracy and not a totalitarian state. Plus you just know it would’ve driven them (the Nazis) bonkers, so more power to them.
It's easy to react with disgust about the lack of respect but I'm with you. Much as we laud the heroics of fallen soldiers, who didn't ask to be heroes. They'd much rather sat in the pub telling dick jokes and disrespecting their elders than have the opportunity to be a hero. We lionise those in the past but in reality they were just as frail, mixed, brave, frightened and well, ordinary as us.
Let them take the selfies and hope one day, when they're older, as the wisdom of age hopefully comes, that the penny drops about why they are free to do so. I'd rather that than them on a chatroom being fed bullshit by some bitter vile troll.
TBH i don’t mind the selfie takers and smirking teenagers, it’s as good a reminder as any that we live in a liberal democracy and not a totalitarian state.
I'd rather they went there and took selfies than never visited. Everyone who has been is innoculated (to some extent) against holocaust denial etc.
Plus no one can imagine the true horror of the place, it's just not possible (without sinking into a great depression). Everyone processes it differently.
Never been but this is interesting about a new gallery at the IWM :
The galleries would challenge the “ongoing, persistent determination to think of the perpetrators as brainwashed, hyper-radicalised people”.
“That’s not how it really was. Holocaust museums for years have been asking visitors: ‘Beware the Holocaust because you could have been a victim.’ I suppose we are thinking: ‘Beware the Holocaust because you could have been a perpetrator.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/27/imperial-war-museums-gallery-to-question-way-holocaust-understoodI feel like places like Auschwitz are important but it's easy to 'other' the germans at the time. Our national myth that we are the good guys who beat the evil Nazis and saved the Jews totally ignores all the unforgivable things our country/countrymen have done in the name of Empire etc which are similarly awful.
For instance how many people know that the British invented concentration camps? Or about some of the massacres/genocidal actions we systematically undertook as part of empire building etc? I don't think it's whataboutery to point out we have a hugely blinkered view.
i thought the guide at Auschwitz was excellent and made it feel more than a tourist attraction, Mrs demilles relatives managed to escape Germany in 1938 so it was very real for her, the deal involved passports for her great grandparents if the son enlisted in Latvian Army, they still don't know what became of him.
In Phnom Penh, the tuk-tuk drivers will offer a discount to the Killing Fields and a local gun range where you can fire an AK-47, i can never imagine wanting to do one after doing the other!
I think the scale and the brutal, unfeeling efficiency of the holocaust is simply too much for some people to fathom: 6.5 million people murdered
Despite, or maybe because of, an annual Holocaust Day and regular reminders about the terrible things that happened, most people can't even get the number of deaths correct. There were 6.5m Jews murdered. There were more than 7m 'others' murdered, who are barely ever mentioned.
our tour guide was an old Polish Roma grandma, who it has to be said, didn’t miss an opportunity to emphasis the numbers of Roma going through the camp and how they didn’t “deserve” to be treated like that. She wasn’t overtly anti Semitic, but one could tell it was only just under the surface.
Maybe because of the above?
There were more than 7m ‘others’ murdered, who are barely ever mentioned.
I've been involved in a couple of local HMD events and the non-jewish victims were definitely mentioned. It is startling to discover that probably more non-jewish (mostly soviet civilians and prisoners of war) were killed than jewish people.
If I’d have gone to Auschwitz when I was anything but an adult – I don’t think I would have grasped the full horror either, and I’m not willing to criticize anyone, particularly youngsters, that can’t.
I had the opportunity to go on a school trip there when I was 14 but didn't as the cost was rather a lot for a 3 day trip plus being stuck on a coach for a long time each side too. I'm glad I didn't as some of the group were very disrespectful to the place going by the photos that emerged a few weeks later (it was 1995 so everyone had cheap film cameras). One of my friends did go and she revisited it again in 2016, she said it was a much more humbling experience the second time. I do want to visit there myself at some point, respectfully, as it's one of those things that needs to be shared via first-hand viewing. I know there have been larger scale genocides since but the ones in WWII are what is taught at school and is close to 'home' so more likely to resonate with us here in Europe. My fear is the atrocity will become disconnected from reality the further in the past it goes with people thinking it can never happen again, that will be dangerous. If the lessons of Auschwitz and other atrocities are forgotten then they are more likely to happen again or worse.
The most disturbing things I saw in Auschwitz are the pile of glasses, shoes, hair (cut from women’s heads), suitcases etc. All piled up and sorted in their 1000s to be re-used in Germany supplying the troops etc. Anything of value (gold fillings, false teeth etc) was removed before the bodies went in the furnaces. They specifically request you don’t photograph any of these when you’re there.
The tin of Nivea face cream absolutely finished me off. Almost the same as a tin you could go and buy today.
The Schindler museum was incredibly affecting too.
I think everyone should go to these places. And the Tyne Cot cemetary as well.
Peace and love people, peace and love....
Auschwwitz certainly cemented my anti war and pacifist view of the world.
I don’t think it’s whataboutery to point out we have a hugely blinkered view.
Yes, having a just read Chomsky's Who Rules the World, the chapter on the North American genocide and ethnic cleansing of native peoples is staggering. Far bigger scale and far more "effective" than the Jewish Holocaust.
If the lessons of Auschwitz and other atrocities are forgotten then they are more likely to happen again or worse.
True, although, unfortunately, it is currently happening. China has imprisoned over 1 million Uighur people in "indoctrination camps" where they are educated not to the follow their beliefs. The same is also happening in Myanmar with the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims.
Sure, lots of people say strongly worded things about the above, but no-one is doing anything of substance to stop it. America threw it's toys out of the pram about Chinese steel and, through economic disincentives, took tangible action. They are are passive beyond sternly worded letters about their concentration camps.
Genocide is generally allowed by the world political community. It's only outrageous enough to actually intervene if those countries also have some of our oil, or natural resources, under their land or they are economically important.
My point is that we should keep Auschwwitz as a warning for the future.
Holocausts are going on right now though so we also need to act on this warning.
A scouting friend I have known over 50yrs was at Belsen on day 1 of its liberation (he was a medic). It was only when he was in his late 80s did he tell me what he had seen. Never spoken of it before.
[img] 
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Standing at the grave of his school friend killed on D-Day
My son (20) and his girlfriend (19) were given the choice of accompanying us on the tour. To my surprise they both appeared keen to go, although I do wonder how much of that was because they recognised my desire that they should see it. The journey back to Krakow was markedly different to the journey to Auschwitz. I'd never seen my son like that before and the only other time he's been so subdued was at my dad's funeral.
I went a few years ago. I was moved as much as I expected to be. Watched the recording of the documentary of the liberation the other night. I still recall watching it as a teenager and being sick afterwards.
In the meantime. This is a photo of wall of the inside of the synagogue memorial in Prague. Just a small section. Of one place. Humans can't really comprehend numbers.
My fear is the atrocity will become disconnected from reality the further in the past it goes
it is enviable. In time there will be a book written that will say (paraphrasing) “Were the Nazis really that bad?” I think you’d have to give it a couple of hundred years maybe, but it will be written, as distasteful that idea is to us now.
You can buy books of (for instance) the Taiping rebellion in which historians discuss the deaths of 20, perhaps as many as 30 million people in the 1860s Or the roughly 40 million caused by Ghengis Khan.
it’s just a matter of time.
One of the problems is it is hard to comprehend such numbers - as Stalin (I think) said ‘one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic’...
Coming from somebody who killed millions himself it’s quite a chilling line of thought.
Auschwwitz certainly cemented my anti war and pacifist view of the world.
I get where you're coming from, but the reality is that it was war that put an end to the Holocaust (and yes, I know the causes of WW2 were far more complex). Sometime going to war can be the lesser of two terrible things.
Until, as a species, we find a way round that we are going to armies etc for quite a while. Short of a world government it's hard to see the solution (other than in idealistic utopian terms).
Like a death theme park.
Don't ever go to a museum...you'll lose your mind.
Despite living in Munich I've not once been inclined to visit Dachau. Imagining the sadness is enough for me. Not sure I need to see it up close.
A few years ago, up the top of a mountain, I met an old lady and old Bavarian guy. They started telling me stories of "back then". In school a common threat from the teachers was if you didn't behave you too would be sent to Dachau.
Was touring around northern Germany a few years ago. Driving along we noticed signs about mass graves. Turns out these were mad graves for victims of communism. Drive a little further into a village and see signs for Sachsenhausen KZ. The camp is directly behind the main street of the town!
In fact, it's interesting to see how many sub camps existed all over the place. Essentially worker camps for nearby factories, mines, etc.
There's a thing here in Munich of placing gold or bronze cobble stones in front of houses and businesses that belonged to Jewish families who were chased out and deported. There a several just around the corner from my place. Cleverly (or out of fear that every other building would have a stone outside it) the city council decided that these stones could only be placed on private land, not public, as many of the pavements are. As such there are more stones in storage than there are in the pavements. 117 stones have been set into the pavement so far.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Stolpersteine_in_M%C3%BCnchen?wprov=sfla1
Re. companies profiting from the war. The other day a few large German companies laid wreaths, acknowledging their part in the holocaust. Deutsche Bahn (train people), Deutsche Bank, Daimler, Volkswagen and (strangely) the football club Borussia Dortmund.
That leaves out the plethora of other companies of household names that benefited from cheap slave labour. Nestlé, Maggi, Hugo Boss (worked on his family house years ago), BMW... The list is long.
Then there are the non-German companies who carried on working /operating in Nazi Germany. Coco Channel, Kodak, IBM, GM and Ford, Coca Cola... Fanta, anyone?
A scouting friend I have known over 50yrs was at Belsen on day 1 of its liberation (he was a medic). It was only when he was in his late 80s did he tell me what he had seen. Never spoken of it before.
Wonder if he knew my grandad, he never spoke about the war to me, hardly ever said anything to anyone.
I get where you’re coming from, but the reality is that it was war that put an end to the Holocaust (and yes, I know the causes of WW2 were far more complex). Sometime going to war can be the lesser of two terrible things.
Odd thing to say! The war had nothing to do with death camps, or Nazi genocide. The fact that is stopped them is entirely coincidental.
The war had nothing to do with death camps, or Nazi genocide.
Yep, hadn't started when the war started, although anti semitism was rife in Germany, they just hadn't got to the stage of genocide. Worth noting that the anti-semitism wasn't that unpopular over here, scores of landed gentry, peers, business people, newspaper barons etc were fawning over Hitler. Lord Reeth (first DG of the BBC) offered to fly the Swastika over the BBC if Goring came for a visit!
If you want the full details of just how popular Hitler was in the UK pre WW2, I can recommend:
Odd thing to say! The war had nothing to do with death camps, or Nazi genocide. The fact that is stopped them is entirely coincidental.
Not odd at all. I said the causes of WW2 were quite complex and of course the genocide hadn't really started by 1939. However it was military action that put an end to the atrocities.
The point I was making was in relation to the comment about pacifism and the fact that while being a pacifist is generally speaking a fine thing to be, there are circumstances where, sadly, use of military force is necessary. We don't live in an ideal world.
What is odd about that, do tell?