Auscwitz last night BBC2

[balloonboy]

If you get the chance, I would thoroughly recommend a visit to Auschwitz. If possible go there in the winter when it's much quieter, and again if poss choose a day when the weather's pretty crap. I went about ten years ago with a couple of friends (one of whom was teaching English as a foreign language in southern Poland). After visiting Auschwitz we walked up the road to Birkenau, which is even more shocking. The experience made me almost physically ill, but the more people who visit Auschwitz the better......whilst we were there a group of German school children were being given a tour. Unfortunately the older ones (in their early teens) ran around laughing and joking - and the impact of these German voices seeming to enjoy the atmosphere of Auschwitz was quite disturbing. I spoke to one of the teachers, who told me that in their region of Germany it was obligatory for all school children to visit Auschitz - which was a fantastic commitment, and one which I hope is still in force....perhaps Attilla knows a little about this?

 

[Gully]

Watched last night's program, as I had done the other two, have to admit that I found it the most shocking so far. I already knew a little about the history of concentration camps but have to admit to total ignorance, and I know that is never an acceptable excuse, about how Treblinka functioned. That wasn't so much a prison camp as an abbatoir for humans, people were tricked into thinking that they had arrived at a normal station when they were herded out of cattle trucks, instead they were processed and exterminated within two hours of arrival. I am still disgusted by the fact that so many people complied to make the whole thing possible, I would like to think that if any Government in the UK had ever tried to do anything similar that the populace would rise up and overthrow them, why didn't the Germans do the same?

 

[Squiggsy]

I am going to Auschwitz & Birkenau next Friday with Dave the Gaffer and a few others as part of a long week-end in Krakow.

Hotel have arranged a taxi and a guide for us. Not really sure how it will affect me, but I know it will one way or another. The story last night about the truckload of children being taken there after being separated from their parents had the same affect as being punched very hard in the stomach.

In a way it seems strange to have a 60th anniversary memorium, but the number of survivors must now be very few, and I for one think it is important that people around now don't forget. Equally the dreadful crimes that Stalin carried out against his own people should really be recognised on a similar level.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

Re: Re: Auscwitz last night BBC2

I'm beginning to find these programmes tedious and politically dubious.

When was the last series on the Gulags?

The nazi's were a one of abberation wereas communism systematically slaughtered 100million globally.

Quite rightly the Gulags should be mentioned but not in the same context of the Holocaust. The difference between the two is quite large, the Nazi regime installed a system that ruthlessly erased human life that did not fit into their biological agenda and erected a mechanism that callously and efficiently destroyed lives. The thing was meticulously planned to the finest detail.

Stalinist Russia on the other hand killed many opponents who disagreed with a dictators paranoid tendencies largely through neglect, inefficiency and frustrated brutality. Unlike Nazism there were ways out of the Gulags. In fact many of the guards were former prisoners who stayed on because they has nowhere to go. Gulag planning was nowhere near as ruthless and pitiless as the German killing camps. In the gulags people were sent to work and died in the Death camps people were sent to die only.

 

[NMH]

The American IRS (inland revenue) held charity funds from the Bangla Desh Concerts for several years 'for inspection', whilst over ten million people suffered diseases and died of starvation.

We cannot ever trust 'the people in charge' to do the right thing - whether following orders or simply doing their everyday purpose.

 

[NMH]

I am still disgusted by the fact that so many people complied to make the whole thing possible, I would like to think that if any Government in the UK had ever tried to do anything similar that the populace would rise up and overthrow them, why didn't the Germans do the same?

Sorry Gully, but this one is an overstatement based on a faith in 'our side'.
I watched a videotaped University experiment where students (yes, supposed intelligencia and mostly of youthfulness) were paid a minimal sum and told to ask a man questions - and for every one he got wrong there would be an increased electric shock. The student could not see the man, and they had buttons to press after any wrong answer.
The bulk of the students carried it through, only hesitating when the 'victim' cried about heart-trouble - wherein the whitecoated instructor told them to carry on "if you want to get your payment" or "I'll take responsibility" or less. One bloke was even laughing at the cries of pain.

Only ONE person refused, he told the instructor to stuff the money and himself, and stormed off.

If you have faith that people CAN and still WILL commit atrocities just like an Auschwitz, I think you are fore-armed and forewarned to the makings of men - and might be aware enough to stop the seeds of it in your own back yard.

 

[NMH]

Just a reminder that a certain Martin Tindall was spawing his dream-world nazi National Front in no other than the palacial hamlet of BRIGHTON !

I managed to come across him and his cronies in 'The King and Queen' one night, and they tried setting on my mate when we were pulling their race-hate stickers off the toilet walls.
Let it be said, they backed down when they found they were up against the SAME number of people as them.
Tindall sat their twiddling his thumbs while his 'skins' did the 'bravado'.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Just a reminder that a certain Martin Tindall was spawing his dream-world nazi National Front in no other than the palacial hamlet of BRIGHTON !

That's the same Brighton where, back in the 1970s, one of the local Tory MPs invited Giorgio Almirante, former head of the wartime fascist death squads in central Italy, to address his constituency colleagues.

Those people who opposed Almirante's visit were condemned in the Argus as "extremists".

I'd like to think that Chappers is right when he claims it "couldn't happen here". But personally I think we need to be watchful, rather than complacent.

Incidentally, people who follow the re-emergence of the extreme right in Italian politics will know that Gianfranco Fini, Almirante's successor as leader of the post-war neo-fascist party (MSI), is now the Foreign Minister in Berlusconi's government.

 

[FamilyGuy]

My dads Hungarian, his dad was Jewish and his mum was from a gypsy background. He was 10 when the Germans invaded Hungary. One day he was taken into a cellar, hidden in a wooden box and told to keep quiet and not get out.
Hours later when he did get out of the box his whole family was gone. He never saw them again.

WOW!!!! That's truly apalling