Auschwitz

Lyra

Lyra

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I was shocked when i read in Metro this morning that 50% of the people asked in a survey had never heard of Auschwitz.

I visited Auschwitz 10 years ago, and it really made a lasting impression on my mind and soul, and i still have strong memories from the visit. I believe everyone should visit the site at least once, to remember what happened, and HOW it happened, and to try and make sure this will never happen again.

But after viewing people's comments and some friends' opinions, is it important to hold on to the history of Auschwitz, or should we not hold on to history so strongly and rather look to the future?

I believe that without the knowledge of history it will only repeat itself. Basically, i believe that to know the past one can know and change the future.

What do you think?
 
In Austria every school HAS to take all students to Auschwitz in their last year of education. if you cant make the time the school is going your parents have to sign a form saying theyre going to take you there...
i think thats good...



uhh was gonna say a lot more but smoked too much of that spliff..sorry,ill talk more later
 
The one lesson we can learn from History is that no-one ever learns anything from History ...

I remember after the first Easter holiday at my Uni I asked a friend how her holiday went ... and she just burst into tears. She was studying Geography and they had taken her on a field trip to Auschwitz and Berkau ...

It should never be forgotten. The true horror of what humans can do to each other, and the mechanisms which enable such things should be the baseline for Government and International Law.

But education is not a pre-requisite for politics, neither is compassion...
 
I actually was taught in history that knowing the past can affect the future, of course in both negative and positive ways, due to subjectivity or religious view (for example). I havent studied history for years now, but i want to take it up again, as i understood so much more of today's politics and views if i read up on past conflicts and history. All conflicts seemed to be deep rooted in some religious or political battle long ago, and knowing this can be of great advantage to solve conflicts now, although sometimes the problems are so deep rooted that there is no chance of solutions it seems.

Analysing history used to be one of my biggest passions... i hope that it will be again.

And yes, i completely agree with you that Auschwitz should never be forgotten. I still can vividly hear my friend Siri;s crying from our visit to Auschwitz, and the dead silent bus ride afterwards.

I am thoroughly shocked and sad that some people dont seem to know about it, or find it unimportant..... :sad:
 
I remember talking to an old girlfriends mother about this over twelve years ago...
She said she always remember it from school, where they were actually shown the
pictures of the gassed and shot people, as well as footage to literally remind what
they fathers and mothers had been "fighting" for, as well as to instill into them
the whole of what is humanity, and civilisation. I don't think they do that in schools
thesedays, which is a shame, as there is nothing better to get the point across
than the bare naked truth.

Nothing has moved me more than on the couple of occasions I have heard
survivors speak at anti-nazi meetings. Only perhaps the occasion with another
girlfriend on seeing a black and white photograph on her bedside.
"Oh who are they?"
"They are my grandparents"
"Still alive?"
"See those two cardboard tags in the frame. They were their identity tags on the
train to Auschwitz."
"Errrr..... sorry"

Had forgotten that moment in my life, until reading this thread. It's soo easy to
forget.
 
My mother was in Auschwitz, albeit for only a short while, and then a labour camp.

Large numbers of her family, including her mother, died in the place....

Has anyone been watching the Auschwitz history programmes on BBC2? First was last Tuesday and the 2nd was yesterday....
 
I completely agree, the Holocaust should never be forgotton. I worked in Germany for a long time, i lived amongst the German community and find them fantastic , accommodating people.
I have also seen Nazi's at first hand on Hamburg streets and am humbled in a way to share the fear we all felt just stood there or going about our shopping. Thats somthing you wont see or feel here.
I was at a family party at a friends house good fun, getting drunk, he was British married to a German girl. She dropped a spoon on the floor where her grandmother was heard to say"If you were a Jew you'd have been shot for that"
Sounds much worse in Deutsch.

We have to remember....our forfathers and grandmothers who did all they could to eradicate that evil, twisted regime and left us with what we have today....It aint great but i'd like to believe were doing our bit in our own little way.
 
Agreed, it should be a lasting reminder of how dark humanity can be at times.

The only thing that gets my goat is that, if you get your information from some (primarily American) sources, you'll come away with the impression that it was *just* Jewish people that were massacred in the Nazi death camps, when in fact it was pretty much anyone in the regime's displeasure, which included handicapped people, homosexuals, and naturally, anyone in occupied Europe suspected of belonging to a resistance organisation.

Also, anyone using the death camps as a justification for what the IDF do to the Palestinians is just asking for a verbal lashing.

J.
 
Also just remembered a dinner party at my parents house with some German guests. At one point in the conversation my dad asked "So what happened to the Jews in Berlin after the war ?"

<deathly silence>

"Um, there weren't any Jews in Berlin after the war ..."
 
Well World War I was supposedly the War to end all wars...

Unfortunately politicians never seem to learn from history. However I think Auschwitz is an important reminder for the people of the horrors that man is capable of and hope that it will serve as reminder to treat all people with respect.

How on earth can 50% of folk not know about Auschwitz. That is shocking ignorance. Did they only survey under 5's???

martin_e said:
Also just remembered a dinner party at my parents house with some German guests. At one point in the conversation my dad asked "So what happened to the Jews in Berlin after the war ?"

<deathly silence>

"Um, there weren't any Jews in Berlin after the war ..."
Click to expand...

Bit of a Basil Fawlty moment ;)
 
i visited auschwitz on a trip to poland two years ago. the feeling of the place is very spooky. it's like the whole place has been frozen in time with an atmosphere of shock and revulsion. people become quiet. the air is subdued. as you walk under the main sign "arbeit macht frei" a shiver runs down your spine as the reality sets in.

the most shocking thing i thought was seing the piles of things that had been taken from the inmates. the rooms, completely filled with piles of shoes, toothbrushes etc. the sheer scale of the atrocity hits you when you think that in each of these a person was attached. one person for each of these items. and there's so, so many.......
 
I was born in Hannover and my parents went to Bergen Belsen with me in tow as a kid - I refused to get out of the car - didn't even know what the place was - obviously had a strong interest ever since - both my kids have a good idea - the pianist [polanski] is a great film to show people - the horror is diluted somehow which makes it easier to get past the shock and absorb the awful reality. The fact is Jewish people did die in far greater numbers than homosexuals Gypsies etc a ratio of about 9 in 10 so you can see why that is the focus.
What scares me the most [ignoring recent ethnic 'cleansing' rwanda serbia etc.] is the increase in people who say that it's all a fabrication - I've had fights with people on right wing forums who actually claim that it didn't happen :no:
Golaf where you refering to the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Taliban?
 
SkizZ said:
The fact is Jewish people did die in far greater numbers than homosexuals Gypsies etc a ratio of about 9 in 10 so you can see why that is the focus.
Click to expand...

True, but mostly towards the end of the war.

My point is, it doesn't excuse the evil shit the IDF under Sharon get up to.

J.
 
Last summer, on the way home from Boom, Wendy and I visited the Canadian WW1 memorial. It was an appropriate thing to do as Wendy's Canadian.

Dear god, what a shock. Even though I know a lot about the abomination that was WW1, I was unprepared for what I saw and felt. The atmosphere, the silence, the horror, the profound desperate sadness ingrained into *everything* around me.

We didn't take the guided tour of the site, because we didn't have time. In a way I'm glad. I was fighting back tears the entire time I was there, and would surely have succumbed from the intensity of it all.

As it was, I had tears streaming down my face as we drove away - past yet more cemeteries.

Please, oh please - never again...

Hugs,

Barclay
 
history repeating itself?

sadly the current situation in america is perhaps more extreme than germany 1939. Please read up on the patriot acts!
you no longer have to be foreign to be classified as an enemy combattant and newsgathering is not far off being classed illegal.

i dont say this to scare monger, however people always say that they can never imagine how the nazis were allowed into power, they ask why the people of germany didnt rise up and stop the nazis increasingly totalitarian powers.

the answer is simple first they were scared into believing that their homeland security was at risk (sound familiar folks?) gave up vital freedoms and then if you were to speak out you too were classified as an enemy of the state and were gone.

as the famous quote goes, " they came for the communists, but i was not a communist so i said nothing, they came for the jews but i was not a jew so i said nothing, (e.t.c. e.t.c.) then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out.


http:\\educate-yourself.org www.prisonplanet.com
 
mickeyblueiiiis said:
We have to remember....our forfathers and grandmothers who did all they could to eradicate that evil, twisted regime and left us with what we have today.....
Click to expand...

This is why prince harry dressing as a nazi particuarily angered me, cos it made me think of all the pain and suffering that millions of people worldwide went through, and the millions of people who gave their lives so that the nazi regime was completely destroyed in an attempt to make the world a better place. To see the little twat (sorry) wearing a nazi uniform made me think what my grandad (royal horse artillery) would have said if he would have been alive. He was fiercely patriotic, and a strong believer in "queen and country", and if he knew that after all he did for our country, the queens grandson was pricking around in a nazi uniform he would have cried. Seriously.
Part of my GCSE history course was a week in Berlin, where we visited the SS headquarters in Berlin, not a nice place, and then Sachsenhausen extermination camp. A lot of german people work very hard to keep these places open, so that german kids dont grow up forgetting what their grandparents were up to 60 years ago, which I think is amazing. Education about the past will help future generations making the same kistakes.
edit: mistakes, sorry
 
Barclay (Dark Angel) said:
Last summer, on the way home from Boom, Wendy and I visited the Canadian WW1 memorial. It was an appropriate thing to do as Wendy's Canadian.
Barclay
Click to expand...

Is that the memorial to the Newfoundland regiment with the big stag on top of the hill?
 
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