Harper pays tribute to Holocaust victims

[Wilber]

I can't imagine going to Poland and not visiting the place once.

[noahbody]

No real story here other than Harper is a busy PM. He doesn't even have time to put soldiers on our streets.

[DogOnPorch]

With a few sterling exceptions such as Anne Frank's family, the Danish people and some shining stars elsewhere, much of Europe was happy to be rid of its "Jewish Problem" and its fickle love/hate relationship with the Jews.

Anne Frank = Dutch...well, German-Jewish hidden by Dutch.

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This apparently inconsequential diary by a child, this "de profundis" stammered out in a child's voice, embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence of Nuremberg put together.

---Jan Romein

[Oleg Bach]

Anne Frank = Dutch...well, German-Jewish hidden by Dutch.

---------------------------------------

This apparently inconsequential diary by a child, this "de profundis" stammered out in a child's voice, embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence of Nuremberg put together.

---Jan Romein

Hey the neo Nazi party is running the white house and quietly and cleverly murdering thousands of it's own tribe..the Cheneyites are akin to a father who desides to kill half of his own children so he can afford a Porche`....and I really like how the Muslims are now the new Jews and hate object - I guess the master bureaucratic cabalist mystic Jews are sighing with relief - untill it's time to pay up....funny....that no one likes to mention that Jews engineered in part the killing of Jews..those that would not give up God...seeing those that believed in God would not bow to they system Hitler was creating - so Zionist fanatics had to rid their believer brother in order to form their new order...having ranted that....wonder where that Shemite Bin Ladin is hiding out..You would think that the most powerful nation on earth could figure that out? By the way the Jews are not clever and cruel enough to rule the world via the banks - It's those damn anglo germanics that rule - and the Jews are a well paid front....Anglos are cruel and have the soul of lizards - none! Getting back to Harper "thanking the LORD" - Well maybe he should thank God and leave the lord out of it - seeing he does not follow the Lord's doctrine...I guess he meant well...but the road is paved with good intentions....I wonder - Maybe Harper is just a liberal after all.

[Shakeyhands]

Actually, it is reported he did not speak to reporters at all. He conducted himself with decorum as required on such a momentous visit.

Capricorn, again with the momentous? Why is this visit momentous? Seriously.

[August1991]

Harper made appropriate mouth noises in his visit. The same as Chretien.

I don't know.

Chretien had 15 MPs in tow, lead a trade delegation and had a holocaust survivor provide a tour:

Prime Minister Jean Chretien began his visit to Poland, on a solemn note. He, his wife and a delegation of MPs visited the former Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

An estimated 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, died in the two concentration camps during World War II.

Chretien is the first Canadian prime minister to visit Poland.

He was guided through the camps by Mordechai Ronen, an Auschwitz survivor who lives in Toronto.

On Monday, Chretien begins the official part of his visit to Poland, meeting with the president and prime minister in Warsaw. Chretien is in Poland as part of his seven-day trade mission to Europe that will also take him to Ukraine, Germany and Switzerland.

CBC

Chretien was a showman. He knew how to get the maximum PR out of a visit. It's worth pointing out that until 1989, a visit to Auschwitz meant a visit across the Iron Curtain. It would have been difficult for a Canadian PM to go there. Now, it appears that the visit is de rigueur - just as foreign visitors to Canada lay a wreath at our war memorial.

If I sound cynical it is because it takes a peculiar competitive spirit to become a political leader. Such people are rarely sentimental.

The fact is that a visit to Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald - the area or the remaining buildings - or any other killing factory opens ones eyes to how bad things really were.

I'm not so certain.

When I walked around Dachau, I was struck rather at how small and organized it was. It seemed odd that such a place, in a suburb of Munich, could have such a reputation. (This summer, against my desire, I may have to go to Europe on business and if I do, I have decided to go to Poland to see Auschwitz and Wolfsschanze for myself. Auschwitz was an extermination camp whereas Dachau was ostensibly a concentration camp.)

For what it's worth, I recall the battlefield of Beaumont-Hamel also because it is so small. The trenches are still there and one can easily understand positions. Walking in a few minutes across a grassy field, it is impossible to imagine how impossible that was before. The memorial which has had the greatest impact on me is in Nettuno, Italy. This is where many of the US war dead were brought and buried. The Commonwealth war dead tend to be buried where they died. My grandmother's first husband is buried with his bomber crew in an ordinary cemetery in a small French town. Their plane crashed nearby.

As wars recede into the past, they become less personal and more debates of history. I walked (or rather drove) around Borodino where Napoleon confronted Kutuzov. As on the Plains of Abraham, markers placed later show what regiment was where. (Napoleon's HQ was well placed. Borodino is huge.) I saw the mound at Marathon in Greece, supposedly of war dead, and walked through the gorge at Thermopylae. I was surprised at how narrow Thermopylae was and one can understand even 2500 years later how strategic it was. There is a nice cyclorama (one of the few remaining in the world) at Gettysburg but I still felt that I was standing in a field in Pennsylvania.

I suppose both Stephen Harper and Jean Chretien have souls. I just think that a Prime Minister's visit abroad is planned well in advance and I'm sure Polish protocol has got the visit to Krakow down to an art. In a curious if superficial way, sometimes these visits do make the principals feel something.

[Shakeyhands]

It is nice to see that Canada now has a PM who doesn't hedge his true feelings, and moral feelings about people and historical events.

so why the ditherer comment again?

[madmax]

It is nice to see that Canada now has a PM who doesn't hedge his true feelings, and moral feelings about people and historical events. The Jewish Holocaust was, without question, one of the worst atrocities of modern times and perhaps all times. People, with ruthless efficiency, set up the mechanics for killing people, primarily though not entirely Jews, and pursued it with ruthless, grim efficiency. With a few sterling exceptions such as Anne Frank's family, the Danish people and some shining stars elsewhere, much of Europe was happy to be rid of its "Jewish Problem" and its fickle love/hate relationship with the Jews.

I don't think enough people know or understand the Holocaust and with more and more WW2 vets passing on, what they discovered is being forgotten or lost in context. It does trouble me when CPC voters say things like..... Hitler had some great ideas...... or they had it coming to them, or even believing that Jews ran Germany, when you can see during certain periods they were heavily ghettoised.

It will take Jews to remind us of what happened, and I take note of how you mention the others who were terminated....those who were not Jews, but where weak or different, like mentally/physically challenged, Twins, or of other ethnic non Arayan identity.

All Leaders must remember and recognise that this should never happen again. Not Just Stephen Harper. As we all know, no one is immune to turning a blind eye to attrocity. Clinton and Chretian did nothing while Rawanda was in a premeditated Genocidial Endeavour.

I don't know if Stephen Harper should get super credit for doing something of such standard fare.

It sounds like a parent who says.... "I take care of my kids", shouldn't that go without saying?

The real proof will happen when a Genocide is in the makings and what Action Our Prime Minister Takes to prevent a new Ethnic Genocide.

[DogOnPorch]

DOP: Anne Frank = Dutch...well, German-Jewish hidden by Dutch.

Hey the neo Nazi party is running the white house and quietly and cleverly murdering thousands of it's own tribe..the Cheneyites are akin to a father who desides to kill half of his own children so he can afford a Porche`....and I really like how the Muslims are now the new Jews and hate object - I guess the master bureaucratic cabalist mystic Jews are sighing with relief - untill it's time to pay up....funny....that no one likes to mention that Jews engineered in part the killing of Jews..those that would not give up God...seeing those that believed in God would not bow to they system Hitler was creating - so Zionist fanatics had to rid their believer brother in order to form their new order...having ranted that....wonder where that Shemite Bin Ladin is hiding out..You would think that the most powerful nation on earth could figure that out? By the way the Jews are not clever and cruel enough to rule the world via the banks - It's those damn anglo germanics that rule - and the Jews are a well paid front....Anglos are cruel and have the soul of lizards - none! Getting back to Harper "thanking the LORD" - Well maybe he should thank God and leave the lord out of it - seeing he does not follow the Lord's doctrine...I guess he meant well...but the road is paved with good intentions....I wonder - Maybe Harper is just a liberal after all.

I'm afraid to ask...what does that have to do with Anne Frank?

-------------------------------------------------

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

---Anne Frank

[jbg]

Hey the neo Nazi party is running the white house and quietly and cleverly murdering thousands of it's own tribe..

Want to supply some factual support for either phrase separating first "and"?

[jbg]

so why the ditherer comment again?

I had no one particular in mind with that.

[Argus]

Hey the neo Nazi party is running the white house and quietly and cleverly murdering thousands of it's own tribe..the Cheneyites are akin to a father who desides to kill half of his own children so he can afford a Porche`....and I really like how the Muslims are now the new Jews and hate object - I guess the master bureaucratic cabalist mystic Jews are sighing with relief - untill it's time to pay up....funny....that no one likes to mention that Jews engineered in part the killing of Jews..those that would not give up God...seeing those that believed in God would not bow to they system Hitler was creating - so Zionist fanatics had to rid their believer brother in order to form their new order...having ranted that....wonder where that Shemite Bin Ladin is hiding out..You would think that the most powerful nation on earth could figure that out? By the way the Jews are not clever and cruel enough to rule the world via the banks - It's those damn anglo germanics that rule - and the Jews are a well paid front....Anglos are cruel and have the soul of lizards - none! Getting back to Harper "thanking the LORD" - Well maybe he should thank God and leave the lord out of it - seeing he does not follow the Lord's doctrine...I guess he meant well...but the road is paved with good intentions....I wonder - Maybe Harper is just a liberal after all.

You're not entirely sane, are you.

[Shakeyhands]

I had no one particular in mind with that.

Bollocks. At least be a man about it.

[jbg]

Bollocks. At least be a man about it.

Little puns get you bent out of shape? Sad man.

[Shakeyhands]

Little puns get you bent out of shape? Sad man.

Not bent out of shape in the least. Sorry to disappoint. But as you dance across the topics leaving your little gems in each one, you might try to at the very least be a little honest.

[jbg]

Not bent out of shape in the least. Sorry to disappoint. But as you dance across the topics leaving your little gems in each one, you might try to at the very least be a little honest.

You must be mixing me up with another poster who dances. I don't.

[Who's Doing What?]

Let's get one thing clear. The "Jewish ridings" are in 514 and 416, places where Harper is never going to pick up any help "to turn his minority government into a majority and secure his term in office".

I would disagree. Those are the exact areas he needs to gain ground in to get his majority. Showing some sympathy towards their(jews) most recent tribulation could gain him enough to swing a few seats.

So he got a lump in his throat after visiting one of the cruelest places mankind has ever been witness too. No big deal, it should happen. I would expect people to get emotional if they actually took the time to think about what our young people are sacrificing in the name of freedom across the globe. All I am saying is "It should happen."

I don't think it is a big news event.

I also think he knew full well his little "prayer" gesture would be a perfect photo op, and to only prove my point here we have a thread to discuss it in, as well as several mentions in the MSM. I am not saying his emotions weren't genuine, just that he has to know that the camera's are there and that an overt gesture like that, heartfelt or not, is going to create a buzz.

The comment he left in the book was, I admit, first class. Must have taken him, or his speach writers(?), hours to perfect it.

[Who's Doing What?]

You're not entirely sane, are you.

Does this fall into the "Takes one to know one" category?

[Who's Doing What?]

I had no one particular in mind with that.

Considering the former PM was nicknamed "Mr. Dithers" by his foes, I find that extremly hard to believe. Also knowing full well you are fairly well versed in Canadian Politics and a pretty smart person in general, I would say you knew full well who you were refering to.

[jbg]

Considering the former PM was nicknamed "Mr. Dithers" by his foes, I find that extremly hard to believe. Also knowing full well you are fairly well versed in Canadian Politics and a pretty smart person in general, I would say you knew full well who you were refering to.

I am an American. Given your political posture, you'd be the last person to consider an American knowledgeable (sp, I'm tired) about Canada, and indeed I know little about it. I certainly had no idea that the last PM's name was "Mr. Dithers". I thought it was "Paul Martin".

Otherwise, I appreciate the compliment,however undeserved.

Edited April 11, 2008 by jbg

[Who's Doing What?]

I am an American. Given your political posture, you'd be the last person to consider an American knowledgeable (sp, I'm tired) about Canada, and indeed I know little about it. I certainly had no idea that the last PM's name was "Mr. Dithers". I thought it was "Paul Martin".

Otherwise, I appreciate the compliment,however undeserved.

OK I am calling Buuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllsh!t on this one. lol

You have proven yourself to be a knowledgable( F@#% I can't spell it either hahaha) person, and I am sure you knew what PM PM's nick was. Seeing as how any reference to him by that name has been forbidden on these boards I know you must be aware of it.

As for the compliment, you caught me on a good day. lol

No seriously, you seem to know your stuff. It is nice to see a "Yank" who actually knows there is another country above the continental 48.

I might(usually) not always agree with you but I am not so blind as to let your (backwards lol) political views, stop me from seeing that you are an intelligent person, who will research things he wishes to debate and not just spout off to hear(see) himself speak.

OH ya I knew you were American when I posted before.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Who's Doing What?

[Shakeyhands]

OK I am calling Buuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllsh!t on this one. lol

This is exactly what I was talking about, he's playing (rather poorly) a little game called silly bugger. He knew exactly what he was doing when his little fingers typed that.

A little honesty please.

[Shakeyhands]

and I still don't know why some of our posters from the right think that this was such a momentous visit.....?

[capricorn]

and I still don't know why some of our posters from the right think that this was such a momentous visit.....?

Shakey, read my posts over. It's the visit to the hallowed sites of the Holocaust that is momentous in nature, not Harper's particular visit. But I do find that what is equally momentous is the fact that Harper consequently received positive press which is a rather rare event.

[HisSelf]

Do you think this is more important than Canadian War Veterans?

I saw a letter to the editor in the Globe in which some guy said that the sacrifices of the WWII vets did not matter vis a vis the Holocaust. I couldn't belive my eyes. Our fathers and grandfathers died to liberate Europe. Wasn't that enough? F**k you.