70th Anniversary of liberation of Buchenwald

[cannuck]

To some of us, this is just another footnote in history, but to my darling wife, it is a sad reminder of what one of her beloved aunts survived.   She also suffered serious health problems directly as a result of her time there, as no doubt many others did.  Sometimes I worry that the constant and consistent rehash of the Holocaust risks fomenting the anger of the skinhead types, and that is no doubt true.  But, if you have EVER heard first hand accounts of the Nazi death camps or for that matter the Japanese occupation of China (as I have), then you know that these stories really MUST be told.

[kactus]

Tragic event marking the memorial of holocaust today in which not only jews but also other nationalities were massacred....

 

 

[Army Guy]

The sad reality is we have not learned very much from history , we still have war, and all of its evil........in fact we spend more on war than any other endeavor man has taken on in our entire history.. Infact we have a clock that try's to predict how much time we have left on this planet before we wipe each other out... if our actions are any indicator we have not learned much from our past...

[DogOnPorch]

On 1/27/2020 at 5:15 AM, cannuck said:

To some of us, this is just another footnote in history, but to my darling wife, it is a sad reminder of what one of her beloved aunts survived.   She also suffered serious health problems directly as a result of her time there, as no doubt many others did.  Sometimes I worry that the constant and consistent rehash of the Holocaust risks fomenting the anger of the skinhead types, and that is no doubt true.  But, if you have EVER heard first hand accounts of the Nazi death camps or for that matter the Japanese occupation of China (as I have), then you know that these stories really MUST be told.

 

I have a Jewish aunt by marriage that was aboard the MS St Louis. She ended-up in France and apparently got aboard the final ship out to the USA before Case Yellow started. She made it to NYC and still lives their to this day. There are many video recordings of her telling her experiences, already. Plus she does things for local schools in that regard. But, she's getting very old. A notable thing she did...other than survive...was act as a consultant for the movie Voyage of the Damned.

But, the Voyage of the St Louis is nothing compared to what happened later.

Then, there's my erstwhile German uncle who was in the SS (Obersturmführer...or Lieutenant) and knee deep in the Holocaust in the Balkans/Hungary. He was captured by the British while trying to get to Switzerland (after ditching the uniform), but cheated a death sentence by knowing several languages including English. This allowed him to be a trial translator in turn for a POW sentence in Canada at a place called Seebe, Alberta. There the POWs...mainly officers...were put to logging until released. He never left Canada. He died in the 1980s, but I'm sure they'd have made a fuss about him being here these days seeing how they go after ancient camp guards and such still. I still have the medals he managed to keep.

I was also surprised to find looking on Yad Vashem...that I had lost over a dozen German relatives to the Holocaust despite not being Jewish. However, marrying Jewish girls was enough to get you hauled away as problematic by the Gestapo. Germany & Austria...perhaps a few others...mark all these citizens....Jewish and non-Jewish...that were victims of the SS with brass tiles known as Stolperstein...stumbling stones. All the ones I found were sent to the Minsk ghetto where they were apparently liquidated in several 'aktions'...where SS men came into the ghetto and just shot everyone.

[taxme]

On 1/27/2020 at 5:15 AM, cannuck said:

To some of us, this is just another footnote in history, but to my darling wife, it is a sad reminder of what one of her beloved aunts survived.   She also suffered serious health problems directly as a result of her time there, as no doubt many others did.  Sometimes I worry that the constant and consistent rehash of the Holocaust risks fomenting the anger of the skinhead types, and that is no doubt true.  But, if you have EVER heard first hand accounts of the Nazi death camps or for that matter the Japanese occupation of China (as I have), then you know that these stories really MUST be told.

Sadly today, the German people are still be reminded, and are paying for what had taken place during the 2nd WW.  The German people are being forced to pay to the many people who were prisoners of war at the time. Those prisoners do not want to live and let live and forget. They still want revenge for what happened to them. In war, everyone captured has to face the reality that life in a prison camp is not going to be a picnic. But I always have to wonder as to why we never are reminded of what the Japanese did every year to their prisoners of war during the 2nd WW?  Many Canadians were tortured by the Japanese during the war. They are never recognized. What about Mussolini? What were his crimes against humanity not being reported also? It seems that it is all about what the Germans did during the war to a certain people, and the others are always left out.  Anyone here able to answer this question? Just wondering. 

[DogOnPorch]

On 1/27/2020 at 6:34 AM, kactus said:

Tragic event marking the memorial of holocaust today in which not only jews but also other nationalities were massacred....

 

 

 

Hitler railed against the Jews.

The Final Solution was to eliminate the Jewish Problem. 

Others died in the process.

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by DogOnPorch

[cannuck]

1 hour ago, taxme said:

Sadly today, the German people are still be reminded, and are paying for what had taken place during the 2nd WW.  The German people are being forced to pay to the many people who were prisoners of war at the time. Those prisoners do not want to live and let live and forget. They still want revenge for what happened to them. In war, everyone captured has to face the reality that life in a prison camp is not going to be a picnic. But I always have to wonder as to why we never are reminded of what the Japanese did every year to their prisoners of war during the 2nd WW?  Many Canadians were tortured by the Japanese during the war. They are never recognized. What about Mussolini? What were his crimes against humanity not being reported also? It seems that it is all about what the Germans did during the war to a certain people, and the others are always left out.  Anyone here able to answer this question? Just wondering. 

Go to the Hong Kong WWII memorial, and also read about the things Japan did not only to POWs but to civilians during their occupation.  As I said: I knew people quite well who lived through that, and their contempt for all things Japanese stayed with them until their dying days - and I fully understand it.

[kactus]

8 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Hitler railed against the Jews.

The Final Solution was to eliminate the Jewish Problem. 

Others died in the process.

 

Others died in the process but still does not negate the fact that many allies including civilians , Russians, gypsies, etc lost lives. It was inevitable and must not be forgotten.

[kactus]

8 hours ago, taxme said:

Sadly today, the German people are still be reminded, and are paying for what had taken place during the 2nd WW.  The German people are being forced to pay to the many people who were prisoners of war at the time. Those prisoners do not want to live and let live and forget. They still want revenge for what happened to them. In war, everyone captured has to face the reality that life in a prison camp is not going to be a picnic. But I always have to wonder as to why we never are reminded of what the Japanese did every year to their prisoners of war during the 2nd WW?  Many Canadians were tortured by the Japanese during the war. They are never recognized. What about Mussolini? What were his crimes against humanity not being reported also? It seems that it is all about what the Germans did during the war to a certain people, and the others are always left out.  Anyone here able to answer this question? Just wondering. 

Not that in any way this is relevant to this topic but is just my own personal experience. 

I had a German girl friend several years ago. She used to tell me that it is not fair for her generation to take burden of responsibility for what their grandparents and forefathers did more than 70 years ago. In a sense I share her sentiment that the new generation of Germans cannot be blamed for what has already happened.
 

Nevertheless the atrocities of 1930’s are monumental moments in history that must not be forgotten. Never again

[DogOnPorch]

5 hours ago, kactus said:

Others died in the process but still does not negate the fact that many allies including civilians , Russians, gypsies, etc lost lives. It was inevitable and must not be forgotten.

 

Lots of people died all over the place.

The Final Solution was against the Jews.

Gypsies, JWs, etc...never mentioned at Wannsee.

That said, perhaps a quarter million Gypsies perished at the same time. Some records say more. Once the machine was rolling, lots got caught in the gears. But make no mistake. That machine was built to kill Jews.

[taxme]

9 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Lots of people died all over the place.

The Final Solution was against the Jews.

Gypsies, JWs, etc...never mentioned at Wannsee.

That said, perhaps a quarter million Gypsies perished at the same time. Some records say more. Once the machine was rolling, lots got caught in the gears. But make no mistake. That machine was built to kill Jews.

So, why did you say that the "machine was built to kill Jews"? Just curious. Hitler had many Jews working for his government. If Hitler wanted to get rid of Jews, why did he have so many Jews working for him? A little odd, don't you think? 

[DogOnPorch]

2 hours ago, taxme said:

So, why did you say that the "machine was built to kill Jews"? Just curious. Hitler had many Jews working for his government. If Hitler wanted to get rid of Jews, why did he have so many Jews working for him? A little odd, don't you think? 

 

Care to list a few of these Jewish Nazis that Hitler had surrounding him?

Edited January 31, 2020 by DogOnPorch

[SpankyMcFarland]

Many of you may already be aware of this remarkable man, Witold Pilecki, who volunteered for a mission in Auschwitz:
 

Quote

The Polish resistance had been hearing horrific first- or second-hand accounts about the conditions inside Auschwitz. These early accounts came primarily from released prisoners, but also from casual observers like railway employees and residents of the nearby village of Oswiecim. The resistance decided they needed someone on the inside.

It is into this environment that Witold Pilecki, a 39-year old veteran of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 who fought against the initial Nazi invasion and a member of the Polish resistance, volunteered himself in 1940. Pilecki's mission was to allow himself to be arrested and, once inside Auschwitz, to collect intelligence for the Polish resistance in the country and the government-in-exile in London, and to organize a resistance from inside the camp.
 

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/the-man-who-volunteered-for-auschwitz/263083/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nazis-auschwitz-volunteer-holocaust-witold-pilecki-a9302581.html

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki

Edited January 31, 2020 by SpankyMcFarland

[DogOnPorch]

2 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Many of you may already be aware of this renarkable man: 
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nazis-auschwitz-volunteer-holocaust-witold-pilecki-a9302581.html

 

One of the good guys. Home Army.

He was extremely daring. He went in before the SS started their work. He escaped in 1943 and was also involved in the Warsaw Uprising. Unfortunately, the NKVD did away with him after a show trial...being loyal to the Home Government.

Before the SS transformed the place, Auschwitz-Birkenau was an old Polish POW camp. In March 1942, the Death Camp portion of the place was opened (Birkenau). It ran right until the very end of the War...unlike other places like Treblinka. So the SS couldn't hide all their tracks.

This site has some good information on these various places.

http://www.deathcamps.org/

[DogOnPorch]

One event I ran across in the various searches was this event during the liquidation of the Minsk ghetto.

When deciding what to do with the children of the ghetto that were still alive, the SS tossed candy into a pit and let the children go into the pit to retrieve them. When in the pit, they were bulldozed in alive with sand.

A memorial exists at the place...surrounded by Soviet era apartments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pit_(memorial)

[DogOnPorch]

As for Buchenwald...it was inside what became East Germany....the NKVD just took over where the SS stopped.

They imprisoned 30,000 Polish & German 'dissidents' of which they murdered a good chunk of...over 7,000.

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by DogOnPorch

[SpankyMcFarland]

Beech forests are one of my favourite places to visit in Europe, green worlds enclosed by enormous trees with those strange, smooth trunks - natural cathedrals of a sort - and carpeted by bluebells in the spring. Unfortunately, the German word for them, buchenwald, carries other associations for us now. 

Edited February 2, 2020 by SpankyMcFarland

[taxme]

18 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Care to list a few of these Jewish Nazis that Hitler had surrounding him?

Sure? I will have a list of all their names for you tomorrow.   And besides that, who really knows if Hitler had a real plan to kill Jews? How would you even know? Were you there at the time and had a good conversation with Hitler? We are only told this by others and who knows what their real motives were.

Hitler's main concern was with communist Russia. Nazism and communism despised one another. Like fire and water. Hitler wanted to go after commie Stalin. That was a good thing don't you think seeing that we all now know as to just how bad communism was and still is today. Why would the many western countries in the world like Britain, Canada, and America as examples wanted to go after and fight Hitler, when their biggest threat and enemy to them all was Russia. The west should have joined Hitler, and not fight him instead. 

As I have said many times before, I wonder how many people would have survived back then and would still be alive today if communism had been defeated by Nazism? Personally, I would have preferred to see Hitler defeat communism one of the worse ism's of them all. But it is too late now to ever know. Aw well. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by taxme

[DogOnPorch]

16 minutes ago, taxme said:

Sure? I will have a list of all their names for you tomorrow.   

 

I'm sure there are a few like Erhard Milch that were given special Aryan status.

However, Hitler's inner circle? Nope.

At the Wannsee Conference, Klopfer...one of Bormann's goons...apparently leaned over to Eichmann and whispered:

"I heard Heydrich has a little Jew in him."

Klopfer had started the rumor, in fact. Eichmann replied back motioning to his boss, the fearsome Heydrich, to come over...

"Why don't you ask him?"

Klopher changed the subject, immediately...

Above: Reinhard Heydrich...architect of the Final Solution. 

[DogOnPorch]

16 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Beech forests are one of my favourite places to visit in Europe, green worlds enclosed by enormous trees with those strange, smooth trunks - natural cathedrals of a sort. Unfortunately, the German word for them, buchenwald, carries other associations for us now. 

 

Re: Witold Pilecki

There's a popular historical novel by Leon Uris called 'Mila 18' which details the Jewish side of the Warsaw Uprising. I believe one of the characters models Pilecki.

Mila 18 was a real address in Warsaw...the location of the underground headquarters of the resistance. A small monument is there now.

[taxme]

55 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

I'm sure there are a few like Erhard Milch that were given special Aryan status.

However, Hitler's inner circle? Nope.

At the Wannsee Conference, Klopfer...one of Bormann's goons...apparently leaned over to Eichmann and whispered:

"I heard Heydrich has a little Jew in him."

Klopfer had started the rumor, in fact. Eichmann replied back motioning to his boss, the fearsome Heydrich, to come over...

"Why don't you ask him?"

Klopher changed the subject, immediately...

Above: Reinhard Heydrich...architect of the Final Solution. 

I guess that you just proved to me that Hitler did have some Jews in his party and government. And here I have always been told that Hitler despised Jews and wanted to get rid of them all. And how do we even know that such a conversation took place between Eichmann and Klopher anyway? Were you there or did someone record what Klopher said? You quoted that it was "whispered"? So how did anyone know as to what was said by Klopher and what he whispered to Eichmann? I question your posted story above. 

I guess that if Klopher's boss had a little Jew in him, Klopher  would not say it out loud. Would you? No one will win with the boss or would want to get on the wrong side of their boss. So, even a Jew in the German army had a bit of hatred towards his own people by the look of things, eh? 

There were many others besides Jews that suffered during the war in some German concentration camps also. But why is it that all we ever hear about and have to commemorate is just one group and not all the others. Are the others not worth the time of day also? Just asking. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by taxme

[DogOnPorch]

1 minute ago, taxme said:

I guess that you just proved to me that Hitler did have some Jews in his party and government. And here I have always been told that Hitler despised Jews and wanted to get rid of them all. And how do we even know that such a conversation took place between Eichmann and Klopher anyway? Were you there or did someone record what Klopher said? You quoted that it was "whispered"? So how did anyone know as to what was said by Klopher and what he whispered to Eichmann? I question your posted story above. 

I guess that if Klopher's boss had a little Jew in him, Klopher  would not say it out loud. Would you? No one will win with the boss or would want to get on the wrong side of their boss. 

There were many others besides Jews that suffered during the war in some German concentration camps also. But why is it that all we ever hear about and have to commemorate is just one group and not all the others. Are the others not worth the time of day also? Just asking. 

 

Because Eichmann took over Heydrich's position and remembered all too well Klopher's comments. Klopher had referred to Eichmann as a lacky and a few other uncomplimentary things to anyone who would listen. There was intense rivalry between Bormann's Party Ministry and the SS....both with Hitler's direct ear.

And the Nazis just loved taking notes. We have the minutes and what not from these encounters.

Turned out that Der Fuhrer was listening to Heydrich & Himmler. 

So you don't believe the Holocaust occurred, then? Is that your general direction of thought?

[DogOnPorch]

Plus, you've got it backwards...

Bormann was Klopher's boss. Heydrich was Eichmann's boss.

After Heydrich's assassination by Czech commandos in 1942, Eichmann and Bormann were forced to work together. Bormann as head of all domestic activities in Reich territory handed over all responsibility for solving the 'Jewish Problem' to Eichmann. But since they both saw eye to eye on this matter...it wasn't a problem to Bormann. Eichmann and his SS cohorts were kept busy well away from Berlin...or East Prussia...Hitler's other hangout. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by DogOnPorch

[taxme]

6 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Because Eichmann took over Heydrich's position and remembered all too well Klopher's comments. Klopher had referred to Eichmann as a lacky and a few other uncomplimentary things to anyone who would listen. There was intense rivalry between Bormann's Party Ministry and the SS....both with Hitler's direct ear.

And the Nazis just loved taking notes. We have the minutes and what not from these encounters.

Turned out that Der Fuhrer was listening to Heydrich & Himmler. 

So you don't believe the Holocaust occurred, then? Is that your general direction of thought?

We have no idea as to what really took place as far as conversations went between whomever because neither you nor me or thee who are alive today were there to record those conversations. We only go by what others have to say, and how do we know as to whether those people are reliable enough to listen too or believe? And who really cares if Klopher "whispered" to Eichmann that Heydrich had some Jew in him. Was Klopher trying to be sarcastic or just joking around? 

I doubt very much that there were minutes taken from of what Klopher "whispered" into Eichmann ear?  Let's see those whispered  minutes? 

I never said that an holocaust never did happen. The 1st and 2nd world wars were indeed both a holocaust. But did what happen over 70 years ago with some of the stories told to us really did happen? Stories like Jews dead bodies being turned into soap or lampshades sounds a little far fetched to me. There are so many pros and cons to be read and heard on the internet as to what really happened in those concentration camps. I was not there so I cannot say as to what took place in some of those concentration camps.

We hear more today about the holocaust than we ever do hear about all the victims of communism.Their were hundreds of millions of innocent people's lives destroyed by communism, and those people's stories should be heard and told and a day set aside and recognized for them. But all ever see on TV is so many stories every week about Hitler and Nazism ad nauseam.

Why and who keeps pushing this stuff all the time on TV? A good question, don't you think? 

[DogOnPorch]

3 minutes ago, taxme said:

 

Why

 

Why bother?

You're free to deny that the Holocaust happened.

Edited January 31, 2020 by DogOnPorch