History must never repeat itself
 

Today, January 27, 2014, the largest ever delegation of Knesset members are convening abroad, on the grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps, together with Holocaust survivors, for a historic gathering on combating anti-Semitism.

This symbolic parliament session is very significant — meeting just a few meters away from the gas chambers where millions of Jews were once murdered.

The event is being held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a memorial day in honor of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust. 2014 will also mark the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps by the Soviet Army and Allied troops.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/holocaust--...73.html#BcqP8t

WARNING If you want to post comments regarding the topic, fine but maintain a level of respectability and decency, stay within the forum rules.....otherwise, don't bother.

I mean no disrespect but the above statement is where they are losing me. What about the other victims of the Holocaust? What about the 2 million Gypsies, the homosexuals and opponents of the regime? Why is it always just about the Jews and no one else? If we want to remember then we should remember them all and not just some.:yep:

I predict an Alex, I predict an Alex...

Anyway, it is sadly a bit late to stop history repeating itself, genocide is a popular topic for many countries these days, and despite the 'Never Again' after WWII, there's been many genocides that have gone past with nary a whisper from the victors of the Second World War, the Cultural Revolution, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur.

Unfortunately mass killing and human nature do seem to go hand in hand, particularly when it comes to inflaming emotions against a particular group of people, as threads on here have shown, it's pretty easy to get the torch bearers out.

In German:

http://www.welt.de/kultur/article124...des-Todes.html

The author is of Polish-Jewish descent himself. Good to keep this on mind when reading this.

He has said on an earlier occasion two of three years ago that the museum at Auschwitz is so normal a tourist attraction by now and that so good money is made with selling souvenirs in the nearby city, that the facility should be closed and the whole perimeter should be plowed under. He also questioned whether we have any right to expect the young to feel responsible in that we expect them to show the same ammount of heavy burden and sadness over things that ended more than half a century before they even were born, when these young people are not linked to these events at all and have their very own contemporary problems that really give them their very own share to shoulder.

But, he pointed out, in case of shutting down Auschwitz, he would miss the good food they serve in the museum's restaurant.

In this article now he points out that even those visitors who are impressed by the sights in the museum, usually completely fail to get the link to modern, contemporary events of massacres and genocides, next: that demanding that Auschwitz should neve rhappen again is as meaningful a statement like that the Titanic should never sink again, and finally that the unique status attributed to the holocaust helps today's massacres to get away with their bloddshed becasue evertyhing below the levbel of the holocaust by that reduced progfile holds the danger of being taken for something slightly more acceptable. He closes with the philosopher Thomas Lessing's remark that "history is nothing else than attributing a meaning to the meaningless."

This Knesset trip to Poland will do nothing to make Western nations reconsider their marshmallow-soft approach to the Iranian challenge, and it will not chnage anything in the European and American anti-Israeli bias on the issue of the Palestinian Arabs.

At the risk of taking this thread in another direction, what is it that makes the situation of the Palestinian Arabs not a genocide, and Iranian intentions to Israel a potential genocide? It all seems a bit stones in glass houses to me, to be honest. I'm aware that Israels neighbours would not hesitate to burn it to the ground, but there is no high ground in a debate about the Israel/Palestine issue, and if there is it has already got artillery on it.

Never too late to do something good nor to change your mind on what is right and wrong, eh.


http://b8.uk.icdn.ru/c/compdrag/1/35953731EhJ.jpg

I always love the media and the holocaust, particularly when it comes to Auschwitz-Birkenau. First of all "millions" didn't die at Auchwitz-Birkenau. Modern estimates put the total deaths at 1.2 million, with about 960,000 of the deaths being Jewish. The gas chambers were probably responsible for 60-80% of the killings, with the rest due to being worked to death, disease, experiments, and other forms of torture and execution. Auschwitz was partially a death camp, and mostly a slave labor camp.

The real killing machines were the Aktion Reinhard camps. Which were tiny little camps with the sole purpose of eradication (which is why they were so tiny). Treblinka by some estimates is believed to have killed more people then all of Auschwitz. A number of researchers and recent archeological investigations suggest we are actually seriously underestimating the numbers at over 2 million right now.

The rest of the six million can be attributed to the Einsatzgruppen, the slave labor camps like Mittelbau-Dora, concentration camps, etc.

As for the frequent forgetting of the other groups, well a lot of people in Europe still hate the Roma and consider them subhuman, same for homosexuals (and the numbers were not very high for that group). People like to forget the disabled as well (one of the first victims for mass execution). All the others killed were either insignificant by proportion, or POWs which is another subject. Out of the others, the Roma have as much claim as the Jews having suffered proportionately similar losses.

I'm not going to touch the Palestinian topic, as it is frequently used as a red herring in holocaust discussions, and it bluntly does not meet the criteria for genocide.

Neon, I do not agree with everything you said (and we better not talk about this subject in depth in here, so I won't mention which of your statements I disagree with), but I like the critical aspect of your point of view overall.

Very well said, Sir. The problem is : not everyone is familiar with this subject, or problem. For those who're not, let's put it another way :

http://b8.uk.icdn.ru/c/compdrag/7/35954677qPE.jpg

He the right to have his opinion - nothing more.

As it seems many disagree with him.

So some profit from it ..well... if you will look hard enough you will find out that people profit almost from anything.

question is why you look.





I have no interest in those modern estimates because they have no impotence for this topic.

It may be important for historical record.

You just spiting hair here.:)

It does not change the fact that Auschwitz is lets say....the standing symbol for the holocaust.

http://b8.uk.icdn.ru/c/compdrag/1/35953731EhJ.jpg


I totally agree with you Alex.:03:
...But its sort of like saying...to simplify things... no Poland no world war two.
As usual you got it backwards.:haha:

So Jews have this voodoo party to remember holocaust because we love to be miserable and make some moneys of it.
Who cares ...right?..take it easy.

BW
Gypsies and the others are invited as well if can afford the tickets to this controversial party.

Today is in fact the liberation date of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a fact not lost on the Knesset in their selection of the site, and not inappropriately if my great grandmother has any thing to say about it. She immigrated at the turn of the century and married a Methodist!? in the temple in Brooklyn! The rest of the Koenigs we don't know about...Also of note is that on this date 60 nations signed an accord to ban orbiting nuclear weapons..one wonders at the distinction as we revolve around the sun; the globe IS the orbiting nuclear weapon!:doh: Throw in the one recent weekend in Rawanda where 700,000+ were killed with machetes-no need for technology-and it is evident that the holocaust beast is alive and well. Human trafficking is alive and well and religious intolerance is alive and well. I'm glad I'm old 'cause I suspect strongly that what we call the holocaust now, looking back, ain't gonna be it ; that is still to come. Well, at least we nearly eradicated polio.:up:

I agree we will always have to remember this.


That said, not to belittle Hitler or divert from this date of today, but what about Stalin and him killing some millions of jews ?
Or the Polish operatrion, in 1937 ?
He also killed tens of millions of others of course, but i have seldom heard any russian 'president' mention this, let alone his former allies.

Nothing changes: "VAE VICTUS"-Brennus 387 BC:

A Goth or Celt leader who once conquered Rome even though being outnumbered, imortalized the Latin word meaning “woe unto the conquered” or “suffering to the conquered,” Raiding Celtic tribes under the leadership of Brennus ravage Rome and occupy the city for three months. Offended by the dirty conditions of the city they demand a ransome to leave the Romans alone. Brennus demands his weight in gold and when the Romans complain that the scales they are using are innaccurate he throws his sword on the scales to be weighed as well with the cry "VAE VICTUS" - (Woe to the Vanquished). In short, the scales of historic justice are unbalanced and found wanting...most of the time and "history is written by the winners"-Bonaparte...

Went to Krakow just over 4 years ago and we went Auschwitz-Birkenau 6 of us walked into the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps and for just over 3 and a half hours not one of spoke a single word :nope: very very sad indeed, but I was glad that I went just to see it for myself.

People died in camps because of some nutjob idiotic ideology by lunatics that had a harder time getting laid than me. Does it matter if one group is remembered more than the other. I'm sure the dead don't see any difference.

And as for the jew conspiracies ?? People who think something so stupid exist need to get a job to get their minds doing something productive

And Israel ?? Absolutely nothing to do with the holocaust. Their treatment of Palestinians is brutal, but has to do nothing with WW2.

No it not...on no level.

Oh god, this got derailed quite quickly didn't it

You're right. I better change that. Still brutality is brutality

When?

Where?

Brutality?
Maintaining security with military may lead to it in some cases.
Its complicated.


Brutality as policy
- there is no such thing at least not since the 90s.
At the beginning of the Palestinian uprising (about 1987)things had been a bit different yet far cry from what some implay.
this policy led to similar criticism in Israel as abroad and possibly is one of the reasons which led to talks with PLO.
Israel could not maintain and did not want to maintain it.

I think Tyrant is right here...but it was so obvious it would happen.:haha:

Its interesting though how some people are obsessed with Palestinian Israeli conflict while real genocide is happening few hundreds kilometers from here yet all you can see is fascinating tanks battle videos about it.
Go figure...maybe israel is doing it wrong.:doh:

People forget that "genoicde" has a specific definition that is set in some international law, a definition that is so specific that if governments agree to the use of the term they are bound by international law to react to it. Genocide is the systematic effort of not only trying to wipe out the living members of a race or ethnically defined group, but also to wipe out their tradition and culture defining their identity. It is a mass killing of a population plus the cleansing of the history books and the deletion of a cultural identity.

That is why it is so absurd to compare the events in the Ukraine or the Palestinian territories as "genocide", as if they would in any way compare to the sclae and intention of the Nazi's holocaust.

Nobody in the Ukraine tries to wipe out the Ukrainian population and to clean the history books of the Ukrainian history and identity.

Nobody in Israel tries to massmurder all Palestinians - and it even is that a separate Palestinian ethnicity or tradition in the modern Palestinians' understanding or claim never exiosted. The Palestinians were always a very mixed breed, but no separate tribe or ethnicity, and long ago Hebrews and others alos were part of the "Palestinian" group. What today is called "the Palestinians", is simply Arab people of normal Arab descent from all of the Arab world, whose ancestors for the most had moved to "Palestine" and beside the "genocide" Israel committing on them showed to be extremely fertile and multiply the population size by several factors in less than half a hundred years.

Ukraine a genocide? Israel and Palestine, a genocide? Gimme a drink, and make it a strong one.

Rwanda - that qualifies as genocide. The hunting down of Christians and cleaning of whole countrysides in Somalia and by the Muslim militias - that is gencoide. The uncountable tribal wars in Africa, and Congo especially - that are genocides. Here it is about wiping out all people of a given tribal/ethnic descent, and killing their cultural history and tradition, so that it or any survivors of the massacres could never live up again and become a living identity.

It is a ridiculing of the Nazi's crimes to compare their holocaust against the Jews with the deaths in a civil unrest in the Ukraine, or the struggle for land control and state security in the former Roman province of Judea.

So, let's be more hesitent to use the term "genocide".