27 January IH Remembrance Day

[fireftr18]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I think today should be a day for not just remembering the barbarity of the Holocaust, but a lesson of what gross generalisation of a subset of people can lead to, the sort of propaganda against the Jews put out by the Third Reich that helped turn peoples mindsets against the Jewish people.
It was insiduous, and as a warning from history we need to always be vigilant not to let the same things happen again, against anyone, be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Homosexual, Female, Transgender, Eastern European Immigrant, or African-American. The moment you start generalising people by a set subculture, the moment you tar all of these people with one brush, that's the first step on a long walk to Dachau.
People may think I'm trying to hijack a commemoration of a horrendous event for a political agenda...well, honestly that's nonsense, politics has nothing to do with it, compassion and human decency has more to do with it, and a desperate hope that we can all learn from what happened, why we commemorate this day, to remember what happened so that we may never let it happen here again.

No, you're not hijacking the commemoration of the event. What you wrote is precisely why we need to remember.
During this commemoration, let's also remember the American internment camps for those of Japanese descent. Those in themselves were a step away from Dachau.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by fireftr18

Those in themselves were a step away from Dachau.

I have to disagree. Yes, the US internment camps were wrong. Locking up your own citizens for nothing more than being descended from the same ancestors as your enemy can never be right.

That said, locking up your citizens for the wrong reason, however shameful, is a lot more than one step away from wholesale slaughter.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I have to disagree. Yes, the US internment camps were wrong. Locking up your own citizens for nothing more than being descended from the same ancestors as your enemy can never be right.

That said, locking up your citizens for the wrong reason, however shameful, is a lot more than one step away from wholesale slaughter.

I'd say it's on the same road though, but I would agree that it's a bit further away than one step. The British aren't without sin either, we invented the idea of concentration camps after all.

[Aktungbby]

Nope! this one's on US! Andersonville and its commandant, Henry Wirtz, executed for war crimes would argue with that assertion a tad. Looks very 'concentrated' to me...By comparison, equally miserable Camp Douglas near Chicago was as bad if not a little worse; yet no Union Commandant was ever similarily charged. "The camp officials contracted with an unscrupulous undertaker, C. H. Jordan, who sold some of the bodies of Confederate prisoners to medical schools-nothing like a little medical science at the old concentration camp I tell ya!-and had the rest buried in shallow graves without coffins. Some bodies reportedly were even dumped in Lake Michigan, only to wash up on its shores. Bodies may have ended up in the lake because they were initially buried in shallow graves along the shore and were exposed due to erosion. Jordan shipped 143 bodies to Kentucky, according to official records, and claimed to have sent 400 bodies to the families of the deceased during the course of the war. Many dead prisoners' bodies initially were buried in unmarked paupers' graves in Chicago's City Cemetery. In 1867 their bodies were reinterred at what is now known as Confederate Mound in Oak Woods" Cemetery .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Douglas_(Chicago)Looks pretty concentrated to me

[Dan D]

The 21th January marks the day when the glorious Red Army freed the Auschwitz Concentration camp. Since 1996 it is also the national memorial day here in Germany for the victims of Nazi crimes and -what I did not know yet- it is also the International Memorial Day for Holokaust. It is worrysome that Putin's Russia did not join the mourning at Auschwitz, and that this gets politicised. Make this another thread.
The older I get the more angry I become angry about that. It is only 70 years away but still close enough that you ask yourself how was that possible? What mindeset have had those people that they felt they were „doing good“. It is that the way you treat people who you disagree with?
I did a cycle tour along the havel river a couple of years ago. What first draw my attention was a Russian tank monument. You find that often in Eastern Germany, a tank monument where the German People thank the Soviet Union for the Liberation of the German Peopme from the Fascists. Next to the tank was a sign that showed the direction to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for women,
So we decided to pay a visit. There the Nazis kept women from all of occupied Europe plus women from Great Brtain and 3 women from the USA. Wrong place, wrong time. There was a very telling photo album which showed pictures of the inmates. It is always two pictures of the same woman, one after the arrest and one picture after the arrival at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women. While on the first photo some of the women look shocked, angry, surprised, shy etc., on the second photo they all have then same dull face expression, they have lost all hope.
I visited the cells, there metall rings in the ground where the Nazis kept the watch dogs on the walk way between the cells, something like 8 German Shepard dogs for each block. Woof woof! I bite you between the legs.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein at „Parderborn“.

Whar gives one hope, it that you already at the parking can see that poeple from all over Europe visit those documetned Centers fo Nazi crimes, People from the Netherlands, Daanemark, Italy, etc, They are probably looking for their relatives, aunts, mothers, grandsmothers, great-grandmothers. It is good to see that Young People visit those places. At Ravensbrück the sleep-over is in the former SS-Barracks. And for the hard-cores take a shower at Ausch-Witz.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I have to disagree. Yes, the US internment camps were wrong. Locking up your own citizens for nothing more than being descended from the same ancestors as your enemy can never be right.

That said, locking up your citizens for the wrong reason, however shameful, is a lot more than one step away from wholesale slaughter.

But on the other hand, we had some of the same feelings toward the Japanese as the Germany had toward the Rom, Homosexual, Jew, .... They were considered sub-human. Look at the anti-Japanese propaganda of the time.

I wonder if we did have Japanese death camps, how many US citizens would really have protested? I hope we never find that out.

We can hate our enemy, but as soon as we start characterizing them as being less than we are, aka subhuman (Untermenschen), then what Fireftr18 wrote becomes more applicable.

I disagree that we were "one step from Dachau" but we easily could have started walking in that horrible direction.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I disagree that we were "one step from Dachau" but we easily could have started walking in that horrible direction.

Yes indeed. I was comparing two particulars, but the lesson to be learned is that the day we start treating anyone as our inferiors is the day we become inferior ourselves. I have long been of the opinion that I could never be racist, sexist, or any "ist" until I could find someone I actually believe is worse than myself. With the exception of some particular dealings I haven't found that yet.