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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 27, 2015 - 08:41am PT
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been watching the ceremonies around the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Pretty chilling. Could it happen again? Seems that there are signs.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Jan 27, 2015 - 08:44am PT
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Signs?
Please elaborate.
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steve shea
climber
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Jan 27, 2015 - 08:46am PT
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Isis seems to be hell bent on genocide. 95% of Christians have fled Syria/Iraq Isis held territory. The other 5% killed or converted to Islam and even then possibly killed.
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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 27, 2015 - 08:49am PT
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there was one speaker who outlined the growing anti-semitism in Europe. Is that not where/how the Holocaust started? Isn't denial one of the first steps in that direction?
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Jan 27, 2015 - 08:50am PT
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"Next time it will probably be Christians."
Great. Yet another reason for Christians to hold up about how they've been victimized throughout history, and how they are the 'one, true religion'.
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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Jan 27, 2015 - 08:59am PT
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Auschwitz is a chilling place to visit. For some reason, it hit me harder the day after I toured the place. If you've been there, you know how "recent" it all feels. The Nazis got out of there as fast as they could, but couldn't cover up or destroy the most damning evidence of what they'd been doing. To this day, I don't take Bayer aspirin (yeah...I'm like Gandhi) because of the IG Farben factory right next to the camp that used slave labor from the camp. It continued operations throughout and after the war, uninterrupted, even with the knowledge of what they'd been doing--namely, using humans till they dropped.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 27, 2015 - 08:59am PT
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America is already in the concentration camp of their mind control dictatorship cloaked in the costume of democracy.
America suffers continual psychological and mental distress at the hands of their rulers .....
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Jan 27, 2015 - 09:32am PT
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Sick thread, not the rad kind.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Jan 27, 2015 - 09:57am PT
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Eugenics, the social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization,[1] based on the idea that it is possible to distinguish between superior and inferior elements of society,[2] played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to its involvement in World War II.[3]
Eugenics was practised in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany[4] and U.S. programs provided much of the inspiration for the latter.[5][6][7] Stefan Kühl has documented the consensus between Nazi race policies and those of eugenicists in other countries, including the United States, and points out that eugenicists understood Nazi policies and measures as the realization of their goals and demands.[5]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
We would like to think ourselves(United States as a country) to have been superior in our world outlook, but the fact was that we were "down with the program" for quite some time as the concept developed. It was only Germany's fixation with efficiency and perfection in action that kept them moving forward as others began to understand the horror of what the practice of Eugenics would ultimately entail.
We never were better, and we are no better nowadays. Just look at those who would burn the middle east to cinders to wipe out what they perceive as a threat to their way of thinking.
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couchmaster
climber
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Jan 27, 2015 - 10:01am PT
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Googling "Operation Northwoods" should get you over the idea that the folks running the show in the US are much above this kind of horror. Vigilance is still the operational word here. Never forget.
It's not just a western thing. Look at japan in WW2, or the Cambodia experience with the Khmer Rouge. Cambodians are some of the most kindest, genteel folks around. Google Killing fields if you are unfamiliar.
Shakes head....
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jan 27, 2015 - 10:35am PT
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https://www.youtube.com/user/USCShoahFoundation
Survivor and liberator testimonies, gut wrenching stuff. To survive those camps you had to be young and with a stout constitution, and someone along the way had to give you a break.
One British medical student was sent to Ohrdruf camp right after its discovery. He thought you had to be a criminal to survive there. He said it was a place where you would arrive at the beginning of the month and be glad to be dead at the end of the month.
After walking into one room at Ohrdruf, Patton came out and puked, then told his troops, "I don't want you guys to take anymore f*#king prisoners."
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Jan 27, 2015 - 10:36am PT
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My father in law was sent there with his family when he was 16. He saw his parents shot then burned. All of the kids survived.
Christians vs Jews? Remember during the Crusades the armies travelling to the holy land paused to hammer on any Jews they could find along the way.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Jan 27, 2015 - 10:50am PT
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When I lived in NYC, one day I went into a lamps supply store on the Bowery. The man behind the counter was quite old, and as he reached into a bin to get the brass fittings I wanted(I was using for stained glass work I was doing at the time, using lamp finials as lifting knobs for box tops), I saw the numbers tattooed upon the skin of his forearm.
Though I had never seen a person with concentration camp numbers before, it was as immediately recognizable as the first time you hear a rattlesnake shake it's tail. The shock that ran through my body was palpable. I looked at the man and though I so wanted to ask, I knew better. I just smiled into his eyes, as he was aware I had noticed the tattoos, as if to say "I am glad you survived." Still a haunting memory more than a dozen years later.
One of the company owners, when I was a handbag designer, also survived because he was a young child and a wealthy relative had him shipped overseas before the process got too bad. He was there to see his father and oldest brother, a doctor, removed from the family home and put into some holding area in the town. He said they would go there and throw loaves of bread over the fence to them. He was the only member of his immediate family to survive.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jan 27, 2015 - 11:18am PT
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Can it happen again? It's happening all too often. We had Rwanda, the Balkans, Syria, and on and on. All it takes is some nominal difference (example, Shiite vs. Sunni), and some demagogue's need for a scapegoat, and away we go.
My mother is probably the last Central Valley survivor of the Armenian massacres of 1915. Although she was only three years old then, she still remembers vividly 100 years later her being thrown into prison, and her father's death. Those massacres came about because the Young Turk government decided to invade the Caucuses, thinking that Azeris and other Muslims in the Russian empire would rise up and join the Turks in defeating Russians. It didn't happen, and the Turks suffered a crushing defeat.
The cause of the defeat was the monumental mistakes of the Young Turk government, but what government would admit that? Instead, they concocted the story that they lost because of treachery of those Christian Armenians, so they need to be moved away - as in moved away from earth. Talaat Pasha (the interior minister of Turkey then) had plans for the extermination of the Armenians not only in the Ottoman Empire but outside it. The Armenians were "different," and made a convenient target.
Sad to say, people haven't changed. The last American concentration camps were for the Japanese in World War II, and at least they weren't death camps, but they form a shameful part of our history. I doubt that we've learned much, though, because I hear people now claiming that Muslims, Immigrants (legally here or otherwise), "the rich" "the homosexual agenda" "born-again Christians, " etc. etc., are responsible for all our problems.
For all these reasons, we need to approach any argument that our problems come from "those people" with a hostile skepticism. While the United States has real enemies, any denunciation of large groups of people probably poses a greater threat to us than the people denounced.
John
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Jan 27, 2015 - 12:06pm PT
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There's a movie on YouTube about the Wannsee conference, I believe it is called The Conspiracy. Disturbing.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Jan 27, 2015 - 12:24pm PT
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Check it out for yourself, but some in academia have surmized that Hitler (and crew) learned from the Ottoman Armenian genocide that this kind of thing could be done successfully and without repercussion. And it was not just limited to the Armenians. Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups (greeks included) targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government.
Because of the Ottoman Empire's attempt at extermination of their Armenian population, Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide. Lemkin was specifically motivated by this "event".
And yes, I would agree with John that these types of things are still happening/haven't stopped happening..
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Stewart
Trad climber
Courtenay, B.C.
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Jan 27, 2015 - 02:35pm PT
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Anti-Jewishness was rife throughout North America, Europe and elsewhere in those days.
The death toll from this nightmare would have been far lower if (among pretty well any nation you can name), the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain had opened their borders to Jewish refugees - on some particularly loathsome occasions, they were turned back and returned to their doom in Nazi Germany.
Admittedly, the above comments are somewhat simplified, as the details are complex, and academicians spend their entire careers debating the minutiae of the Holocaust, but these statements are substantially true.
Another thing that would have not only prevented the Holocaust from occurring, but also World War Two, would have been if even one single soul in a position of power in any of the nations victimized by Nazi Germany took the trouble to read Mein Kampf and took Hitler's words seriously. This "book" is an appallingly poorly written rant from a clearly diseased mind, and it unmistakably laid out the entire Nazi agenda for the future.
I recommend that anyone who wishes to understand the roots of the Holocaust should read Mein Kampf. It is not easy reading - not only because of its staggering depth of paranoid hatred, but simply because it is undeniable that this monster was a lousy writer. Be very concerned about your own mental health if you do not feel the need to repeatedly shower with disinfectant while reading this crap.
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Jan 27, 2015 - 02:42pm PT
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Check it out for yourself, but some in academia have surmized that Hitler (and crew) learned from the Ottoman Armenian genocide that this kind of thing could be done successfully and without repercussion.
Hitler said as much himself. I don't have time to pull the book off the shelf, but essentially he said: "As long as we win, no one will care what we have done."
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jan 27, 2015 - 02:46pm PT
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Agree, Stewart and skcreidc. About 50 years ago (as a somewhat precocious 13-year-old) I forced myself to read both Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. Marx was a much better - and clearly more intelligent - writer, but both were rather difficult reading for a young teenager.
The West's refusal to allow Jewish refugees to enter is, sadly, still our default position when groups face persecution. I always found it particularly ironic that Lemkin coined the term "genocide" in 1943, with the horrors of the Holocaust in full swing, but the free world largely silent (but, admittedly, doing everything they could to end the Third Reich).
I am also painfully aware of the eradication of the Greeks from Asia Minor following World War I. Fromkin's A Peace TO End All Peace documents quite well how the fall of the Ottoman Empire gave us the modern Middle East, with all its problems.
Again, though, my refrain remains that we should always be concerned when even a politician, and not just a government, names a minority as scapegoat. The demagoguery too often leads to tragedy.
John
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