Remembering Auschwitz

Have listened to the news programs on BBC and ITV about the holocaust commemorations. Never heard the word Germans mentioned once. Was all the Nazis without mentioning who they were at all. As if they came from outer space and disappeared when vanquished.
My family lost a grandfather fighting these germans. Leaving grandma to bring up her four young children on her own. Having a difficult time managing without much state aid.

I've recently read the story of Witold Pilecki, a hugely brave man who actually went into Auschwitz .
For over 2 years while there, he passed on intelligence.His first message was blunt: Bomb Auschwitz. Even if it meant killing everyone inside, himself included, it would be merciful. Conditions were horrifying, and the Nazis had to be stopped, he implored.
The book is by Jack Fairweather...

Thank you to Britain who in 1939 saved both my parents, who were children and all four grandparents, two of whom were blind. USA refused the blind, they were escorted off the ship.

I’m sorry to hear about your family’s fate Rowantree, but I will not agree that Britain didn’t do a lot to help and to win the war. America did NOTHING till they were attacked at Pearl Harbour, despite Britain constantly asking for help. Then they charged us and made massive profits from us for armaments and we were paying America back until very recently, in 2000 and something.
The Germans are the ones to direct anger against not the British, who stood alone in fighting the Nazis for two solid years!
Winston Churchill did know about Auschwitz part way through the war, but it was judged that the best way to help the Jews and others was to wage and win total war. It worked. Europe was liberated. Russia and other allies also knew about what was happening, but the allies all judged that the way to help was to liberate Europe, sooner rather than later. Plus, whatever we might say now, it was simply unimaginable to normal people that mechanised murder would be invented and employed. Concentration camps were known about, after all Dachau was in operation as a concentration camp from 1933. But it wasn’t a killing camp, it only had gas chambers built late in the war, and they were never used. I know this as I have visited Dachau.
DON’T blame the British, blame the perpetrators.

ananimous I am not sure that it is true that "Everybody knew exactly what was going on in all of the camps." My Bavarian friends certainly did not know and when the camps were liberated it was a terrible shock to the Allied Forces.

I agree with those who say that were we to have lived in Germany at the time we would most probably have been part of the regime, carefully groomed and never told the truth. Hitler was a genius in leading people so that they believed him and when he started to become well-known he seemed like a good man, creating the right things for a down-trodden country after WW1 and giving people hope. Such was his and his party's cunning and horrific power of controlling a whole country.

We must always remember that genocide has been attempted more than once since then and we have not always intervened.

We must always remember the Roma people that Hitler tried to exterminate and who do not get the help and support today that other survivors and their descendants receive.

We must always remember the defenceless people with disabilities, especially learning disabilities, who were given the most cruel treatments of all, often put to extremely frightening and painful torture in the name of medical research.

That mankind can be brainwashed, that the truth can so easily be withheld from whole nations of people, that a small group of evil, determined, psychopathic and brilliantly clever people can subject so many into the biggest hell on earth, we must always remember and always be on the alert for such possibilities at any time.

What a touching programme directly from Auschwitz yesterday.We visited in October last year,and I was there with them in spirit yesterday, those poor survivors re living the horrors, and maybe their last visit to this concentration camp.We must continue to remind people of other generations about this atrocity, it should never happen again, and should never be forgotten.

I visited Dachau ( the first of the German concentration camps) some years ago and was told that the local people who tried to object to the activities in the camp found themselves inmates.

Hello, I am a student journalist at De Montfort University in Leicester, England. I am producing a magazine about the older generation and was wondering if anyone who has any direct personal experiences with a concentration camp would be willing to be interviewed regarding it?

The piece will be for internal assessment towards my grade and I believe this would be an important read for many.

Thank you for your time and if anyone would be willing please let me know.

The really horrible thing about the Holocaust is that human beings are capable of these atrocities.

We have absolutely no guarantees that something similar will never happen again. Antisemitismen is increasing again and many people in Europe dislike immigrants, especially Muslims.

It has taken a very long time for most Germans to come to terms with Naziism, even our generation born during the war or after it have felt guilty. Something they cannot be, as they are either infants in arms or not even born when the war ended.

The countries that Germany occupied have likewise had to deal with the guilt, and so should the USA and Britain which like most other countries denied refugees the right of entry, sending many back to the concentration camps.

Everybody knew exactly what was going on in all of the camps.

It was also covered up by calling it "a conspiracy theory".

Research Cambodia, Sarajevo, Yemen etc etc ... same human nature -

There but for the grace of god go I... (we would all like to think we were above such evil, but we are not)

www.amazon.co.uk/Return-Auschwitz-Kitty-Hart-Moxon/dp/0755101367?tag=gransnetforum-21

This tells you exactly how it was all accomplished - turning people, like you and I, into monsters is all too easy.

It's not even in the past - it's happening somewhere in the world right now.

You only have to read through some threads on GN to see that there will always be personalities drawn to (guard's jobs) lord over others with their spite, given real power these individuals would show no mercy.

Our "camp guards" are the "medical assessors" in the UK who, under orders, have overseen the avoidable deaths of many many sick people.

‘That people in Britain, not Tommy Robinson and his ilk, but ordinary, everyday people, can say such... appalling things, shows that anti semitism is alive and well in Britain today.‘

Tommy Robinson is pro-Jewish and Zionist and far-right white supremacists hate him for it. Not everything you read in the papers is true! If you look at his speech to the Oxford Union on YouTube, it gives a better picture of him.

I think I also heard that the British Government knew about the camps but didn't want to divert resources to destroying them. Perhaps they were worried about unintentionally killing a lot of the Jewish inmates.

I don't see why they couldn't have targeted the watchtowers and outer walls as that would have helped some of the stronger inmates to escape but there was a lot of anti-semitism in Britain before the last world war and the deaths of a few Jews was not considered important.

Rowantree is right. We didn’t do all we could and we are still not doing all we should.

No Maddyone not at all. Thanks for asking.
Sorry I didn’t express myself well though.
I have had lots of positive relationships with any number of Jewish people (and people of other faiths of course!). I have never heard these things said by people I thought were friends.

There are too many people in this world with no compassion or no empathy - or both.

I heard on the radio the story of one young woman hiding Jews from the Nazis. She was told she was brave and a hero. She said, no, “it’s what anyone would do”.

lemongrove blames the Poles for the camps but Poles who resisted were sent to the camps and treated terribly. Read The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly for an account of "the rabbits" women who were subjected to horrific medical experiments. And yes the British and the Americans knew about the camps very early in the war although I think they probably failed to appreciate the real horrors that were happening in them.

I know this isn't relevant but...when I was a child and found out why I didn't have grandparents, I used to fantasise that they would be walking down the street to meet me for the first time and that the report of their deaths was a horrible mistake. I used to imagine that maybe they did survive and just didn't know how to find my father.
That was at a time when he'd been told they had been deported 'to an unknown destination'. Once we knew it was Auschwitz, and had a definite date of arrest, all that childish, faint hope was gone.

So Britain did everything it could, did it, during WW2? Did it buggery! There were reports coming out from Auschwitz and those on the 'underground' begging the Allies to bomb it. I believe Churchill didn't think it was worth doing but I can't find the exact quote - I'm sure someone will supply it.

Then there were the refugees. Considering how many were desperate to escape Germany, it's pretty abysmal that more were not given asylum or assistance to escape. The Kindertransport wasn't started by the government either, though it was supported by it. Only 10,000 children escaped by this means; my father was one of the lucky ones.
His parents were desperate to escape but it was down to individual efforts in the end. My father's local synagogue in London tried to raise funds for them, but it was too late once war broke out. He never saw them again. They perished in Auschwitz.

A year ago last Autumn I visited Auschwitz for the first time. I didn't tell my father I was going - I knew he'd want nothing to do with it. Unfortunately we joined an excursion from our hotel where there were people going on a day out and saw it as just another day out. I was clutching photos of the grandparents I had never known. I cried the whole time. I was appalled at the huge car park, the shop, the school parties of laughing, joking children. I felt soiled.

The tour went too fast; I wanted to walk to where I worked out my grandparents met their end but I wasn't permitted. Instead I laid the photos on the German memorial, with one of my great-aunt who also perished there. I wanted to be private with my emotions and to express my grief for my lost family including the others whose fate we don't yet know.

On the coach back we were asked if we had 'enjoyed' the day.

NotSpaghetti, I hope it came over that I wasn’t criticising you, I just thought that those of us who are not Jewish wouldn’t in the normal run of things, experience those anti Semitic comments.
I’m sorry if I upset you.

maddyone - yes you are right, I'm not Jewish. I was appalled that these comments were made by someone in my faith community. tickingbird said she thought it was because they were Catholic and I wanted to say that not all Catholics think like that. Maybe I didn't explain well.

The comments quoted were not only absurd but truly repugnant. I have never heard these types of hateful comments from people I consider to be friends, Catholic or otherwise.

Can there really be any ‘Bystanding’ for any kind of ‘ism’? Whether than be racism; sexism; antisemitism; ageism and all the others which attempt to isolate individuals or groups from being equal part of the human race - it’s down to common humanity and each of us can acknowledge and speak out about it whenever we come across it. Yes, there have been, and still are numerous instances of inhumane treatment everywhere and every day, but we can all take a part, however small, in addressing it by not remaining silent when we see it.

PS I did join the letter writing crowd of Amnesty International and feel it to be rather a lonely effort.

What can I do to make sure vulnerable minority peoples are not murdered or otherwise harmed by those in power?

NotSpaghetti, with respect, I think this isn’t your experience because you’re not Jewish. Tickingbird, correct me if I’m wrong, is Jewish, and the remarks that were directed to her are anti Semitic.

Tickingbird, what you have written about is truly awful. That people in Britain, not Tommy Robinson and his ilk, but ordinary, everyday people, can say such, well to me anyway, appalling things, shows that anti semitism is alive and well in Britain today. That people should shut up about the holocaust!!!! That she’s fed up hearing about the Jews!!!! That black people suffered more!!!! Does she think this is some sort of competition about who suffered more? Words fail me!

And yes. Now we have genocide elsewhere. People are people. We have the same loves, fears and worries whatever religion but our politicians are only prepared to tackle the easy stuff and will do anything for trade. You only need to see where we supply arms, and our response to refugees.