Holocaust Documentary

[Mungler]

You are welcome to your point of view I probably think the same of you but where dose that get us the point that I was trying to make is people say that remembering bad things will stop more bad things from happening the fact is it does not.

 

Throughout history there have been evil people prepared to do terrible stuff did pol pot think oh those Germans did some bad things I will learn from them and not do it myself we get the same thing with the death penalty it has no affect at all bad people will do bad things hang as many of them as you please but nothing that anyone does or says will ever stop people from killing one another you only have to look at the middle east to see that.

 

It is all still very relevant today and people do need to be reminded of what a government can do to its own citizens. It wasn't 'Germans' vs 'Jews', those Jews were Germans.

 

When modern day governments cut into civil liberties and the Daily Mail readers don't even blink at their passing and merely shrug and say 'well I don't mind I've done nothing wrong or it doesn't affect me'..... well I'm sure there's a lesson from history in there somewhere that might be relevant provided we don't consign it to the history books and refuse to discuss it or its relevance.

 

Oh yeah, you see what I did there.

[Dead-Eyed Duck]

Sorry but as you put it that's cobblers. They deliberately targeted city and civilians , even going as far as investigating what towns and cities would burn the best. Hitting civilians was deliberate not collateral damage of going after military targets. I suggest you do some research.

 

I never said it was.

 

I have indeed done many years of research, and area bombing did reduce the length of the war.

 

Let us accept your argument and say that if it had not been done then the war may have ended 'only' a year or so later. And how much would that have added to the 6 million Jews and 20 odd million Russian 'casualties'? The Nazi party were well on the way to eradicating the 'Jewish problem', and then there would have no doubt have been a 'Russian problem', and who after that?

 

It's all very well to be sat in your armchair pontificating, but even the American air force had to abandon 'precision' daylight bombing when their bombers where shot out of the skies until the Mustang fighter appeared. Just to take one issue - the U Boat campaign on itself damn near won the war for Germany, and if we had not flattened Hamburg, Lorient and St Nazaire etc then D Day would not have happened. Dozens of U Boats never sailed the seas simply because the factories producing them and the docks from which they sailed were bombed.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Ordnance

 

 

 

WAR is NOT nice!

[petethegeek]

It is surprisingly not a depressing place , sombre yes depressing no...

 

This was exactly what I found on an unscheduled visit to Dachau some years ago. For me it was the neatly laid out gravel beds where the huts had been which had the most impact. The atmosphere that hung over them was almost palpable.

 

 

It was the shoes and other belongings (suitcases, hair brushes, spectacles etc) that got me and their sheer volume...

 

Oddly enough that's the visual memory I retained most strongly after going round the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

[shaun4860]

Berlin has some very moving Jewish memorials...

 

Some either still under construction or very recently finished.

 

They have no intention of just consigning it to the history books so why should we?

[ordnance]

 

WAR is NOT nice!

I never said it was , my original post said that it was British policy to bomb German cities and civilians to terrorise. I also said if it was right or wrong was up for debate. But just like the it holocaust there is no point denying it happened and it was a deliberate policy. Was it legitimate for the Luftwaffe to bomb UK cities to terrorise and kill civilians.

 

Dozens of U Boats never sailed the seas simply because the factories producing them and the docks from which they sailed were bombed.

 

That's 'precision' daylight bombing not deliberate area bombing and targeting of civilians. If you are saying the ends justify the means that's fine.

 

 

They have no intention of just consigning it to the history books so why should we?

It has to be remembered as a lesson to others, and to remember the victims.

Edited January 25, 2015 by ordnance

[petethegeek]

Berlin has some very moving Jewish memorials...

 

Indeed. I personally find the "Empty Library" in Bebelplatz one of the most powerfully emotive memorials I have come across. I had never heard of it before but (nearly literally) tripped over it by chance on a visit to Berlin. Best seen at night when it is lit up internally with a gentle diffuse light.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebelplatz

 

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/1.614229

[Scully]

I cried when I went to see the war memorials in France, God knows what I'd be like if I visited the concentration camps.

[Thunderbird]

nothing that can be done to stop it

 

Yeah right, because ignoring things because you have decided you can't be bothered to do anything about it always works doesn't it?

 

That reminds me, what was it you said on here about Jimmy Saville's victims? Oh yeah that was it, that they should "get a life"?

 

Maybe that's how you feel about victims of the holocaust...oh hang on, they can't, can they? Because they were murdered, so perhaps the human race owes their memory a debt to never forget it and work to influence as much of the world as we can to make sure it doesn't happen again.

 

As to Zapp's comments earlier, I entirely agree. You only have to look at how many people seem a bit too keen to take on the job of executioner when that theoretical possibility comes up from time to time. That's worrying.

[Gordon R]

+1

[Rupert]

If you really want a good read - then look up Oradur sur glane. That will make your stomach turn, now tell me an atrocity that the allies did on that scale with that malice.

I have visited oradour sur glane, a massacre it was, in the museum is a pram with some large calibre holes,

Edited January 25, 2015 by Rupert

[four-wheel-drive]

One thing that cannot be denied is that if you scratch the thin veinier of civilisation on modern man there is evil lurking there and people that think that they can rise above it are deluding them selfs just listen to what good people say they would do to someone who does something bad bad + bad does not make good it just leads you down the road to hell.

[Gordon R]

Seems to be one self delusional on here, at least. :innocent:

 

People can and do rise above it. Trying to ignore history, or the lessons that can and should be learned from it, isn't a starting point for self improvement.

[Thunderbird]

And +1 to you.

 

One thing that cannot be denied is that if you scratch the thin veinier of civilisation on modern man there is evil lurking there and people that think that they can rise above it are deluding them selfs just listen to what good people say they would do to someone who does something bad bad + bad does not make good it just leads you down the road to hell.

 

I'm sorry but you're projecting here massively, you can see that surely?

 

PS Everyone else can.

[digger]

truly one of your more deluded ramblings 4wd. Who is rising above ? I suggest you visit one of the places mentioned. you get odder by the month

[TIGHTCHOKE]

One thing that cannot be denied is that if you scratch the thin veinier of civilisation on modern man there is evil lurking there and people that think that they can rise above it are deluding them selfs just listen to what good people say they would do to someone who does something bad bad + bad does not make good it just leads you down the road to hell.

 

BLOODY HELL!

[overandunder2012]

Berkenau is effectively Auschwitz and a different camp to Belsen which was indeed liberated by the British, never been to Belsen, but have been to Auschwitz a number of times, and I will be going back again, as it is my intent that as many of my grandkids as possible see it, as I deem it one of life's musts.

 

KW

i agree i would go if im out that way

[Dead-Eyed Duck]

I never said it was , my original post said that it was British policy to bomb German cities and civilians to terrorise. I also said if it was right or wrong was up for debate. But just like the it holocaust there is no point denying it happened and it was a deliberate policy. Was it legitimate for the Luftwaffe to bomb UK cities to terrorise and kill civilians.

 

That's 'precision' daylight bombing not deliberate area bombing and targeting of civilians. If you are saying the ends justify the means that's fine.

 

It has to be remembered as a lesson to others, and to remember the victims.

As I said - please read your history lessons. Most of the bombing of the U Boat ports and U Boat manufacturing factories was done at night - hence you would call it area bombing.... Daylight bombing of the above was only done in the last year of the war when 'area bombing' had sorted the U Boat menace out (apart from the battle of the Atlantic of course)

[overandunder2012]

 

I disagree. It should be remembered to serve as a reminder of what can happen when a people project their fear and hatred onto another and make them scapegoats for the ills of society.

As I have said before on here, Nazi Germany wasnt some alien society that came to earth on a comet. The brutes and sadists were there all along, and so were those willing to turn a blind eye or turn a fast buck. Given the right circumstances they come out of the woodwork time and again - The Holocaust, Nanking, The Balkans, Rwanda, Iraq and Syria today.

 

How many times do we hear "bomb the lot of them" or "nuke them" or "kill them all and let God sort them out" on here? Or to put it another way, "Exterminate the entirety of x or y group, including the innocent, to be sure to rid us of the guilty". Those who truly hold such attitudes, who link all in a particular group to the sins of a few on the basis of a shared trait unrelated to the sins, are making the exact same mistake the people of Germany did in relation to the camps, even if they never took a life themselves.

 

Once again, the Einsatzgruppen volunteers would come out of the woodwork here too given a permissive environment, and plenty would quietly ignore what they were doing. The rhetoric of hatred is alive and well today, and people fall for it, parrot it or just pretend not to hear it out of fear and ignorance just as they always did.

100% spot on

[Bazooka Joe]

Another documentary on at 8pm tonight on Discovery HD,

 

"One Day in Auschwitz"....Kitty Hart-Moxon returns to Auschwitz seventy years after her liberation.

[Munzy]

It should be remembered to serve as a reminder of what can happen when a people project their fear and hatred onto another and make them scapegoats for the ills of society.

As I have said before on here, Nazi Germany wasnt some alien society that came to earth on a comet. The brutes and sadists were there all along, and so were those willing to turn a blind eye or turn a fast buck. Given the right circumstances they come out of the woodwork time and again - The Holocaust, Nanking, The Balkans, Rwanda, Iraq and Syria today.

 

How many times do we hear "bomb the lot of them" or "nuke them" or "kill them all and let God sort them out" on here? Or to put it another way, "Exterminate the entirety of x or y group, including the innocent, to be sure to rid us of the guilty". Those who truly hold such attitudes, who link all in a particular group to the sins of a few on the basis of a shared trait unrelated to the sins, are making the exact same mistake the people of Germany did in relation to the camps, even if they never took a life themselves.

 

Once again, the Einsatzgruppen volunteers would come out of the woodwork here too given a permissive environment, and plenty would quietly ignore what they were doing. The rhetoric of hatred is alive and well today, and people fall for it, parrot it or just pretend not to hear it out of fear and ignorance just as they always did.

Very well said.

[islandgun]

 

I disagree. It should be remembered to serve as a reminder of what can happen when a people project their fear and hatred onto another and make them scapegoats for the ills of society.

As I have said before on here, Nazi Germany wasnt some alien society that came to earth on a comet. The brutes and sadists were there all along, and so were those willing to turn a blind eye or turn a fast buck. Given the right circumstances they come out of the woodwork time and again - The Holocaust, Nanking, The Balkans, Rwanda, Iraq and Syria today.

 

How many times do we hear "bomb the lot of them" or "nuke them" or "kill them all and let God sort them out" on here? Or to put it another way, "Exterminate the entirety of x or y group, including the innocent, to be sure to rid us of the guilty". Those who truly hold such attitudes, who link all in a particular group to the sins of a few on the basis of a shared trait unrelated to the sins, are making the exact same mistake the people of Germany did in relation to the camps, even if they never took a life themselves.

 

Once again, the Einsatzgruppen volunteers would come out of the woodwork here too given a permissive environment, and plenty would quietly ignore what they were doing. The rhetoric of hatred is alive and well today, and people fall for it, parrot it or just pretend not to hear it out of fear and ignorance just as they always did.

I think this is what 4-wheel -drive is alluding to (granted badly put), sycophantic people using any excuse to hate others, very true post Zapp

[ordnance]

You implied in your earlier post below that the bombing of civilians was just an unfortunate outcome of targeting industrial targets. That is not the case bombing and killing German civilians was a deliberate policy, some of the towns were nowhere near any military targets.

 

Dead-Eyed Duck

At the time it was felt that bombing industrial areas was the main opportunity to weaken the German war machine, and by and large it did. Unfortunately, just as today, industrial centres were located near to urban areas simply because of the logistics of getting people to work.

 

Bombing killing and terrorizing German civilians was a deliberate policy of the British during WW2 that's a fact not up for debate, you can try and justify it, but don't try to rewrite history and say it wasn't a deliberate policy. I will ask again was the German policy of bombing UK cities and civilians justified. ?

Edited January 25, 2015 by ordnance

[welsh1]

I have been to Auschwitz and also Belsen and as others have said it is a sombre atmosphere,when i went back to Belsen with my Wife she stood in front of one of the mass graves that has a small wall at the front,they all say roughly the same "here lies 2000/5000/3000 dead",emotionally she asked me "why" i couldn't answer,just hugged her.

 

When i was based in Iserlohn the woman who owned a schnellimbiss(chip shop)down the road i used to try my rubbish German on her and she would laugh and correct me when needed, she spoke good English and was a nice person,one day i saw a tattoo on the inside of her wrist,she saw me looking at it and turned it to show me and simply said Auschwitz,I asked why she didn't remove it as it must be a painful reminder, she told me it was in respect of all the others that died and a reminder to everyone that saw it that terrible things had happened,she said it quite softly.something i will never forget.

 

It should always be remembered and taught to future generations,anyone wanting to consign it to history is short sighted and i suggest they go and visit one of these sites or tour the various memorials in Berlin,you may just change your tune.

Edited January 25, 2015 by welsh1

[Mentalmac]

Theres some very moving stuff on here, mentalmac the image of your post will stay with me for a very long time, my thoughts turn to other places in the world were atrocities are happening at this moment....................

Same here, its horrible and makes me very sad to even think about that, I look at my kids and get upset thinking of them knowing about bad things, let alone them happening to them. It's just awful.

 

A lot of bad things happened over the years, from Antiquity to even now - but things on that scale really put life into perspective.

 

People don't often talk about what happened under the hands of the Japanese during the war, I feel this is just as awful. Such as Unit 731, the Nanjing massacre etc...