| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day 07:37 - Jan 27 with 2911 views | GlasgowBlue |
We remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust and others murdered by the Nazis, including ethnic Poles, Roma, homosexuals and people with disabilities, among others. We also commentate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Just before Christmas, I made my second visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. It’s something that never leaves you. The squalid conditions people were forced to live in, the turrets and barbed wire fences, the piles of spectacles, shoes, suitcases, human hair, wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs. The rows and rows of photographs of men, women and children, all with the same striped uniforms and the Magen David sewn onto the breast. All dead. I can still picture many of their haunted faces.
And then the ovens, next to the remains of the chimney’s that the nazis destroyed in an attempt to cover up their genocidal crimes. You look around at the landscape knowing that the ashes of over one million people have decomposed into the soil. Into the roots of every tree and blade of grass. You literally walk in the steps of both the victims and the perpetrators. You grab a metal handrail walking down the stairs knowing that it has been gripped by a terrified Jewish child and by a member of the SS. It’s both traumatising and essential to visit.
Whilst we should never forget, we should also make sure it never happens again.
Religious hate crime in England and Wales rose by a record 25 per cent in the last year, The highest figure in annual hate crime in over a decade was driven by offences against Jews. According to the Home Office report. Attacks targeting Jews more than doubled to 3,282.
Antisemitic offences accounted for a third, 33%, of all religious hate crimes in the last year. Jews account for just 0.5% of the overall population in the UK. 96% of Jews in 13 EU countries say they experience antisemitism in daily life.
Never Forget and Never Again. [Post edited 27 Jan 7:51]
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 07:53 - Jan 27 with 2807 views | BloomBlue |
As you, and all should say; Never Forget and Never Again |  | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:14 - Jan 27 with 2746 views | PassionNotAnger |
I went to Krakow in Oct and we also visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. I don't think much can prepare you for how it makes you feel. I've seen photo's/films etc but being there and actually walking the paths so many only took in one direction is almost overwhelming.
The experience profoundly affected me - I would say I was, of course, aware of the history in a "theoretical" way perhaps but being there was like a hammer blow - seeing how the "lucky" ones who weren't exterminated on the day of arrival had to sleep in glorified cow sheds before working for hours a day in brutal conditions with barely any food and no hope.
The scale of it is truly mind-blowing but then getting a glimpse into a tiny fraction of the individuals (through pictures, hair, shoes, luggage etc) from beautiful innocent tiny children to elderly grandparents is almost incomprehensible.
This wasn't ancient history either - there are still amazingly some survivors - but for geography/circumstances/religion it could have been one of our parents/grandparents.
This happened, on the simplest possible level, because of an individuals view of which people should be allowed in a particular place based on how they look and identify. Scary. |  | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:19 - Jan 27 with 2718 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
Watching the scenes this morning is moving.
It is hard to imagine the mindset of those that would build a prison and then murder those they incarcerate there. |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:27 - Jan 27 with 2689 views | Keno |
had a trup to Auschwitz about 18 months ago, found it very moving and challenging - how could people do that do other people
Also remembering people who died, not in the death canps but because of their small acts opposing the way that people were being treated where they lived
Never Forget and Never Again. [Post edited 27 Jan 8:28]
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:37 - Jan 27 with 2636 views | Swansea_Blue |
Well said. ‘Never again’ is under threat like never before. The steep increases in hate crime against Jews and other minority groups is worrying and disgusting. There are far too many angry and hateful people out there.
It makes you fear for what happens when there are no more holocaust survivors to continually help educate and remind younger generations - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8x195dnlro.amp [Post edited 27 Jan 8:41]
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 09:57 - Jan 27 with 2494 views | DJR |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:19 - Jan 27 by BanksterDebtSlave |
Watching the scenes this morning is moving.
It is hard to imagine the mindset of those that would build a prison and then murder those they incarcerate there. |
Or a society in which antisemitism can flourish as much as it did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_of_the_Holocaust_in_Nazi_Germany_and_Ger
The question of how much knowledge German (and other European) civilians had about the Holocaust whilst it was happening has been studied and debated by historians. In Nazi Germany, it was an open secret among the population by 1943, Peter Longerich argues, but some authors place it even earlier. |  | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 10:53 - Jan 27 with 2369 views | MattinLondon |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:27 - Jan 27 by Keno |
had a trup to Auschwitz about 18 months ago, found it very moving and challenging - how could people do that do other people
Also remembering people who died, not in the death canps but because of their small acts opposing the way that people were being treated where they lived
Never Forget and Never Again. [Post edited 27 Jan 8:28]
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If anyone finds themselves in London then I would recommend the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/the-holocaust-galleries
It is an extremely hard visit as it’s essentially highlighting human hatred in great uncompromising detail.
If I may make this personal - there’s old video reels of people arriving at Auschwitz. On one such clip a dad is holding the hands of his two small children. One is swinging and pulling down on his dad’s arms which is something which mine still do as if it’s a day out. Brings tears to my eyes.
Never again. |  | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 11:07 - Jan 27 with 2279 views | GavTWTD |
The BBC did a documentary called "Auschwitz: The Final Solution" was a disturbing look at the engineering of the camp, the thought processes, and the people involved. It detailed the evolution in creating a death factory and making it more efficient. Totally chilling.
I've recorded "Auschwitz: Countdown to Liberation" and will watch it tomorrow. Has anyone seen it? |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:10 - Jan 27 with 2158 views | FBI |
I lived in Israel for a short while in the late 90s; seeing the old folk walking about in short sleeved shirts with *those* tattoos exposed was a shock at first and something that doesn't really leave you as, I'm sure, the memories they had would be seared onto their very souls.
My father-in-law was a Royal Marine, taken prisoner on Crete in 1941, and spent some time at Mauthausen POW camp. If the supposed German administrative efficiency hadn't let them down they would have realised his Jewish background and he would have been moved to the other camp just up the road where things would have gone very differently.
*Never* forget. [Post edited 27 Jan 12:12]
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:34 - Jan 27 with 2085 views | buoyant |
I've just spent the weekend in Budapest and visiting the various memorials and reading up what went on here during the various centuries culminating in the deportation of all bar a few jews in the city, to the death camps, really has hit home.
We simply must not sleepwalk into ethnic cleansing on any scale happening again. |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:43 - Jan 27 with 2055 views | soupytwist |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:34 - Jan 27 by buoyant |
I've just spent the weekend in Budapest and visiting the various memorials and reading up what went on here during the various centuries culminating in the deportation of all bar a few jews in the city, to the death camps, really has hit home.
We simply must not sleepwalk into ethnic cleansing on any scale happening again. |
I think that Budapest is the place from which the largest number of Jews were deported in the shortest time, 1944-45 following the German occupation of Hungary, some kind of grim record.
I read about in the excellent Blizzard biography of Erno Erbstein, the manager of the Grande Torino side that perished in the Superga disaster. |  | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:49 - Jan 27 with 1974 views | buoyant |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:43 - Jan 27 by soupytwist |
I think that Budapest is the place from which the largest number of Jews were deported in the shortest time, 1944-45 following the German occupation of Hungary, some kind of grim record.
I read about in the excellent Blizzard biography of Erno Erbstein, the manager of the Grande Torino side that perished in the Superga disaster. |
Hungary in general was yes. The occupying nazis together with the Hungarian axis systematically rounded up the majority of the rural Jewish population in that time and more or less incarcerated the city population who were starved and disease ridden by the time of Russian/Romanian liberation in Feb 45. | |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:53 - Jan 27 with 1953 views | Pinewoodblue |
Less than an hours drive from Prague you will find Terezin, effectively a feeder camp for Auschwitz-Birkenau. We took a guided tour, small mini bus.
Germans are good at keeping records. At the end of tour there is a small cinema and the short film ends with someone reading out information on each train that went from Terezun to Auschwitz, the number of passengers, followed by number of survivors, just a handful of survivors from each train.
Terezin was set up to show how well Jews, and other minorities, were being treated, was visited by International Red Cross
Never forget and never again
https://holocaustremembrance.com/explore-safeguarding-sites/terezin |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 13:02 - Jan 27 with 1916 views | Benters |
I’ve seen a program on Netflix I believe, it had some filming of these awful places.
One scene got me was a young Mother waiting in line with her young baby,the German guard just grabbed the baby out of her arms and threw it on the floor.The Mother stepped out to pick it up and was forced back by the guard.
What a terrible time. |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 14:25 - Jan 27 with 1737 views | J2BLUE |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 11:07 - Jan 27 by GavTWTD |
The BBC did a documentary called "Auschwitz: The Final Solution" was a disturbing look at the engineering of the camp, the thought processes, and the people involved. It detailed the evolution in creating a death factory and making it more efficient. Totally chilling.
I've recorded "Auschwitz: Countdown to Liberation" and will watch it tomorrow. Has anyone seen it? |
I have watched it. Fascinating but horrifying.
Not sure if it's that one or another programme but there's a picture of a woman who points herself out just after her sister is taken. A haunting snapshot of history that you just can't get your head around.
Pictures at Auschwitz were rare so it's fascinating to see them. |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 14:29 - Jan 27 with 1727 views | DJR |
It mustn't be forgotten that 3.3 million Jews were killed other than in places like Auschwitz.
According to the following link.
Approximately 2.7 million Jews were murdered at killing centres. The Nazi German regime created five killing centres specifically to murder Jewish people using poison gas. These killing centres were called Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
About 2 million Jews were murdered in mass shooting operations and related massacres. The Germans and their allies and collaborators carried out mass shooting operations and related massacres of Jews in more than 1,500 cities, towns, and villages across occupied eastern Europe.
Between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Jews were murdered in ghettos, labour camps, and concentration camps. In ghettos, concentration camps, and labor camps created by the Germans and their allies and collaborators, Jews were murdered through deliberate privation, disease, brutal treatment, and arbitrary acts of violence.
At least 250,000 Jews were murdered in other acts of violence outside of camps and ghettos. This includes Jews murdered in antisemitic riots; in individual executions; as partisans; and en route to and between sites of detention (on forced marches, trains, and ships).
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims [Post edited 27 Jan 14:33]
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 15:43 - Jan 27 with 1564 views | BloomBlue |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 14:29 - Jan 27 by DJR |
It mustn't be forgotten that 3.3 million Jews were killed other than in places like Auschwitz.
According to the following link.
Approximately 2.7 million Jews were murdered at killing centres. The Nazi German regime created five killing centres specifically to murder Jewish people using poison gas. These killing centres were called Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
About 2 million Jews were murdered in mass shooting operations and related massacres. The Germans and their allies and collaborators carried out mass shooting operations and related massacres of Jews in more than 1,500 cities, towns, and villages across occupied eastern Europe.
Between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Jews were murdered in ghettos, labour camps, and concentration camps. In ghettos, concentration camps, and labor camps created by the Germans and their allies and collaborators, Jews were murdered through deliberate privation, disease, brutal treatment, and arbitrary acts of violence.
At least 250,000 Jews were murdered in other acts of violence outside of camps and ghettos. This includes Jews murdered in antisemitic riots; in individual executions; as partisans; and en route to and between sites of detention (on forced marches, trains, and ships).
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims [Post edited 27 Jan 14:33]
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One stat that my wife will talk about which always hits me, at its height Auschwitz-Birkenau was murdering 12,000 people per day.
I thought about that again today. Because on Sat I was at Anfield along with 60,000 people. If those people were heading towards the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers, as those 60,000 children, women & men slowly walked out of Anfield, if that walk had started this Monday morning by end of Friday everyone at Anfield would have been murdered via the gas chambers. | | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 15:46 - Jan 27 with 1560 views | MVBlue |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 12:34 - Jan 27 by buoyant |
I've just spent the weekend in Budapest and visiting the various memorials and reading up what went on here during the various centuries culminating in the deportation of all bar a few jews in the city, to the death camps, really has hit home.
We simply must not sleepwalk into ethnic cleansing on any scale happening again. |
Its shocking to learn, as I did, that the Hungarians too fell under the same spell, started out by assaulting Jews in the street, then banished the Jews to camps and received bonuses for reporting Jews. Disgraceful. |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 16:05 - Jan 27 with 1497 views | itfcjoe |
I've mentioned it before but last year I read Danny Finkelstein's book 'Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad' about how both sides of his family were affected by the war, and it was such an engaging and excellently written biography which shows the real stories running through the middle of the war. How basically every Jew from Europe that survived the Holocaust was basically incredibly fortunate and needing such a specific series of random events in order to do so that it was miraculous to have done so.
A highly recommended read |  |
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 16:07 - Jan 27 with 1481 views | Number22 |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:37 - Jan 27 by Swansea_Blue |
Well said. ‘Never again’ is under threat like never before. The steep increases in hate crime against Jews and other minority groups is worrying and disgusting. There are far too many angry and hateful people out there.
It makes you fear for what happens when there are no more holocaust survivors to continually help educate and remind younger generations - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8x195dnlro.amp [Post edited 27 Jan 8:41]
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Then everyone has a responsibility to teach. |  | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 16:21 - Jan 27 with 1394 views | PhilTWTD |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 16:05 - Jan 27 by itfcjoe |
I've mentioned it before but last year I read Danny Finkelstein's book 'Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad' about how both sides of his family were affected by the war, and it was such an engaging and excellently written biography which shows the real stories running through the middle of the war. How basically every Jew from Europe that survived the Holocaust was basically incredibly fortunate and needing such a specific series of random events in order to do so that it was miraculous to have done so.
A highly recommended read |
I heard him talking about it here.
https://podcasts.apple.com/si/podcast/surviving-hitler-and-stalin/id256580326?i= |  | | |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 17:29 - Jan 27 with 1215 views | DJR |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 08:37 - Jan 27 by Swansea_Blue |
Well said. ‘Never again’ is under threat like never before. The steep increases in hate crime against Jews and other minority groups is worrying and disgusting. There are far too many angry and hateful people out there.
It makes you fear for what happens when there are no more holocaust survivors to continually help educate and remind younger generations - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8x195dnlro.amp [Post edited 27 Jan 8:41]
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Michael Rosen has written a book aimed at young readers which draws on the awful experiences of members of his own family, the type of book which hopefully can keep alive knowledge of the Holocaust for younger people.
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/book/t/the-missing-the-true-story-of-my-family-in-w
When Michael Rosen was a child, there were family stories about great aunts and great uncles in France and Poland who were there before the war and not there afterwards. When the young Michael asked what happened, his family would reply that they didn't know. How could it be that people could just disappear?
As an adult, Michael spent many years tracing his missing great uncles and aunts, and this book is the result.
A fascinating family memoir and a very personal story about terrible loss, The Missing describes the impact of the Holocaust on one family, and in doing so, shows children that what happened to the Rosens – the missing great uncles and aunts, but also the displacement of the rest of the family, and their grief for the missing – also happened to millions of others.
There is heartbreaking and horrifying detail here, when Rosen describes the packed trains of Jews being taken to Auschwitz, the air thick with children crying, and gives us the plain facts about how few of those people survived until the liberation of the camp in 1945. Yet, Rosen handles the difficult topic as sensitively and thoughtfully as you would expect, always writing in a straightforward and accessible way for children, interspersed with his own poetry.
The fact that this is a personal story means that it provides a relatable pathway into the overwhelming event of the Holocaust for young readers (and for adults, too). It's important that children and adults understand and empathise with the real people and their stories underneath the sometimes incomprehensible numbers and scale that history presents us when talking about the Holocaust. [Post edited 27 Jan 17:35]
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| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 17:39 - Jan 27 with 1173 views | positivity |
| Today is Holocaust Memorial Day on 10:53 - Jan 27 by MattinLondon |
If anyone finds themselves in London then I would recommend the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/the-holocaust-galleries
It is an extremely hard visit as it’s essentially highlighting human hatred in great uncompromising detail.
If I may make this personal - there’s old video reels of people arriving at Auschwitz. On one such clip a dad is holding the hands of his two small children. One is swinging and pulling down on his dad’s arms which is something which mine still do as if it’s a day out. Brings tears to my eyes.
Never again. |
and if in berlin, the holocaust memorial is incredibly moving and spares no punches in showing the road to the murders. give yourself an hour or two after to recover, chilling... | |
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