Holocaust Memorial Day

Never forget.

 

Can't believe their are lunatics out their who deny it ever happened, probably the same people who think we are going to be microchipped, the vapour trails from jets are actually not vapour trails but aircraft filled with drums of toxic gas in order to kill us( even the people who send them up lol) oh and the earth is flat

 

i used to stationed just up the road from bergen/belsen in a place called soltau and our armour was in hohne which is the next village to the camp ( 7 armd bge) and have visited the place on numerous occasions ( we used to take new recruits there on driver familiarisation) i think everyone should visit a place like this belsen/dachau/aushwitz to see what fanatasism and non tolerance can lead to

 

Jan Aage Fjortoft ️‍ (@JanAageFjortoft) Tweeted:
On the #HolocaustRemembranceDay
Please take some time to listen to Helmut

I really don't think I could.

 

It is truly horrific. And that's why it should be done.

 

One book I couldn’t recommend highly enough is ‘Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin’ by Timothy Snyder. Very readable for such a daunting subject.

To quote from the introduction:

“In the middle of the 20th Century the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered some fourteen million people.

The place where all the victims died, the bloodlands, extends from Central Poland to Western Russia through the Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. The victims were chiefly Jews, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Russians and Balts, the people native to these lands. These people were all victims of murderous policy, not casualties of war. Not a single one of that fourteen million murdered was a soldier on active duty. Most were women, children and the aged.

My family were among that number. Only my father - who was 14 when war broke out -survived. Miracle I’m here at all.

 

I've just read up on Anne Frank again. Poignant stuff.

 

I remember reading her diary when I was a teenager, writing down the normal things a teenage girl goes through against that awful backdrop of spending those years cooped up in hiding, in fear of their lives.Puts lockdown into perspective.

 

I have to say, of all the places I've loved travelling, the ones I've appreciated and enjoyed most have been those in Eastern Europe that were so tragically subjected to such repeated horrors from respective evil oppressors. All of those places have museums or sites that show just some of what occurred. Whether in Gdansk, Vilnius, Riga, Lviv, Budapest, Tallinn and of course Krakow and beyond. it shows of the spread of terror that the Nazis inflicted, but for the Baltic states in particular, a period that was sandwiched between eras of Soviet destruction and torture.

I think it was Vilnius where i heard that when the Nazis first invaded, the local citizens cheered and celebrated as it rid soviet control. Only for it to be worse still. The reward for ridding the Nazis was more soviet occupation and an intensifying of retributions until the fall of the iron curtain and the wonderful linking of arms through the 3 baltic nations for 600km in 1989.

Baltic Chain Tour Baltic Chain Story - Baltic Chain Tour

Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll search that out.

 

We did a few classes on her at Primary School. It's always stuck with me though. More how they were so near yet so far when it came to surviving. It was most likely someone close to them that grassed them up too.

That is often the case.

 

My old man never talked about what happened but as a kid I wouldn't stop pestering him. So he told me. "I come from a place that doesn't exist, where everyone is dead." Many years later I found out where his village had been and went back with him. You'd never meet a braver man.

 

What amazes me isn't just that so many endured these horrors for so long. But that so many resisted and fought back knowing it meant likely death and torture.

Whereabouts was the village if i may ask? And you absolutely don't have to say if you want to keep it privately. I would absolutely understand.

 

I read a very interesting book a couple of years ago about a police squad from Germany (Hamburg I think) who were sent to Poland to help round up Jews. They mostly went to small villages where they helped round people up and sometimes actually took part in mass shootings. These were not Nazis, and were mostly middle aged men who had been Policemen all their working lives and simply did what they were told to do. I can't remember the numbers but the squad had helped to dispose of thousands of men women and children. The book is not sensationalist, it's very matter of fact and is actually based on a research project conducted by the author immediately after the war and includes first-hand accounts from the Police officers themselves. A very disturbing and sobering read. I think it was called "Reserve Police Battalion 101".

 

I don't take those morons too seriously, they deny it because they know how abhorrent, sick, & horrendous these crimes were & they don't want to believe it. You know it, I know it, we all know it & they dam well know it to be true.
It's one who glorify it & embrace it that worries me.

 

I was based in Germany for a short period and not got to visit, it is definitely on my bucket list

 

Donald Trump supporter on January 6th.

 

An abhorrence of the highest order

 

I must admit, when I saw this previously I just couldn't believe someone had worn such a thing. Irrespective of its links to trump fanatics. All I can hope is that he was simply ignorant of the horrors of Auschwitz Birkenau or even that he was just being an idiot wanting to cause reaction. The thought that he may have approved or wish for further examples in the future... I just can't comprehend that.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. My wife and I visited Krakow just before lockdown last year. Whilst there we visited Auschwitz / Birkenau. Whilst I of course knew about the holocaust I wasn't prepared for what we learned about the depth of wickedness inflicted upon the hundreds of thousands of people who passed through the gates. It is evil and deeply disturbing. Birkenau is huge and illustrates the scale of murder that happened there. I will never forget it and as jedi one says - that's exactly the reason why I'd encourage everyone to go there. We must never forget.

As an aside, we thought Krakow was a beautiful city. Stunning architecture, great food, warm and welcoming people. I'd also recommend doing a guided tour of the Jewish quarter to also hear and experience more about the persecution of Jews in the Ghetto.