Jumbo Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 07:49AM
At last, a posting that makes idiots think instead of drool
mkcerusky Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 09:13AM
thanks stiffler
Bob Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 03:37PM
best post in ages
Anonymous Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 06:47PM
what is in that pile?
Stiffler Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 07:33PM
Set up in 1940 by occupying Nazi forces near the town of Oswiecim in southern
Poland as a labour camp for Poles, Auschwitz gradually became the centrepiece in
Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's "final solution" plan to exterminate
Jews.
On Jan. 27, hundreds of survivors and dozens of world leaders will commemorate
the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation by the Soviet army and pay homage
to the estimated 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, murdered there by the
Nazis.
The scale of the industrialised killing at the camp, the cruelty of the guards
and the pseudo-medical experiments conducted on prisoners by Nazi doctors have
made Auschwitz synonymous with a coldly efficient genocide and total degradation
of humanity.
Men, women and children -- mostly Jewish, but Gypsies, Russians and Poles too --
from Nazi-occupied Europe were taken to Auschwitz in overcrowded cattle trains.
Many died of hunger and suffocation during the journey which usually lasted
days.
Terrified, foul-smelling and starving, those who made the trip were often
relieved at the prospect of fresh air and food. They did not know that the smoke
from nearby chimneys was coming from crematoria burning the bodies of earlier
arrivals.
Illusions were quickly dispelled as the guards separated those capable of hard
work from the elderly and children who were sent straight to the gas chambers --
the process known in the camp as "selection."
Families were divided and many women who did not want to part with their small
children were shot on the spot.
Those who survived the "selection", not knowing what happened to
family and friends, were stripped of their clothes, belongings and identity. A
number was tattoed on their arm and they were given a soup bowl and spoon.
Dressed in characteristic striped uniforms, the prisoners were then marched
towards the labour camp under the gate adorned with giant inscription
"Arbeit Macht Frei" (work sets one free) that came to symbolise the
depth of Nazi cynicism.
The smell of burning corpses confirmed their worst suspicions as they gradually
realised what fate met the others.
With the "final solution" accelerating just as the Nazis began to
realise they could lose the war, the death factory at Auschwitz ran out of
capacity in mid-1944.
The crematoria could not cope with the volume of bodies so pits were dug to burn
them.
Auschwitz was not the end for all prisoners. Some were moved to new camps,
others escaped and survived the war.
When stunned Red Army soldiers arrived at Auschwitz, they were greeted by the
sight of 7,000 emaciated inmates who had been left behind by fleeing Nazis.
Stiffler Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 07:35PM
Sorry 'bout the long winded copy and paste section above but I thought it made
for good reading.
GAK67 Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 07:53PM
Stiffler, don't worry about the length, and you are right it does make good
reading. I have never been to Auschwitz, but I did visit Dachau. It was a warm
autumn day when I went there and my body felt cold fom the moment I walked
through the gate until I walked back out again.
As devastating as recent terrorist attacks have been, it kind of put things into
perspective when you think about 1.5 million people murdered at this one
facility and 6 million murdered overall. These were not soldiers killed in
battle. They were innocent children, loving parents, elderly people who should
have been enjoying their golden years and young people who should have had a
future.
Nazi racist bigots have a lot to answer for.
Lest we forget.
duuuuuuuuuuuuude Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 08:20PM
damn, i remember the scene from band of brothers where they liberated the work
camp. i know that was fake and all, but damn. it really just sinks in when you
see (even a recreation of) what happened at those places.
now time to sit back and wait for all the s to start posting their crap
here.
Stiffler Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 10:42PM
I only just recently watched Schindlers List and that was a real eye opener as
well.
GAK67 Report This Comment Date: January 26, 2005 11:50PM
Life is Beautiful is another movie about concentration camps that makes you
realise how much the survivors and those that were not immediately gassed had to
go through. And as Du...de said, these are just movies.
mkcerusky Report This Comment Date: January 28, 2005 08:21AM
Concerning "La vita è bella" (en. "Life is beautiful"
I would just like to recall the trick used by
the father to save the children in the lager: he told the children that it was
all a game. This trickis not an original invention by R.Benigni, it is not his
pure fantasy, but it is an adaptation of the trick used by his own father, who
survived a Lager, to protect his sons from such a cruel reality after the war.
In fact he used to joke with them about he terrible experience he had.
stussy_demon Report This Comment Date: February 16, 2005 01:36PM
Stiffler you should watch a film called the Pianist. Stunning, shocking and
moving in every sence. "A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the
destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II"
gruff Report This Comment Date: August 13, 2005 03:40PM
Andrzej Wajda's film "Kanaly" is good too, on the Warsaw resistance
and how it was crushed.
