unclebuck

I don't know if anyone else is watching this.

Numbing.... truely numbing....

Dave_A

I watched this, very moving, very horrific, frightens me that this was going on just over 60 years ago. Its staggering the number of people who actually carried out orders and helped in the genocide is utterly beyond belief.

It certainly brings a little perspective into what ew perceive today as hardship and unfairness.

I hope what happens is never forgotten.

Dave

albob

I hope 'Harry' was watching (or made to watch..)

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

I'm still watching it and it's jaw droppingly awful.

I really am starting to feel hatred for those Germans Trouble is my brother in law is German and I love going to the 'Ring. Odd!

F

Geezer

I think the Germans were just unfortunate to have had Hitler come to power then. You can guarantee that if he had come to power here, there would have been extermination camps in the UK. There are always enough people willing to follow someone like him.

Geezer

The Zohan

I find it hard to watch and sometimes i turn over, i have a real problem watching kids being hurded into gas chambers or looking a the emancipated(sp) bodies of the living and dead.

I watched something on the History Channel or such the other day and an ex British servicman (who ended up in one of the camps) was telling how he watched German soldiers throwning live children into a lit fire pit shortly before the camp was overrun by the Allies.

Words just do not cover how that makes you feel.

CrisPDuk

There was nothing unfortunate about it. The German people ELECTED Adolf Hitler into power, on a manifesto not unlike that being touted by the BNP in this country today

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Sorry but you can not tar todays Germans with the **** Germans of 60 - 65 years ago, I currently live in Germany and there are alot of Germans that do not know about the attrocities as it is not talked about or taught in schools, most of the Germans I know or have met have been nothing but nice.

Also I have visited Dachau and it is on a main road, most of the Dachau villagers had no idea what exactly went on inside the camp, I am also off to Aushwitz in a couple of months to see what is left there.

Alot of these camps are still standing as a reminder of what went on but most of the modern Germans do not want to know and to be honest I don't blame them. There are far to many biggots in this world that hold Germany and Germans responsible for attrocities carried out 60 years ago by a handfull of loonies. If you watched the program last night you would realise that the average German soldier was just that a soldier doing his job, The Waffen SS, Geheim Statt Polizei (Gestapo) and the **** party where not the regular German army. Just look at that German officer who drove into the Warsaw Ghetto and drove out with 2 trucks full of Jews. And Oscar Schindler to name just 2.

Jiggerypokery

Sorry Paul, it's emaciated you mean (to become thin through starvation).
Emancipated means to set free.

Leslie

It is a part of history that we should never forget. I would hate to be a part of a nation which permitted that situation to arise and to happen.

Many people now will not realise just how dreadfully the Jews and the other political and ethnic prisoners were treated by the *****. It is an indication of what man can do to his fellows and similar inhuman acts and murders were carried out during the recent Balkan wars.

This sort of thing could happen these days in any country as well and we should learn from history and be on our guard against it.

Les

CrisPDuk

Read the Guantanamo Returnees thread, and you can quite easily see how a modern day Hitler could rise to power in this country.

Just as Hitler had Goebbels, all a new dictator would need is Rupert Murdoch on his side, substitute Moslems/immigrants for Jews and the population of this country would lap it up as if it was Gospel, which incidentally is still probably the finest piece of propaganda ever written

Jiggerypokery

I am of the opinion that is the main reason why this period of recent history should be drummed into every following generation from an early age.

If you had told someone at the start of the 20th century what was going to happen in 40 years time in what they thought was a civilised country, they would not have believed you. The fact that the genocide was carried out by the government of the country should serve as a reminder that we should never fully trust our own, or any other government.

The Zohan

You are indeed correct i meant to put 'emaciated', not had any caffine when i posted the above - DOH!

At least you knew what i meant.

Geezer

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear.

If the situation in Britain had been the same as Germany in the late 20s/early 30s, then someone like Hitler would have done well and been VOTED in here as well.

The Germans of today are no more likely to do this again than anyone else.

Geezer

GC8

Strictly speaking; Hitler wasnt 'voted in'

Geezer

Yes he was. He was elected as Chancellor in 1933, but seized ultimate power upon Bismarcks death. Thereafter, he just consolidated his power through the methods we all know and love.

Geezer

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

I have visited Bergen-Belsen in Germany and I can positively say it is a moving and very thought provoking place. It is true that no birds sing there. Within minutes of going in my daughters both said " We don't like this place Daddy, Can we go home now". Bergen-Belsen is not the biggest but most people miss the Russian Cemetry to the rear of the site 10's of thousands more in there too. Go to Belsen and remember. Being an ex-soldier, it really makes you think. I have also seen the effects of genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo. It's not far away.

Geezer

Strange that, my dad's National Service posting was at Belsen. Their barracks were the old SS barracks, best accomodation you could get in Germany! He was there for 9 months, and and he recalls that everything was normal, birds singing, foxes the lot.

It really is a myth.

Geezer

Ted Maul

I find it difficult talking to a german knowing that his granddad MIGHT have gassed my relatives.
I'm shocked that they don't teach the children this in germany.

AudiMan

Absolutely shocking, even more disturbing is the figures quoted this morning on TV that 60% of 20 to 30 year old in this country don't even know what Auschwitz (sp) was !.
Maybe if the BBC didn't hide these programs on BBC2 then more people would be aware, or are they just worried about upsetting our German neighbours, oh and don't forget the French, they seemed pretty keen to hand over anyone of Jewish origin to save their own skins.
Education, education and more education, this period of history should NOT be forgotten. Oh and don't forget the Jap's they wern't exactly following the geneva convention either.

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Geezer

Inside the cemetry it is eerily quite. Outside yes birds sing,******* bizarre. Belsen Concentartion Camp is in fact a few miles north of the main Camp.The Main Naafi shop "The Round House" (Squaddie TESCO) is the old SS HQ. Much architecture still in tact. The range complex (military tank range and exercise area) close by has a big bunker in the middle called the "Hitler Hof". He used to watch his troops exercising and developing panzers. Now every one shots the **** out of it. Funnily enough for years I hear the germans have tried to get the Naafi back to there ownership.

GC8

I dont really want to take this off-topic but the Chancellor was appointed by the governing party/President not voted for by the electorate. I think that Im right in saying that in the 1932 election they (NSDAP -the *****-) lost a lot of the ground gained in 1930 and only had 1/3rd of the parliamentary seats when Hindenberg made Hitler Chancellor after being petitioned to do so by influential industrialists fearing communist insurrection. Hitler had previously demanded that be he made Chancellor after a years lobbying but Hindenberg had refused. Hitlers lobbying and the actions his Stormtroopers actually caused his relative failure in the 1932 election where seats were lost.

Regards

Simon

Leslie

I have visited Dachau and Sachsenhausen and can back up what has been said about such terrible places. The locals say that Dachau was not a death camp, but the prisoners used to be marched down the road to another place to be executed.

Sachsenhausen, near eastern Berlin was pretty awful. The prisoners who went there were specially selected and were told the only way out was feet first! On the way round it I came to the place where the medical experiments were carried out on the prisoners until they expired from the effects of them. That was when I became overcome with anger and just had to walk out.

I spoke to an elderly German who lived near there and he said that when the Russians arrived at the end of the war, the prisoners in there were not released and also that the camp was used for the same purposes as the ***** until 1968!

British commandos who were caught during WW2 were imprisoned and murdered there. They in particular were hated by the ***** for their successes against them.

All this could easily happen again!

Les

unclebuck

This is why it is essential to get a grip on immigration.

Only a Government that has learned nothing from history could act otherwise.

Brendan Hughes

Yeah, don't allow any Austrians in.

Iain Young

Actually I know several Austrians, (from rural Austria) and you couldn't hope to meet a nicer bunch of people. I've heard several pretty harrowing first hand stories of what the germans did to them (or would do to them) if they didn't comply. Also been shown around a couple of churches etc where firing squads were set up (bullet holes are still in the walls).

Been to a lot of places in Austria, and pretty much everyone I've spoken to has a strong dislike for the Germans. Including a couple I know from the Austrian armed forces and police...

That this history isn't being taught in German schools etc is unforgivable in my book. The only way to ensure something like this doesn't happen again is to make people aware of the horrors of what did happen. Sweeping it under the carpet isn't going to help the situation at all....

22BUK

I visited Dachau in 1995 while working in Munich. When I talked to German colleagues at work afterwards, they said that up until the late 1980's it was being taught in school that "it never happened", but now it was a requirement for every child to visit one of the camps sometime during their time at school.

Iain Young

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I've been to Dachau, and Mauthausen in Austria, and in the mid 70's, stayed in Nuremburg, where I actually stood on the spot Hitler did during the rallies. Makes you feel weird!

Funnily enough, I spoke to quite a few older Germans while we were there, and although many remembered, and some even admitted that the death camps were known about by late on, I couldn't find ONE person who admitted having voted for, or supported the *****!

So who the hell were all those folk you see on the newsreels giving it the old sieg hiel?

Anyone else been to Oradour sur Glane in France? Now that's awesome too!
On my first visit, there'd been a storm and there were branches down everywhere. It looked like the Germans had just left!

Alcazar

TelBoy

The Holocaust museum in Washington, USA is well worth a visit.