Holocaust Memorial Day

Discussion in 'The Holocaust' started by Wise1, Dec 15, 2004.

  1. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

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  2. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Czesława.jpg

    This is Czesława Kwoka, 14 years old. Her only crime was to have lived as a Pole in the wrong place at the wrong time. (this list could be continued indefinitely)
    Because the self-appointed representatives of a so-called master race did not know what to do with her, she and her mother were summarily disposed of in Auschwitz like garbage. She did not survive this for long......

    It is by far not enough to say, "Something like this must never happen again!" - one must also be willing to accept unpleasant disadvantages in order to really prevent such a thing.
    For it was seldom the deeds of a few that made evil possible - but the silence of the masses. And THAT is indeed a German hereditary guilt, which "we" will rightly bear for a long time to come.
    (If I have violated the masonic rule with this - I don't care, sorry that)
    regards
    Olli
     
  3. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Watch today's Holocaust Memorial Day on YOUTUBE at 4pm

    Link:

    Ron
     
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  4. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    My elementary school teacher, Rachel, was one of the lucky few to escape. When the war broke out she was a little girl living in Antwerp with her mother. The family had moved to Belgium from Poland to escape the antisemitism in that country, so they knew very well what Hitler meant. When the Germans invaded Belgium Rachel and her mother took to the roads, fleeing westwards to find safety with the BEF and maybe get to Britain. They were just two of the hundreds of thousands of refugees clogging the highways, and though Rachel never talked about it to me I imagine she and her mother must have seen their share of the horrors of that time. They weren't able to get to Dunkirk so they finally had to make their way back to Antwerp. There they lived in mounting fear under German rule for two more years. Then one day Rachel's mother went into the local German office on some routine matter. There was a German official there who was kinder than the others, and he said softly to her: "You must get out of Antwerp. Something terrible is about to happen to the Jews." Rachel's mother was highly intelligent and she believed him. So she fled with Rachel once more, out of Belgium, across the occupied zone of France, and into the Vichy zone. I don't know the details of how she did this yet, but Rachel's mother was a very attractive and forceful woman and she had connections in the Antwerp diamond business so perhaps she bartered some stones for safety and transportation. She knew she wasn't safe in the Vichy zone either so she crossed into Spain and eventually reached Lisbon, where she was able to get her daughter and herself a passage to Cuba. They reached Cuba and spent some time in a refugee camp before finally getting passage to New York, which is where Rachel lived for the rest of her days. She was a remarkable person, always sunny and optimistic despite--or perhaps because of--her narrow escape. She never thought her own story was very special, perhaps because all the refugees from Hitler could tell similar ones.
     
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  5. Little Friend

    Little Friend Senior Member

    4e459297011a250e0d684e008039d5c2.jpeg ec1b9f2a3fceff49dd08a28f8a3ffb51.jpeg

    I took these at the D-Day Museum in Southsea, October 2013.
     
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  6. Grasmere

    Grasmere Well-Known Member

    Just watching The Last Survivors documentary on BBC2. Some very poignant stories. I had school friends who had ancestors that were lost in or had experience of the Holocaust - we must always remember.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2021
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  7. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    There is no boycott in Germany, as every year, the Bundestag and many local parliaments, churches and of course synagogues had some event.
    Stefan.
     
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  8. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

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  9. gmyles

    gmyles Senior Member

    Last edited: Jan 27, 2022
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  10. vitellino

    vitellino Senior Member

    Cancelled because I made a mistake
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2022
  11. Grasmere

    Grasmere Well-Known Member

    A really good interview on BBC Breakfast this morning with one of the last Holocaust survivors, Arek Hersh, aged 93, and the artist who painted his portrait, one of seven recently commissioned by Prince Charles.

    'Didn't know I would live’ Holocaust survivor Arek Hersh details escape from Auschwitz

    The Prince met the survivors and artists and was very moved by their stories. The paintings will be a permanent reminder of some remarkable people having gone through unimaginable horrors and survived.

    There will also be a documentary on BBC 2 at 9pm this evening called "Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust", which goes into more detail.
     
  12. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Not read a book specifically relating to the Holocaust for years, despite a longish period of reading little but.
    Seems not uncommon that people hit a wall of grim fatigue when attempting to more fully understand events. My congratulations to those that remain engaged with the subject.

    The conclusion I drew was that we'll never really 'understand' it, but we mustn't stop looking at & remembering what went on.
    There's some right fucking bastards in the world, and there always will be... Watch out for 'em.
     
  13. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    On 1 October 1933, the "Disciplinary and punishment regulations for the prison camp" came into force. The "Dachau School" was based on it as the ideological foundation for the (deliberately inhumane) treatment of the prisoners. From these beginnings, one by one, things have escalated into the unimaginable:

    Disciplinary and punishment regulations for the prison camp, issued by the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, Theodor Eicke, on 1 October 1933.
    (incompletely handed down) State Archives Nuremberg

    Introduction
    Within the framework of the existing camp regulations, the following penal provisions are issued for the maintenance of discipline and order in the area of Dachau Concentration Camp. All prisoners of the K. L. D.
    [Konzentrations Lager Dachau] are subject to these regulations from the time of admission until the time of release. The camp commandant is responsible for the execution of the camp regulations and is personally accountable to the political police commander.
    Tolerance means weakness. Based on this realization, ruthless action will be taken wherever it appears necessary in the interest of the Fatherland. The decent, incited people will not come into contact with these penal provisions. But to the politicizing agitators and intellectual rabble-rousers - of whatever stripe - beware that you are not caught, otherwise you will be grabbed by the necks and silenced according to your own recipe.


    https://www.hdbg.de/dachau/pdfs/05/05_03/05_03_01.pdf
     
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  14. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    Last edited: Jan 27, 2022
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  15. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    My Jewish ancestry (one eighth) is from a small town called Uhlirske Janovice, about 30 miles southeast of Prague. Jews first settled there in the 18th century. The family names included Stern, Taussig, Hoffmann, Dub, Schultz, Kaplan, Secora, and Kafka. The community was never huge but it had a synagogue and a cemetery. The community shrank in the late 19th century as people moved away to the cities and also (like my great-great grandfather and -great-great-grandmother) to America. By 1930, there were less than 60 Jews left in Uhlirske Janovice. The cemetery is still there, though the local teenage clods periodically vandalize it. The synagogue, too, is still standing. Most remarkably, the community Torah was saved. But there are no Jews living in Uhlirske Janovice today. They were all deported in 1942.

    Thanks, Neville. Thanks, Peace in Our Time.
    Uhrliske Janovice Synagogue 1.jpg Uhlirske Janovice Synagogue 2.jpg
     

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  16. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Friday 27th January 2023


    Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | HMD 2023 Theme



    And as a five year old, I could stand at the edge of the clearing where the trains were being loaded. People like sardines in those wooden trucks.
    And the people loading them in – they were railway men, they didn’t look terribly different from the railway men who check my tickets these days – they looked like ordinary people.

    Dr Martin Stern MBE, Holocaust survivor

    These railway workers, who looked so ordinary, were indeed ordinary people from all across Nazi-occupied Europe, working as train drivers, conductors, signal men. Some of these ordinary people were perpetrators, driving Jewish people to concentration camps; some were rescuers, hiding Jews.
     
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  17. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    I cannot understand the numbers, whether looking at the name of my Grandmother's first husband ( she remarried ) on the Menin Gate, or in Singapore captured lists: the lists are countless.

    "Pte Heinz Mendelsohn, fought as Johnny Melford - refugee from Berlin born 13.9.22 – 2nd Bn. Sussex reg. then 21st Independent Paras - volunteered for Paras in early 1943 - Arnhem - wounded (shot through cheek ) - escaped"

    A friend of my father I knew as "Uncle John." Educated at a minor English public school, he refused to join the Cadets. He had seen the real thing. So they made him scrub the parade ground with a toothbrush.

    He was the model of an English gentleman.

    So I think on the family of Jewish Berliners he lost.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2023
  18. Uncle Target

    Uncle Target Mist over Dartmoor

    I did a little research today it being Holocaust Memorial Day.
    I came across this article:

    Blog #Heinz Thannhauser - robertspublications

    Lt Bill Beadle attended Buxton School at this time and must have known him.
    Lt Beadle's younger brother spoke fluent German and may have learned the language with the assistance of the 30 or so German Jewish children to whom the headmaster offered places, some at his own expense.
    Buxton College - Wikipedia

    Both Lt Beadle and Heinz Thannhauser died in Italy in 1944.
     

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    Last edited: Jan 27, 2023
  19. Grasmere

    Grasmere Well-Known Member

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