Holocaust Memorial Day 27th January

Well, I was just flicking through the channels on TV and noticed that BBC 4 was showing a "film drama" entitled "Primo" to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. So I Googled it and found this:

http://www.hmd.org.uk/about/

It's the first time I've ever heard of this annual commemoration. I'm wondering if others are as ill-informed as I, obviously, am?

 

Well I can say I wasn't up on this event- and suprisingly enough I didn't see or hear anything of the forthcoming HMD when I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau last Saturday.

 

I think it is time these guys moved on. No really. It is.

 

Highly esteemed mr.Brown wrote an excellent article on this theme

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=GXPLJPDPSKO2RQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/opinion/2008/01/26/do2603.xml

 

Why?
Do you think we should give up Remembrance Sunday too?
"Lest we forget" is equally important for victims of the Holocaust as it is for anyone else.Having visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and Belsen I think it is imperative that we don't forget it.

 

I do not know what *Having visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and Belsen I think it is imperative that we don't forget it.* means. Why should we not now forget it and move on? And plenty of people apart from you have visited those venues.

 

On the 24th Jan 1994, we were in the gas chamber at Rheindahlen. As the instructor lit yet more CS pellets the guy next to me said "Do you know what day it is?". "No" says I.

"Well, its the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz" says he. Suddenly life seemed much better and all of us felt just a little bit guilty because we knew we were going to survive.

 

DD

I take your point.

I joined up with a British tour and when we went into the gas chamber I was the ONLY person to remove my hat.

FFS people were destroyed in that room and no one seemed moved by it. The people were just indifferent and that makes me think that despite the horror of what was done perhaps it is time to let go.

Camp 1 is the barracks,

The film industry has created scenes that make the camp look like a film set.

Sanitising the camp by painting and repairing and providing low key displays gives it an almost "theme park" feel.
(Of the displays all I found moving were the photos of people that displayed date of arrival and date of death.)

Camp 2 - Birkenau is however stark and chilling and it gives a very different view.

But I do have a burning memory from 1981 that makes me say
No keep the past alive and
"Remember what was done in these places"

 

The point is that prior to my visit I'd only seen old black and white pictures that really don't convey the horror of what was happening. Having visited and seen things like the piles of human hair , the room full of spectacles and the conditions these people lived and died in I gained a clearer picture of what the term Death Camp meant. We should never ever forget it I know I won't.

 

Not like Duffdike to be controversial, yet boring at the same time .

How does he do that?

 

Go to the museum underneath the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. If you can keep dry eyes when you read the letters from the individuals who knew they were about to be killed, you are a harder soul than me...

I walked out thinking that everyone should visit...

 

Cool Mate. Just let me know when I can come along to beat your family to death, or maybe just starve them until they catch a disease that will kill them and I'll pop along and do it.

Of course I'll be working them as long as they are able, and as soon as they aren't I'll have one of the others kill them. Of course I'll seperate out the grandchildren and elderly first and get your next door neighbour to kill them as they are of no use to me.

I'll be doing all this because I don't like Ex Rodneys who have their heads buried in their own hoop - just my opinion you understand.

Then pop along and tell me how long it will be before you get over it and move on.

 

A pretty insensitive statement duffdike!

Did you ever hear the term "Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat It"?

I visited the Dachau concentration camp in 1968 and I will never forget what I saw there.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005214

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Dachau/

 

A good article Sergey! Many Russian (Soviet Union) POWs and civilians were murdered in these camps as well.

 

Moved on to what exactly?

The cost of life was around the six million mark. Unarmed, imprisoned and of no threat. The holocaust is the most horrific slaughter of human life to date.

In my opinion you should never move on than that, it should be a constant reminder of how low and destructive we as a species can become.