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Thread: 74 Years ago, today

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    Default 74 Years ago, today

    Today, Jan 25th, 2023, is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz II Birkenau concentration camp by the Soviet*Army.
    We have the expression "Heaven on Earth". If we had "Hell on Earth" it would be Auschwitz.

    My late wife and I made our first trip to Poland three months before the Berlin Wall came down.* We were backpacking through Europe and in West Germany and saw*the East*German consulate and wandered*in just to look*around and get a free map or something.* A guard*asked*us what we wanted, and we told him a visa. He took us to a desk and introduced us to a consulate*officer who spoke English. Though I spoke German, I spoke High German and couldn't understand his East German accent. We just told the officer we would like to visit East Germany.* When he saw our US passports, I thought he would just tell us to get lost and we could get out of the consulate and back into West Germany.* Damned if he didn't tell us to wait and went off with our passports.* Ten minutes*or so later he came back and told us he would need five photographs, ten dollars each in US dollars.* We had heaps of passport size photos with us and the cash he took, stamped an entry visa into our passports and that was that.

    We went to the central train station and found we could catch a train to Krakow in occupied Poland, going through East Germany, that way we could get our passport stamped*as entering East Germany and we could visit My wife's cousins in Krakow under Soviet occupation (without a Polish visa) who she had been writing to.* That's how we ended up in Krakow, Poland and later in East Germany.

    My wife's cousin dropped*us at the gates*to Auschwitz. and we went into the camp.* There were only a dozen or so other tourists wandering around.* Today it is crowded, we entered by walking down the train tracks that led the poor souls to hell.

    The camp was beyond belief.* There were large rooms, formally barracks, sealed by glass inside filled with thousands of shoes mens, women's and*children's*waiting to be matched up into pairs then shipped to Germany. Another with huge piles of human hair to be shipped to be used as stuffing in furniture.

    The ovens and showers sent chills up my spine.

    The barracks and the sleeping bunks made for six to a bunk from brick, no heat for the cold winter nights. Horrible.*

    To enter the camp, you had to walk under the infamous gate sign that says "Arbeit Macht Frei" instantly recognized (Work makes you free).
    To exit you walk across the parade ground where morning and evening roll cords*were made and the raised speaker's stage still stand, also the gallows for six.

    The last thing is the gallows where the Soviets hung the camp commander.

    I have quite a few German friends, there is a difference between Germans and Nazis.* The people who ran or organized these camps were Nazis and not even the Nazis that were purely political Nazis would do this sort of thing.* These were sickos.

    Today, if any country called for volunteers to participate in a firing squad to execute a convicted person, do you honestly think there wouldn't be volunteers? They would be swamped with applicants. These are the types that ran and organized the camps. Look at the people today that kill people just for kicks.

    Should we be blamed for the sins of your or my ancestors?* In case you weren't aware, The UK was the first country to build concentration camps, true there were not mass executions, it was in South Africa.*

    Back when most of us were going*to sea as a boy, there were many countries that were part of the British Empire that didn't think much of us as Englishmen, but we were not guilty of committing the sins of our ancestors.* Thankfully, that is not so today, and neither*is it true of today's Germans.

    Cheers, Rodney
    Rodney David Richard Mills
    R602188 Gravesend


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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    Of interest Rodney , i guess though that you would know most of this, so possibly for others that read your Thread!
    Cheers

    Concentration camps in the South African War? Here are the real facts (theconversation.com)


    Concentration Camps Existed Long Before Auschwitz | History| Smithsonian Magazine
    Senior Site Moderator-Member and Friend of this Website

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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    Hi Rod .
    Good description of your trip in those days. But isn't it interesting to see what is happening in Palestine at the moment. Israel have the Palestinians in the same position as the Gestapo had the Jewish population in Warsaw, and are slowly killing them off. History repeating itself.
    Des
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    Lest We Forget

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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    Yes Des but worse still the dictator there wants to stifle the courts to make them almost unaccountable.

    Many on our TV yesterday talking of those days, major concern being that when the last of the survivors are gone that part of history will just be book noted and forgotten.

    But there is also a fear that similar could well happen again, there fae the likes of the Israeli PM and North Korea to contend with.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    #1 74 years ago was 1949 Rodney and being a deliverer of newspapers by vocation then had ample time to peruse the press free gratis. In 1949 every paper had adverts for the Palestine Police. Seems there were never enough applicants for the jobs. Britain was more inclined in general to take the side of the Palestinians if anything. Mind the whole area was considered Palestine at one time. Cheers JS
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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    I concentrated my feelings on my start to this thread on a number of factors, the concentration (no pun intended) to Ashauwitz as I saw it.* I could have picked any number of countries, my own the USA.

    For part of my career*I was Food and Beverage Director of a 700 and odd room hotel in Los Angeles with banquet facilities for 3300-3500 dependent*on table configuration. As well as being*responsible for the smooth operations of bars, restaurants and banquets, I also was in charge of the sales staff of the catering department, the booking of banquets, dances, weddings, etc. One day I was walking*through the catering dept to my office and all sales staff were busy on the phones and a phone line was ringing so I picked it up.* It was a Japanese American looking for a place to hold a banquet. I made an appointment for him to have lunch with me and view the facilities, menus, and set a price.

    He was the president of Japonaise/American social organization and, both being immigrants, we hit it off.* Japanese*are big on labels* first, second, third generation Americans are known as jci, Nese, Sinsei. and probably goes on forever.

    I found out a lot about what happened to the Japanese immigrants in America during WWII, most of them clustered in L.A and the west coast of the USA. Days after Pearl Harbor, barracks were built and surrounded by barbed wire, roughly 120,00 Japanese/Americans were interned.* Those that owned homes, cars etc, were confiscated and sold at auction for a pittance, the income generated used to offset the cost of the barracks and I assume the barbed wire.* They were*interred until 1945.*

    These camps were not holiday camps, the ones in California were built in locations in the Mojave Desert, where temperatures are terrible in the summer and freezing in the winter nights.* I'm sure you have heard of Death Valley, that's in the Mojave*Desert. And additional*camps were in northern California and Oregon.

    There were records of P.O.W.s being shot dead attempting to escape, and one man shot and killed because he wandered to close to the barbed wire.

    The homes, furnishings, cars, were auctioned off and the proceeds along with bank accounts were seized and kept by the US government to offset the cost of evacuation.

    In 1988 President Reagan signed a bill giving a formal letter of apology and $20,000 to each ex P.O.W.* Sounds good, but it took 40years and paid in 1988 dollars. It was actually worth $1,450.00. in 1942 dollars.*

    Big xxxxxxg deal. Cheers, Rodney

    PS. As you can see no nation is against perpetrating horrors, just some are worse than others.
    Rodney David Richard Mills
    R602188 Gravesend


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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    Thanks for the links, Doc. I learnt a lot. I was familiar with the events this supplied detail.

    Cheers, Rodney
    Rodney David Richard Mills
    R602188 Gravesend


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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    Was the Japanese ambassidor not still in talks with the US state department talking about a non agression pact. He knew the Bombing of Pearl Harbour was due to take place?
    It is well documented how the Japanese treated POW's

    I don't think it was ever in doubt that the USA would not drop the BOMB!!! Let's hope it will never be used again, but I expect that is down to Putin!!!

    Like a lot on here been to Japan many times enjoyed it but I always thought the Japanese had an arrogance about them, much like the Chinese.

    Sadly man will never learn.
    Last edited by James Curry; 28th January 2023 at 06:51 PM.

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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    Some years ago we were in Thailand and took a trip north to Kanchebury where there is a large war Cemetry of all nations.

    A living museum of one of the POW camps as weel.
    Took a run along the 'Death Railway' cut and dug by prisoners from many nations.

    In the living museum there are copies of letters and notes left by prisoners during the war.

    From them one ca n see that whilst the Japanese were not so kind to prisoners it was the Korean guards used by the Japanese that were far worse.
    A distressing place to visit but one that puts so much in perspective.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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    Default Re: 74 Years ago, today

    I too have been there, Johnno, and the saddest thing I ever saw was a gravestone engraved with the name of a British soldier and his age, 17 years old and inscribed "Mum".

    Rodders
    Rodney David Richard Mills
    R602188 Gravesend


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