A sobering fact 81 years on.

The resurfacing of a general anti Semitism today has been an unexpected horror. How could anyone forget? And then, after the 7th October bloodbath, to be uncaring about the suffering unleashed on the victims and their families defies belief.

foxie48

I watched "Zone of Interest" this afternoon and still feel both shocked and numbed by the experience. It brought home to me that by completely dehumanising the Jews they murdered, they could treat mass murder as a logistical problem rather than what it was allowing normal life to go on completely unaffected. Could it happen again? Sadly I think it could which is why we need to challenge every attempt to "other" people as IMO it is the first step in starting to dehumanise them.

Yes we must always call out the demonisation and dehumanisation of groups in society. Sadly human nature has a habit of repeating the same mistakes. But we must never just take the easy route of agreeing with the mob because the mob shouts loudest. We have to try to be better than that.

It's horrifying.
But the reality is that it has happened again, in the West and many other places. Bosnia, Rwanda, Myanmar to name just a very few. Indigenous populations in many countries. Women in some countries.
What can we actually do? We watch on tv, we look away.

I went to see a friend who was working in Munich and she took me to visit Dachau. We parked on the road opposite the camp and there were trees lining the road and all the birds were singing in the trees. We went into the camp/museum and it was silent. There was no bird song, no bird landed in the grounds . It was really unnerving. The birds must have sensed that something terrible happened there. When we went back to the car the birds were singing in the trees.

I watched "Zone of Interest" this afternoon and still feel both shocked and numbed by the experience. It brought home to me that by completely dehumanising the Jews they murdered, they could treat mass murder as a logistical problem rather than what it was allowing normal life to go on completely unaffected. Could it happen again? Sadly I think it could which is why we need to challenge every attempt to "other" people as IMO it is the first step in starting to dehumanise them.

I found a visit to Auschwitz really brought it home how we must never forget. Sadly, the world doesn't seem to have learned much.

Thank you for this post.

That is shocking.

I watched the film on catch up. Very disturbing.

JoJo refers to the post regarding an armband bearing the Swastika.
Basgetti please see the post above by Keepingquiet.

Like Fallingstar I have a number of family members who were murdered at Treblinka. Even though I’m not of any faith I feel a strong link to all who were taken to Concentration Camps.

Jojo1950

I would find it disgusting and have argued for it to be disposed of by fire!

Sorry, Jojo, what do you mean? Destroy what by fire?

I would find it disgusting and have argued for it to be disposed of by fire!

It was the sheer efficiency of it all that is so incredible and how any human could dream up such atrocities and then how the Nazis seemed so convinced this was the right thing to do .. it beggars belief even today that such a plan could be masterminded and carried out with almost a sense of pride .

We had members of the family who did not survive Treblinka.
We didn’t know them until we did 23&me which tested our DNA and we got in touch with a cousin twice removed who messaged us on the site with the information. We have since been in touch and met a couple of times in London.
We lit candles in their memory.

A few weeks ago I was in my local antiques centre. Even though it was a weekday there was a family in there wandering around.
A boy, aged about 12 I would guess, yelled at his parents that he really liked something and could he have it- he would love to walk around with it on his arm.
What was it? A Nazi arm-band with a swastiki!
The parents laughed and made some comments but the boy persisted for some time that he would love it, and could they please buy it.
I think I made some comment about it not being a good idea but had to walk away in the end.
I'm not sure why this antiques shops allowed stuff like that to be sold there, but knew if I went to the desk they would say they only let out the units and aren't responsible for what is being sold there.
I found the whole episode very worrying.

I also watched Zone of Interest and it was unlike anything I've seen before. It covered the same subject as Boy in the Striped Pyjamas but in a completely different way. Both were disturbing and I wouldn't want to see them again.

There was a programme about children of Nazis and one was a boy who had lived in such a house next to a camp. There was even a wrought iron gate in the wall, and this gateway had haunted him throughout his life. It was the thought of what was behind it. Eventually, as an adult we saw him visit the house and go through the gate. This meant so much to him.

Thank you Sarnia We have just watched ‘Zone of Interest. We spoke not a word the whole time. Riveting.

Thank you Sarnia

silence is denial Usetobeblonde

Apparently monuments etc in the UK will be illuminated purple tonight to mark the day. It might be a talking point, if some don’t know or wonder why.

When we moved house 50 years ago I found out from my neighbour that her H was one of the British soldiers who entered one of the concentration camps in 1945.
After telling his story when he came home he rarely spoke of it again but it apparently haunted him .
One can only imagine what it was like for anyone including young men in their late teens/twenties.
Just reading of the horrors they faced and the victims endured is harrowing.
What does anyone get out of denying it happened?

keepcalmandcavachon

Thankyou Sarnia, wish it were possible to imagine that this could never happen today.

I despair of people. Not all people, obviously, but I have an impending sense of doom. I came off Facebook yesterday after reading some comments by holocaust-deniers sneering at Anne Frank, because her diaries had been invoked during a discussion on what has happened in Minneapolis.
Whether they really are holocaust-deniers, I don't know - it could be that they were simply using Anne Frank - whose diaries they insisted had been written by adults wanting to monetise them - as a 'debating' tool to condemn the protestors in that city. But, it wouldn't surprise me - there were some who thought both those protestors who were shot and killed "had it coming" and "deserved what they got". I doubt they have any sensitivity towards holocaust victims.

I believe it can happen today. Maybe not on the same scale and the dynamics will be different, but the 'principle' is the same... finding scapegoats for economic downturns.

Trump thinks that post-industrial America's decline is the fault of the rest of the world and immigrants combined. And there are sufficient numbers of voters willing to believe him, so the stage is set.

TerriBull

I watched Zone of Interest, with horror, I suppose I had some idea of what it was about. What kind of people live in a domestic idyll whilst their fellow citizens, yes well aware they didn't view them as such, were being annihilated over the wall? Whilst the woman of the house just went about tending to her runner beans I felt sorry for the children, they were too young to know what was going on, I believe some had a lot of issues surrounding their parents' role when they were old enough to realise. I hated the adults complicit in mass murder, so relaxed about something so utterly appalling.

The horrors of those times were reinforced when I went to Israel in the early 80s and saw a group of older people sitting at a table at an outdoor cafe, tattooed numbers visible on their arms.

What bloody awful times they lived through, memories that can never be erased.

Personally, I am amongst the last people in the world to excuse what the Nazis did, but knowing the mind-set of many army officers of those days, the Kommandant's wife probably knew very well that nothing she said or did would change her husband's point of view, and that she herself might well end on the other side of that fence if she said anything critical.

I have no idea what the woman thought or felt, but tending her runner beans was perhaps her way of remaining sane in an insane and inhuman world.

Somewhere in Germany, I do not remember which town, the hangman's wife was so ashamed when her husband was forced to hang people who had had no fair trial that she refused to do her household shopping until just before closing time in the shops, in the hope that she would not have to face any of her neighbours in the streets.

To her there was a great difference between being the wife of a hangman who executed legally convicted criminals who had had the right of appeal, and one who was forced to obey orders he himself felt were illegal.

I can see that point of view, even although I have always felt that capital punishment is always wrong.

Thankyou Sarnia, wish it were possible to imagine that this could never happen today.

I don't think we have anything to brag about to our grandchildren when they find out about attitudes to immigration in recent times, or the Gaza situation, or indeed the situation in the US and in the Ukraine right now...

it seems we have learned nothing about turning a blind eye.