70th Holocaust Anniversary

It is all unwatchable - so very distressing. I dipped in and out of the first half of the 9 hour film on BBC4 yesterday and caught the last bit where they were reading out the instructions to a German lorry factory as regards the gas vans that were used in Poland. It was utterly horrific as the people in the lorries were described as "cargo" and "merchandise", never as people, with such phrases as "the cargo tends to move towards the doors as they are shut" - and much more that I cannot bear to think about again.

It all beggars belief.

My parents never mentioned any of this to me at all - and we did not hear about it at school. I found out when I was an adult.

I have mixed feelings about how much children should be told when they are small - they are not ready to take it seriously until later on in secondary school in my opinion.

The things that humans will do to each other.

The link with anti immigration policies is related to the commemoration.

I worked with 2 women who arrived here in 1938, they were from families who managed to get their children out before the slaughter began. If the UK had not welcomed those children, they would have died. This country would have not benefitted from them or the families they raised, all of whom continue to work and contribute to our country. The extended families of both women were wiped out in the concentration camps.

I've worked with a number of African asylum seeking families. Their stories were horrific as you can imagine. One family became foster carers, the father works at our local university and their 4 children are all training in careers that mean they'll contribute.

I know it's complicated and I accept our public services are under pressure, but surely that's the link to the lessons that come from the Holocaust.

Not wanting to watch television programmes is not the same as forgetting, Merlot.
I don't agree that we owe it to survivors to watch anything. I don't suppose they go there so everyone can see them reliving their agony on television.

I grew up Merlot with hearing a great deal about the Holocaust and WW2 because of my father's experiences and those of his friends and family when liberating the PoW camps, so possibly learnt more than many of my age.

As I grew older and learnt more so the horror grew for me as I could analyse what I was seeing or reading, and I have visited Auswitz and other camps.

I just prefer to not watch the programmes and not because it's 'easy to say'.

Although harrowing to watch I somehow feel we owe it to the survivors to witness their courage at returning to such an evil place.

Thinking, I can't watch any programmes that deal with such horror and grief because it upsets me too much is easy to say. Soon there will be nobody left to bear witness.

Thinking about teaching in schools about WW2 and the holocaust, I remembered that even when studying for A level history we didn't cover it. Finished at 1914. In fact I don't think I knew anything about it until my ?30s.
Perhaps it was still too painful to recall for the adults at the time and they wanted to protect us.
My Dad had seen a lot of it too, and didn't say anything, except a few neutral comments.
I think teaching about it now needs to be left until O level age.

Tanith Anno and Loopy I feel the same as you. I can no longer watch anything to do with the concentration camps, or the prisoner of war camps in the Far East.
If and when my DGCs ask me about the war I will answer their questions as honestly and appropriately as I can.

Last October my OH and I visited my father's grave in Den Hout, where he lies buried with the rest of the crew of the Lancaster they were killed in. My seven year old grandson has been fascinated with where we went and the reason for the trip, and although I must tell him with all honesty what the story was and why it happened, at the same time I have had to be careful not to worry him as he is a sensitive little boy, and 'my dad' (as he puts it) dying in a plane crash was beginning to upset him. Also I have gone to great lengths to assure him that although it was a wicked war (they all are) it wasn't and isn't the fault of anyone who is alive today and that none of us must ever think that because it isn't true. I do think that the teaching of all the aspects of WW2 to children has to be very carefully thought out and that the showing of film has to be carefully monitored.

Alex - I think we have to be careful what we let them watch. We need to introduce them to some things in a certain way, not just bombard them with it without warning.

Very true, niggly. I too was thinking about Greece, where Tsipras might easily be seen as the saviour of his nation..Mr Tsakalotos (EU) said:

"It's going to be a very funny and dangerous Europe with very strong centrifugal political forces....it will be a final signal that this is a Europe that can't incorporate democratic change and can't incorporate social change."

Hopefully the same thing isn't happening to Greece, as we've all seen what can happen to a devastated nation, which let's face it they are.

I think to even try to understand the horrors of the second war one needs to understand that the allies humiliation and actual starvation of Germany after the end of the first one was very very foolish. Reducing a conquered country to ruination is asking for that country, full of resentment and despair, to turn to the first apparently strong articulate person that boosted crushed national pride, created jobs and provided a seemingly rational reason for defeat, (the Jews) that appeared on the political scene - an accident waiting to happen. We need to learn by that awful mistake as well.

DGD1, then 16, was chosen with about 100 others from the SW to visit the Holocaust Experience, and then go back and speak about it at meetings and assemblies etc.

They had a couple of days' training, and were then flown out to Kraków for the day, to visit all the remaining parts of Auschwitz. At the end, they stood where one of the gas chambers had been, and the Rabbi recited the Prayers for the Dead. Afterwards, she said, there was silence as they walked back to their bus. I think it is SO important that all generations are aware of the horros and the tragedy. Some of us here were alive during the war and its aftermath, but many weren't. I only saw the films of the liberation of the camps as a little girl, once we acquired a TV.

As far as UKIP's "policies" are concerned, there is a definite aura of racism and nationalism in its nastiest form. As with the BNP, I sense danger. Moseley had a strong following in this country, after all.

Am I right in thinking that Vladimir Putin was not invited to the commemorations but Angela Merkal was?

I can't watch films about the actual camps either, but I've read a lot.
As well as feeling for the victims I think we need to look at how such terrible things came to happen, on such a huge industrial scale. Until we know this, no-one can say "Never again.".
So any targeting of a certain group of people because of their race or religion should be looked at with suspicion.
Also, there were were many supporters of the "national socialists" in prewar England. Doubt if they expected it turned into a holocaust though, I hope not.

Nelliemoser

Do you honestly believe the Reich was all about 'foreigners'?

I too do not think it was fair to tar UKIP with the holocaust.

Katyk I noticed in your post you mentioned your Dgd watched the film "The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas" aged 10/11, and she was severely traumatised. I think that is what happened to me aged 9 when my dad introduced me to the Holocaust history. Also apologies for wrong spelling of Auschwitz in my OP. You'd think at least I'd get it right!

I'm not a UKIP supporter but I cannot see any connection between current concerns about immigration and the genocide of WW2

I am also aware of the horror of all this but I have reached a point where I cannot keep watching such programs. It is too stressful.

However there is a younger generation who do need to be made aware of this.

It would be helpful to get a few UKIP ers to think about how the processes of concerns about "too many foriegners" can develop out of control into paranoia and genocide.

There is 'live' coverage ongoing on BBC News and Sky News reporting AUSCHWITZ REMEMBERED SERVICE coming from Auschwitz Camp, it is still ongoing and I am in awe of the survivors.

It is just simply heart breaking but I am thinking I at least can watch these brave survivors telling their stories.

I visited Austwitch in September last year. I've wanted to pay homage (can't think of another way of describing it) for a long time. I won't attempt to describe what we saw, or how it felt, other than to say that despite having seen film of the piles of baby shoes, for example, actually seeing them was more moving and distressing than I thought it would be.

A group of Israeli teenagers photographed each other on what they call "the walk of life" around the railway lines in camp 2, where many of their ancestors would have begun the walk of death to the gas chambers.

I don't suppose insisting that holocaust deniers visit the camp would do anything to change their minds, sadly.

We visited Yad Vashem memorial centre in Jerusalem.
That was profoundly moving.
When Schindler's List came out we went to see it at Bury cineplex.
There's a big Jewish community round there.
Usually when a film ends people get up and leave immediately.
At that screening there was a stunned silence and nobody made a move for ages.
Like one or two others on here I just cannot bring myself to watch the TV coverage this week.

The film is better BTW

When my grandson read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas he thought Bruno was a complete dope. A nine year old German boy not being able to pronounce Fuhrer and Auschwitz is complete nonsense. His father was a high ranking SS officer and yet he didn't know what Jews were?

I think it's a badly written and researched book and an insult to the intelligence of schoolchildren.

Me too tanith
I've read many accounts over the years but now I'm older I find I actively avoid seeing, reading or hearing accounts - am definitely not ignoring the fact that such inconceivable acts happened, just find it too agonising nowadays.
I also avoid, to a probably ridiculous degree, anything involving violence as cannot cope with it (yet have never experienced it) so very illogical I guess.