Holocaust Memorial

Yes, I did Cari and I was in tears for most of it.

Yes Cari, it was incredibly moving

Oh Cari!! And me. My son was saying that he felt very difficult, as he feels it is so important to see these places and try to understand how it got to such a bad place where one human can do such unspeakable things to another human. But he also felt a bit like a voyeur and I can so understand what he was saying.

I think that these things can happen in stages each stage worse than the last until the unthinkable happens. As a human race - we all share the same DNA- we need to learn to say enough!!

I said to my DH yesterday that I would like to visit Auschwitz. Even saying it sounded wrong but I agree that we should never forget. There was a review of a new book on the subject in yesterda's Mail on Sunday which apparently reveals untold horrors.

Have never visited, but have read and seen pictures of the Nazi concentration camps and what went on there.Thankfully, the world has not seen a repitition since of such planned evil and on such a scale, since.

I have often thought I would like to visit these places but whilst I would like to go to pay my respects part of me feels like it is turning into a tourist attraction, I'm sure many of us have seen the photos on social media showing grinning tourists taking selfies.

I don't think that anyone will forget about it, there is so much information now, and all schoolchildren seem to have talks about it and visits to museums have exhibitions.
All Jewish people in particular, live with memories of what went on.
The nearest that the world came to it again ( not even close, though) was the camps and mass murders of villagers in the former Yugoslavian countries.

It is part of my families history but can't bear to visited the death camps.

What unspeakable cruelty that took place there should never be forgotten. . . but unfortuantely history has a way of repeating itself.

Yes venus you are right.

I've been looking at genocides since WW11 and these are the figures. These people need our rememberance too.

Cambodia. There were 7million of population in 1970.

4million of these died. A total catastrophe

Rwanda in 100 days up to 2million were slaughtered

Bosnia -the biggest mass genocide in Europe sine WW11

100 K were slaughtered

Darfur

480K.

I saw last night's programme too and it was very moving.
It is all very relevant to my family history too: I never knew my grandparents because they were murdered at Auschwitz. Two gentle people, one who was a nurse in WW1 and always thought of other people, and a teacher who had earned the Iron Cross in WW1.
My father was one of the Kinder who was lucky enough to escape death and come over to Britain to start a new life. I am so proud of him for his courage and determination but it was incredibly hard and his family were, like so many others, torn to shreds and those who survived were scattered over the world.
Sadly persecution and genocide is still very much with us; we allow it to continue.Israel is one of the perpetrators and they should know better. My father is very sad about that, as will so much more.
I have never visited Auschwitz and hope to later this year; it's where my grandparents, and others of my family, ended their days, and I feel the need to see it.

I have been to Aushwitz/Birkenau and the whole visit was very respectful .I saw no one taking a selfie and our guide admonished a group of school children who were a being a little loud .Most people are reduced to contemplative silence .Very little chatter And you wear headphones for the guides commentary so that doesnt intrude either .You would have to be totally lacking in human feeling not to be horrified and moved. It isnt at all like a standard tourist attraction
We felt impelled to go on our visit to Krakow but I have no need /desire to visit another camp .Equally instructive are the Schindler museum in Krakow and the Jewish museums in Paris,Vienna and Berlin .A Jewish friend visted the latter recently He knew his deceased mother (left Germany on the Kindertransport as did his father)had left her papers to the museum but he did not expect to find material in her own handwriting .She never talked about the privations they'd suffered before getting out ,nor what happended to her parents
Said friend lost all four grandparents in the camps. He has a huge zest for life. I sometimes think I he feels he owes to them to live his own life to the full .

As has been pointed out, the Holocaust is not the only such atrocity in recent memory. In order to 'learn lessons' (and how often do we hear that phrase?), surely we also need to understand why and how this can happen.

We identify and empathise with the victims, but to learn lessons must we not also be able to relate to the perpetrators?

We are all human beings. what is it that makes us become these monsters, who can mete out such harm to fellow human beings?

That surely is the lesson we should be considering.

I too have bee to Austwitz with DH, D and sil. We found the whole experience deeply moving. There were bus loads of Jewish school children visiting at the same time. Some of them were less than respectful. Maybe they were just too young to really understand what happened there. I took some photos but only for my own memories. I would never show them publicly

The Holocaust is also part of my family history. My mother was at Auschwitz and Belsen and research has shown that the next generation has been deeply affected by their parents' experiences, so it doesn't all end with the second world war.

I don't see opening up camps for visitors as touristy at all. It is essential for educational purposes and to preserve the memory of what happened.

Some misguided people suggest that the murder of as many as 6 million Jews never happened and that Hitler knew nothing about what went on. I have never understood why they deny an event for which there is plenty of evidence or why they would wish to make out that Hitler was actually a well-intentioned person!

Keeping the camps open for visitors helps to counter this propaganda.

I watched and recorded this programme and like others, I was in tears for most of the programme. We visited Auschwitz last year and found it a very moving and respectful visit, not a touristy thing at all. My 10 year old grandson has recently covered WW2 at school and was interested in the subject. I think he would find the programme interesting but will suggest he watches with his mother rather than me since she knows how the school taught it. He was very moved by a visit to the War Museum asking questions about how people could do this to each other.

Yes * blinko* I so agree

I maywell have lost relatives in the holocaust but I have no way of knowing. I have been to visit Dachau and Bergen Belsen but simply couldn't go all the way in because the aura for me was to great The Nazi regime managed to kill another 4 million as well as the 6 million Jews but Stalin killed 20 million during his infamous reign. Yet there are still deniers in the face of all the evidence. There have been genocides committed since and no doubt there will be others in the future as long as people are prepared to turn a blind eye

I am so relieved to read that when GNs have visited these sites the atmosphere has been respectful. I have seen photos on social media where people have taken grinning selfies so hopefully these were in the minority.

Cari The book is called The Holocaust: A New History. It is by Laurence Rees. The reviewer gave it a 5 star rating.

There is a quotation from Santyana at Dachau: 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'. So true.

Now the unspeakable David Irving claims he has many young followers on his Ho!ocaust denying website. Something has to happen to address this but I don't what.