Auschwitz - 80 years since it was liberated. Have any lessons been learnt?

[cakeorwine]

On Monday 27th Jan, it will be 80 years since Auschwitz was liberated by Russian soldiers.

Despite the Nazis best efforts to destroy evidence, Auschwitz is a haunting place to visit. You can see the rooms with human hair in, the suitcases, the shoes. The cells where people were forced to stand and starved. The gallows. The gas chambers and the crematoria. The railway line and the platform where people were divided into those who would enter Auschwitz and those who would walk to the gas chambers.

1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz including 1 million Jews.

Others were forced into slave labour and to live in horrendous conditions.

The commander lived very near the camp - and was hanged several years afterwards near the gas chambers.

https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8x195dnlro

Have we learnt anything? There seems more division, more hate, more othering.

There are lessons from history about the rise of the Nazis and what led up to the concentration camps and the Holocaust.

I've read a lot about it. Horrendous. The number of people killed huge. A million killed in that one place, unheard of.

Millions more killed in other places at the same time. Dreadful.

I agree it isn’t pleasant but the likelyhood is that child will now suffer life long effects from being born addicted to drugs. If their mother is allowed to have more then those children will likely suffer too.

Have you ever been with a child who is withdrawing from opiates (and possibly other drugs but I have no experience of these)? It’s incredibly painful for them.

Sadly I agree with this. Anti semitism is the UK has risen hugely. The marches through London showed many instances of it.

How on earth have you reached that conclusion? I very clearly said I do not endorse forced sterilisation.
And of course the child has a right to exist. But they also have a right of be born free from drug addiction, to not have to go through the pain of withdrawal, or foetal alcohol syndrome or anyone of the other myriad of conditions that can arise. To be raised in a loving, supportive and safe environment.

There are simply not enough adoptive or foster parents who are willing to take on a potentially damaged child. There aren’t enough adoptive or foster parents full stop.

Forced sterilisation is obviously not the answer but the physical and psychological damage done to both the vulnerable women and children in this scenario is horrendous. I don’t know what the answer is and I actually asked what you would do, which you totally ignored in favour of an awful lot of inflammatory hyperbole, which doesn’t reflect anything I have said or anything I believe.

I agree it isn’t pleasant but the likelyhood is that child will now suffer life long effects from being born addicted to drugs. If their mother is allowed to have more then those children will likely suffer too.

And the best response you can find is to forcibly sterilise the woman - who has likely experienced high levels of trauma before we even consider the impact if removing her children one by one? There are some really good, evidenced programmes of support for mothers who loose their children to the care system, but they cost money and that’s a hard sell to tax payers - who don’t consider the cost of removing a child. I don’t think removing someone’s human rights and bodily autonomy is the right response to unmet need and vulnerability.

I agree completely, they say not every Muslim is a Terrorist so how come every Jew is at fault for a war they deem to be a genocide?

This is what I meant. Awful.rise in anti semitism and support in killing people from Israel on October 7th. It was so horrible watching people cheer the killing and kidnap on October 7th

The trouble is so many younger people have no idea about it. SM is their only source of information. They don’t read, if it isn’t taught at school they won’t know anything about it. Watching terrestrial TV is falling completely out of ‘fashion’. Reality TV dominates . It’s really worrying. Unless people visit the actual sites and listen to first hand accounts, it just won’t be something anyone knows about.

There are simply not enough adoptive or foster parents who are willing to take on a potentially damaged child

Can we please not refer to children in the care system as “damaged”.

On the contrary, Europe was split right down the middle after WW2, with both sides treating the other with suspicion and fear, and armed to the teeth ready for WW3.

The biggest lesson that has not been learned is that when you have societies that are vastly unequal and a minority are living it up whilst the rest are scrabbling about for scraps, it creates fertile breeding ground for a charismatic leader like Hitler to rise to power. And once there, all bets are off.

Reform are going to do very well in the next election because for 40+ years regardless of whether Labour or the Tories have been in power, the only people who have benefited are those who already have money. (Reform will not change that but when you've tried everyone else and bugger all has changed, what do you do?) There's another thread trending at the moment asking what has happened to wages. Britain is fertile breeding ground for fascism right now.

I agree that Farage, Trump, Reform and all that ilk worry me a lot.

I remember the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Thousands of people massacred in the Bosnian Genocide because of their ethnicity. I'm just looking it up now...over 8000 Bosniaks killed and 25-30,000 expelled because they were Muslim. Alongside that was rape, unlawful imprisonment, all the usual war crimes that occur when ethnic cleansing goes on.

Look at how the Chinese are treating the Uighurs now. No, we haven't learnt a thing.

Amendment to my figure on the Bosnian massacre, the 8k figure was for the Srebrenica massacre. Overall 100k Bosniaks were killed during the Balkan war of the early to mid 1990s.

No I don't think we have. We see rising antisemitism as well as increasing anti-muslim sentiments. We see people blaming specific groups for perceived declining standards of living (migrants, people with disabilities claiming benefits) fed by a rising far right across Europe and the rest of the world. Our governments are still slow to condemn and act on catastrophic breaches of international law when it goes against political or financial interest, and our international organisations are pretty toothless.

“They say”? 🙄

who are “they”

there are groups of people saying both these things. This is why we should stand firm against all types of racism and discrimination. Not stand in our own groups pointing fingers at other minority groups.

The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists and a great many Jewish people don't support Netanyahu. Unfortunately, though, we learn today that many uk gen z people do want such an authoritarian leader, which is horrific. (Guardian this morning). People were clearly not taught history properly, and don't see the inevitable dangers of putting an authoritarian elite in charge. They could ask the people of Belarus, but they'd be locked up for replying.

By “they” I meant society as a whole. You would be rightfully condemned if you called every Muslim a terrorist, but it seems to be socially acceptable to accuse Jews of committing genocide. I’ve seen this with my own eyes and most people won’t challenge it because it seems that “morally right” opinion is that Jews are awful and thinking anything else makes you a terrible human being.

Even on social media, if someone is openly Jewish they get told things like that Hitler should have finished the job. Can you imagine how awful it must be living with that constantly, a fear that the world condemns you for your religion?

Surely what is happening in Gaza can’t be ignored. It is a genocide not a war and it is happening in front of our eyes.

I don’t know who you mix with but this is certainly not my experience, and I would say I mix in some fairly “pro-Palestinian” circles (for want of a better phrase). There is strong condemnation for the Israeli government and its supporters but not Israelis generally or Jewish people. And I have certainly never seen “social acceptance” of this view. I’m not for one moment saying antisemitism isn’t a problem or on the rise or these views can’t be found e.g. on social media but your comments are certainly not generalizable.

Given that Trump talks of camps for ‘illegals’ no we’ve not learned a bloody thing.

I think all forms of racism is becoming more socially acceptable actually. And this is dangerous and we should stand against it. All forms of racism and discrimination stem from the same place.

I don’t think we should condemn anyone for their religion. We can and should speak out about what’s happening in Gaza but always without resorting to anti semitism.

No lessons have not been learnt.

The Genocide in Gaza is a prime example. People have the audacity to argue it’s not a genocide - using the same language the Nazis did.

This does not excuse antisemitism , the genocide in Gaza is as a result of Israels genocidal practice - it has NOTHING to do with the beautiful faith of Judaism.

Why do you specifically mention Gaza, rather than let's say what's happening in Sudan which has been declared a genocide?

I agree, racism is becoming a real issue everywhere. I understand that when people are hurt it’s human nature to look for fault but none of the blame lies with anyone but those who actually caused the harm. A lovely elderly man where I live was racially abused after the Stockport attack and was scared to leave him home. Completely unnecessary and aggravated by idiots on social media wanting to cause a frenzy. This also goes for Jews, the antisemitism is rife over something they hold no fault for. People march in the street and say the Oct 7th attacks were warranted. That’s not ok.