Why didn't the Allies bomb Auschwitz

[Gwenick]

Just read this link

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4175045.stm

It's all very well asking now - "should we have bombed it" - but then what would we be saying if we HAD - it would probably be something along the lines - of "OMG look how many innocent Jews we killed trying to 'save' them".

What about those Jews who survived, and have gone to on to get married and have children, or those that survived and were reunited with family members?? How would the families feel now if we'd bombed them?? I don't think it would have helped bombing them - the Nazi's would only have found somewhere/somehow else to persecute the Jews.

Opinions please (nice controversial one for a Sunday afternoon ;-)

Thank you Aloha and HMB.

Persecution and dictatorship start by abandoning civil liberties - restricting access to justice for 'undesirables', imprisonment without trial, house arrest, etc. etc. It starts with groups who are demonised but eventually everyone is a target.

Who would have thought that a Western democracy such as ours would be borrowing its justice policy from regimes such as those operating in Burma? Yet that's what our home secretary is doing.

I'm afraid I can't remember the author who commented on the response to the Nazi regime of ordinary people, or the exact words, but it ran something like this: 'First they came for the Jews, and I didn't protest. Then they came for xxx and I didn't protest. Then they came for me, and there was no-one left to protest'.

We are very close to the start of this process, in our own country, right now. It is terrifying.

edam: agreed.

I just wish I could do something about it. Does anyone know any groups protesting about this? Can I join any campaigns?
I am geniunely frightened that ds is growing up in a world where the neo-cons in the US government can send mainly poor, desperate people, who joined the army because there was no other way of getting an education, to invade other countries, to slaughter and torture the people who live there. It may not be us, now, but what about five or ten or 20 years time?

Edam: groups I think you might find useful...

No2ID - a group dedicated to opposing ID cards and helping to educate how this would really affect us.

Liberty Human Rights - does what it says on the tin

Justice - legal & human rights organisation.

'Any mans death deminishes me' and yes I agree with that. That the genocide in Rewanda was a horror unthinkable to most people I would also agree. It obviously doesn't matter to a victim or their family how, or why someone is butchered.

The reason why I think what happened to the jews is worsethan to others, even than to the 10% of Soviets caught up in the purges and the gulag is this. THe level of wicked organisiation involved in Auchwitz is unheared of. This was not a heated battle, or rage against the innocent. THis took planning. People did without so that the trains could run on time, they were given fake bars of soap, music played, flowers were planted while children were being gassed abd burned. They hair was shaved to help to insulate submarines, they gold teeth were pulled out, their bodies were sometimes flayed to make lampshades, their clothes were taken and even their toys. And while all this was happening, people were forced to play bach and mozart.

Rawanda was evil, pol pot was evil, any murder is evil. But even in Stalins gulags organisation has never been used to murder as many. That they died was bad enough. The planning that it took makes it history's greatest evil. This wasn't rage it was cold evil hatrid. And to me that is why it is worse. Not the action, but the cold intention behind it.

Sophiable, I have always been interested in Stalin's gulags and would recomend Eugina
Ginzburg's two books (if you haven't read them already) as wonderfully written as they are a stunning document to the cruelty. But even she distinguised between what was happening to her in the gulags of Siberia and what would have happened to her as a Jew in Germany

(incidentally, edam - your query has just made me get off my bottom and join Liberty myself - have been meaning to for ages)

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me."

By Franklin H. Littell

Edam, it was Pastor Niemoeller, and it's this:

First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me

But beware! Apparently even with this quote, there are different versions of it to suit people's political agendas (Any memorial in the US for example, leaves out Communists, which was most definitely in the original) and I'm not sure if the one I've got there is the original, it's just the one I've always known.

Oops... sorry, misattribution was by Martin Niemoeller (that'll teach me to cut and paste half asleep)

Crossed posts - I agree that the holocaust as a systematic process of extermination was unique, but the hatred and dehumanisation of one group of people, and the systematic attack on civil rights, was not. The danger of thinking of the holocaust as being totally unique, is that people feel complacent that nothing like it could ever happen again.

Hitler took away the civil rights of German people bit by bit, chip by chip, using the law. So by the time he?d got to doing the drastic stuff, there was no legal avenue of opposition. Everything he did was lawful, up until the war. With that in mind, I agree the latest legal attack on our civil rights is quite chilling.

too right caligula. the liberty website it down...could it be neocon forces at play (paranoia)

Yes, I've just noticed that - it is the correct URL though as I have it cached

Hopefully it'll be up again soon.

Thanks for finding the author and full quotes.
Do you think we could start a recruitment drive for Liberty, here?

No idea, edam. Don't see why not as long as the Mumsnet team don't object.

When the site comes back up there's a handy Get Involved section - you can put in your details and click on which campaign you want to be involved in and it will email your MP for you (you can adjust the text that is sent if you wish) - making it very easy for an overwhelmed mother to find the time to register their views with parliament!!

And don't forget Amnesty!

Just remembered I did contact Liberty about Margaret Hodge's massive database of every child in the UK (in connection with the Lost Mothers); I think it's one part of the mechanism that will be available for any future dictatorship, alongside ID courts and the Home Sec's proposals.
They weren't very helpful ? thought it would be dangerous to oppose. Would make it easy to paint them as on the side of child abusers, since the plan is in response to the tragic death of Victoria Climbie.
That's the thing that worries me, the Government is repeatedly exploiting terrible events to introduce repressive measures - so we'll all say 'oh, well, it may be a bit worrying but something needs to be done'.
But probably worth joinng them, and the other groups too.
Thanks.

Exactly, edam. If you oppose the ID cards scheme you are a friend of terrorists and "benefits scroungers".

I'm not sure what's more frightening, to be honest, that the government is doing this or the fact that the "average person on the street" (is there such a thing, btw?!) doesn't consider it an issue at all - if anything, welcomes it.

a friend of mine looked horrified when i said that my dh was objecting to going to the USA on account of (among other things) being fingerprinted at the airport saying 'what, even if it's to stop terrorists?'

makes me weep with frustration.

You're quite right, aloha, I forgot Amnesty - I always assume that's for other countries, not for human rights violations in our own

Liberty site just come back up, btw.

Had to smile as the Neo-Con comment!! It is precicly them that is leading to these "Jews take over the World" conspiricies. The neo-Cons are a group of powerful US politicians who are guiding Bush. A large proportion of them are indeed Jewish. But many are not.

They are shaping his foreign policy, and their stated agenda is to take "democracy" to the Middle East, by force if necessary. They have openly been filmed saying so, as well as other not so savory comments about Arabs/Islam. The heart of their policies is protecting the US first, Israel second. Truth. From their own mouths.

Yeah, but when they say 'democracy' actually they mean 'regimes that will allow multi-national companies we favour to make LOTS of money'.

Edam, who do you mean in this quote: "neo-cons in the US government can send mainly poor, desperate people, who joined the army because there was no other way of getting an education, to invade other countries, to slaughter and torture the people who live there."?

I wasn't going to comment on this thread any more but I'm quite suprised at this......

"Exactly, edam. If you oppose the ID cards scheme you are a friend of terrorists and "benefits scroungers". "

How do you work that one out??? Most terrorists and 'benfits scroungers' are much cleverer than that! They make sure they're 'within the law' - ie in tne country legally and making an 'honest' living before commiting their crimes! ID cards won't stop that!