How do you feel about the state of the UK?

[CharlotteACavatica]

I rarely come accross anyone that doesnt have ALOT to say about how bad its all getting, me and dp are planning to move abroad to get away from this fast declining country - but how do all of you people here feel about it? My sister thinks this country is great and its getting better if anything!!!

no, nearlythree, it doesnt go beyond racism, it is the result of racism, and it isnt that different from my Asian neighbours in the UK keeping a big Dobermann dog, because they are scared of being attacked.

Berlin apparently has a high violent crime rate and can only assume that this is the reason for open racist violence. The city where I live is (IMO) the most racist in Germany, but there is little violent crime, and no armed guards for the blacks, Turks and other assorted foreigners who are insulted by grafitti, have their children dumped in ubergangsklasse, get thrown out of the public health insurance, cant get a flat etc etc etc.

do a search in wikipedia.de, hub.

as for local mass murder, I have lived near the site of a non-German concentration camp, and I can assure you, that even today, there are long memories about the events of the 1930s and 40s. The locals were dying to have a crack at money-lenders who profited in the depression, and who mostly happened to be jewish. War gave them the excuse to set up a concentration camp, but the personnel were recruited from guess where. blaming the germans for a europe wide nationalistic movement and accompanying racism, is just not logical.

have I read this well?
gosh tonight I think my English is failing me.
Yes, anti-semitism was widespread in Europe (especially eastern Europe), but Hitler (pm of Germany, elected in 1933?) invaded Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Holland, France etc etc and applied its racial laws in said countries, built up walls around ghettos and then sent jewish people to concentration camps.

I'm not sure it's me who should be reading wiki on the Second World War, Schh... because from a very cursory analysis it tends to read 'Germany invaded.... Germany invaded.... Germany invaded'.

You many have noticed that the German nation tends to deeply regret this most tragic period of modern history, in which it's accepted that between 50 and 70 million people (military and civilian) died.

But maybe you've had enough of these "same old stories" ?

hub,
my search for truth does not lead me to call these events anything other than tragic, as you can see from my earlier posts.

& franca - re read my last post carefully. Hitler himself did not apply walls or ghettos or concentration camps in the area that I am talking about. The locals did.

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and to add to bloss including horrific crimes against british soldiers and ex-pats - think Burma, changi - just to name two.

bloss, my point is that there are also many in Europe who dont want to accept any responsibility either. the final solution was to what the german leadership perceived as their own problem (jewish lobby too powerful in germany & europe). I dont believe that they ever tried to wipe out the jewish part of the American population for example, which they would theoretically have had to do if they were truly committed to killing every jewish person on the planet. (a bad thing, in case anyone is in any doubt )
As I said before - bad times. we are lucky to have the european union today.

and btw, I have talked to people who were there at the time, and that's why I have difficulty accepting the official version.

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the point is bloss - that we are taught that the Germans wanted to eliminate every jewish person in the world. Thats what I grew up believing. Whereas in fact, it was a violent movement against a group that the german leadership thought was too powerful in their country.

As I said before, I have spoken to people who were there at the time, their anger over what happened in the 1930s is still strong, and it is clear that they didnt need any leading, to murder jewish people. Just the removal of legal penalties against them for doing it.

schhh, 165,000 people. How many children? My guess would be enough to account for the children of every Mnetter. The ones who need a favourite teddy to go to sleep. The ones who fight with their brothers. The ones who like maths and the ones who want to be princesses. If you still can't see why the fact that Jewish children in Germany need armed protection goes beyond racism, beyond 'shocking' or 'bad' then I give up.

And please don't repeat the old excuse that the Jews were asking for it because some money lenders were Jewish.

I only hope to God none of the Jewish Mnetters read this.

nearlythree,
I said before, and I repeat it: the facts are shocking, and speak for themselves.

How can you possibly believe, that I said that murdering 165000 people is OK?

And I NEVER said that jewish people were asking for it. How can you repeat such a racist thing?

I should be past being shocked at the extreme views that can be erroneously attributed to people on MN.

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bloss, I didnt say that the german majority was suppressed by a jewish minority. Again, your interpretation. I said that the german leadership perceived that the jewish lobby was too powerful, so they used easily stirred up racism and violence against them.
Now, I dont have the luxury of reading about this stuff (european racism)in books and the media - I have got to go out and fight it, today. I am off to work now.

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Schhh,

You repeat "the facts are shocking", but you seem to think the numbers of Jews killed in Germany was "hardly wiping out a whole race" and is therefore a clear indication there was no genoicide nor attempt to wipe out a race. You seem to justify this position by assuming that because "the rest of the oft quoted 6.5 million was in other countries." this had nothing to do with Germany; they were only the facilitators...

Sorry, but your words clearly belie a very distorted understanding of what happened

This table seems to be about as good as any other in reporting deaths and percentages of Jewish population killed, while this 'timeline of events' gives an overview of the creation of the ghettos, numbers of people massacred etc.

But I presume listening to these "same old stories" gets tiring after a while, doesn't it ?

I suppose it's fairly lucky that the enormous majority of modern Germans (ordinary citizens or in government) do not share your attitude or beliefs, and that indeed the country has done an enormous amount of work to accept and reconcile its history, to educate its citizens and to reestablish a role in modern Europe without attempting to underplay its role in the past.

sorry, just came back.
I haven't much to add to bloss's and hub2dee's replies.

agree with hub2dee. Germany has done much to try to understand its history, accept responsibility and educate its citizens to try to prevent anything like that ever happening again. I don't think Schh's views are typical IME, anyway. Schh, i know you think what you are saying is not insulting and not playing down the holocaust, but phrases like it was 'hardly wiping out an entire race' really do come across that way.

again misunderstandings - but I am getting so fed up with starting every post with "I didnt say that actually" that I am not going to post on this thread any more.

Frankly, Im too occupied with coping with racism from people who I have absolutely no doubt would vote for Hitler if he was up for election today. And not all of them are German.

In answer to the original question (the state of the UK) here is a link that I just read about the NHS:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6107600.stm