The Holocaust - do we need to know? (page 2)

eyeslice

seeitallclearlynow - thanks for sharing such a poignant story with us.

Eyeslice

Mulan

Personally, I do not like cinema films about the holocaust and, therefore, have never watched things like Shindler's List or The Pianist.

I have the same feelings, but we did see the Pianist when it was on Starz. Really good movie, with a good ending. Not typical Holocaust movie.............not too bad. I knew I could never see Schindler's List though. Some movies like that haunt me for years.

There was a TV mini series in the 70's that was really good, tracking a German Jewish family. Can't remember the name of it. Meryl Streep played the daughter in law in the family, who was spared because she only married a Jew, played by James Woods. It was very graphic for television, but we learned a lot. It may have been called Holocaust. That one still haunts me, but I'm glad I saw it. At least television back then, was not as "real" as movies are now.

When we went to Poland in 1989 for the special assemblies, we opted to not go to any of the camps because our 9 year old son was with us. After we got there, we changed our minds, but couldn't switch to a different tour route. I regret not seeing at least one of them...............we were so close.

Mulan

My JW stepfather was German, but born here. He had been to Germany though, and had family who were JW's there. His parents were first generation here, I believe. When the WTS released the video, Purple Triangles, he refused to watch it................he said he knew he would never sleep peacefully again, if he had to actually see and hear what those people endured.

He was in the second class of Gilead and was made the Branch Overseer in The Netherlands right after the war, assigned to the reconstruction of the branch there. He said he saw things he would never be able to erase from his mind, and ended up having a nervous breakdown over it all and had to come back to the States. After his recovery, he was made a Circuit Overseer in this country and served for a time in Canada too.

He died in 2001, at age 87. We miss him...............he was one of the good ones, gentle, loving and so kindly.

avishai

I often think that there are SO many people out there that are still unsympathetic to Jews, want to lump them in with what Israel is doing etc., that it also helps to know, folks, that THIRTEEN million died in the camps. At least 6,000,000 of which were jews. The rest were Gypsies, Homosexuals, political prisoners, people who listened to Jazz and Swing, etc.

Abaddon

My gf and I saw the same trailers.

We got to talking about it; I said at one point I'd be happy if in 500 years time Nazism and the Holocaust were still the 'best' example of such an atrocity, as it would mean that there hadn't been anything comparable since.

I know there have been race or religiously-motivated atrocities since. But none where people were shipped large distances by the million to be murdered. The single-mindedness and extent of the Holocaust remain unmatched.

There have also been atrocities committed by governments against their own people on ideological grounds other than race-hate. They were murdering people who disagreed with them, not murdering people because of who they were.

Have no doubt the Holocaust was race-motivated. All you need to see is the anti-Semitic imagery of Nazi propaganda to see that although Jews can be any race, and many are not Semitic, to realise the race-based nature of the hate.

Nazism and the Holocaust remain unmatched as an example of ideologically-motivated race-hate where the systematic extinction of a race was seen as a major goal, to the extent plans were made on how to deal with people of that race in yet-unconquered territory.

From the psychotic evil of its inception, through the cold-blooded amorality of its planning, to the banal participation of 'rank-and-file' party members and military and approval or acceptance by the civilian population, Nazism and the Holocaust still have lessons for us today.

There are still scum who fallaciously seek to mitigate the extent or act as apologetics for the policies. They twist data in a way we know all-to-well as ex-cultists, so it shows what they want. We really need to make sure that people know how utterly false such arguments are due to our knowledge of the event, and are able to reject such nonsense with certainty and ease.

Ignorance of such atrocities is the life-blood of those that seek to mitigate or deny them.

avishai

Ignorance of such atrocities is the life-blood of those that seek to mitigate or deny them.

Bingo.

stillajwexelder

IMO we need constant reminders so acts of wickedness of this magnitude never happen again

jwbot

It is very important to remember. It was not just "6 million jews" or "13 million people", its not just the shear number, but that the absolute evil and ignorance that goes in to carrying those things out. We need to know that this can happen, that it was just not unbelievable, but that this type of evil exists.

BTW the Pianist was an incredible movie. It might be worth a look-see.

frenchbabyface

what is the worst = it begins with the unacceptable (whoever is concerned) only giving one example (of what have been the worst lately) doesn't help ... EVERY SHOULD BE POINTED OUT (cause what does it mean otherwise - that only the "worst" is unacceptable - what is the worst on the individual scale EVERY DEAD PEOPLE witch for a reason or an other have been traped in an awfull situation) ... lets take it from the start = NONE WERE ACCEPTABLE ... ALL SHOULD BE REMINDED on a regular basis !!!

you can't cry for a little boy who died on "JFK street" and forget about the one who died in "MAIN Street" (for the same hatred kind of reason) ... or what are you crying about ? the worst or the what happen ?

ColdRedRain

We do need to know about the Holocaust because every day, there are human horrors going on and we simply chose to ignore them.

For istance, we have the Kurdish Holocaust, brought to you by our good friend and modern day Arabic Hitler, Saddam. Then we have the Sudaneese massacre, and also the Korean and Chineese human rights violations and so on.

Yet we never give any thought to them in our lives, because simply, we don't care or we're ignorant.

The Holocaust - do we need to know?

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