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Child Item

Night Will Fall

Villagio

Did anyone watch this documentary on channel 4?

It's about the allied crews in world war 2 who were assigned with filming footage of scenes at the concentration camps as they were being liberated. I've never seen anything as disturbing in my life before.

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Bruthal

Amica wrote: »

I actually know somebody who believes the Holocaust never happened...very difficult for me. I wish this documentary would change his mind but I know it won't :-(

What do these people think the footage, and survivors accounts of events are, science fiction?

[Deleted User]

Bruthal wrote: »

What do these people think the footage, and survivors accounts of events are, science fiction?

I think that it was US general Pattern who said when visiting Dachau, "record as much as possible, make movies of everything, because at some point in the future some SOB will pretend it never happened!"

That's not his exact quote, but along the lines of what he said, and he was right to say it!

mailforkev

PBS are showing the movie that came out of that filming on Tuesday night for the first time on UK television.

cassid

It was pretty shocking stuff to be honest. I could not watch it all, had to stop about 3/4's way through.

The haunted look on those poor dead people. Some of the bodies were like deflated dolls just skin. I felt sorry for the poor soliders who were initally given the task of carrying the bodies.

It was fitting to see the nazi's were then given the tasks of moving the deceased to the pits, it was interesting to see that they allies made the german locals go into the camps to witness the horrors that were going on in their town.

When I was looking at it, I was thinking about people who claim that the holocaust never happened, especially when it was documentated.

The only saving grace, was that they did not show children and babies,

Amica

Bruthal wrote: »

What do these people think the footage, and survivors accounts of events are, science fiction?

conspiracy (rolls eyes angrily)

Amica

Bruthal wrote: »

What do these people think the footage, and survivors accounts of events are, science fiction?

conspiracy - explanations like actors, special effects (rolls eyes angrily)

pidgeoneyes

Was in Auschwitz-Birkenau last July. A very good tour. If you came from another planet you'd still know something dreadful went on there. There's just a bad air about the place!

gipi

Amica wrote: »

conspiracy - explanations like actors, special effects (rolls eyes angrily)

Billy Wilder (who directed the US film which used the camp footage) pretty much said the same - that some people would think the victims were movie extras.

Saw the prog this evening - emotional doesn't describe it very well, but I can't put any other words on it right now.

curioser

Some episodes of The Rise of the Nazi Party on Discovery this evening - also very harrowing. I'm still waiting for the comment - yes it was all terrible but.... and then proceed to rant about the current situation on Israel's borders.

Capt'n Midnight

qt3.14 wrote: »

I think not. Everyone but the wilfully ignorant knows enough about the actions of the Nazis to be horrified. Very few people seem to know what Stalin got up to, or the Turks in Armenia or a host of other atrocities.

There's the 3 million Russian POW's that the German Army (regular not just the SS) allowed to die during winter of 41/42 ,

the graveyard in Belarus with hundreds of markers. Every one representing a village wiped out with no survivors.

then there's the Second Congo War including what happened in Rwanda and Burundi

Cambodia was just insane

oddly enough it was the Germans who first recognised the Armenian Genocide.

the good news is that your chances of dying in wars or famines are less than any time in recent history

[Deleted User]

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

There's the 3 million Russian POW's that the German Army (regular not just the SS) allowed to die during winter of 41/42 ,

the graveyard in Belarus with hundreds of markers. Every one representing a village wiped out with no survivors.

then there's the Second Congo War including what happened in Rwanda and Burundi

Cambodia was just insane

oddly enough it was the Germans who first recognised the Armenian Genocide.

the good news is that your chances of dying in wars or famines are less than any time in recent history

True, and you're only referencing the middle of the 20th century.
In earlier conflicts it wasn't unusual for the vanquished to be almost wiped out and any survivors to be sold into slavery.

animum

I just watched it, and I cried. As someone said, everyone needs to watch this at some point. Horrifying.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Venus In Furs wrote: »

Probably too overcome with guilt.

I'd say it's a lot more than "very few people" in relation to Stalin. The Turks in Armenia, yeh - not a known one.

I don't think they were overcome with guilt, tbh. I think they just ignored what was happening as it was costing them nothing and they were receiving goods and services at little cost.

Their first exposure to the reality of the camp changed from a happy day out on the walk to the camp to the comprehension of what actually happened in the camp.

For me, the horror is in how easily a society can accept the constant, inch by inch, dilution of normality. I have little doubt that similar scenarios will continue to happen, unfortunately.

Baggy Trousers

wretcheddomain wrote: »

I'm afraid not. I was too busy doing something interesting.

It's only January and you are probably winner of most idiotic and childish post of the year. Well done.

Villagio

I'm curious what the opinions of the German public were of Hitler and the Nazi party in the 5 years or so following their defeat.

jimgoose

Arbeit Macht Frei. Or, as the HSE would say, kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.

Birneybau

jimgoose wrote: »

Arbeit Macht Frei. Or, as the HSE would say, kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.

What? What does 'Work will set you free' have to do with the rest?

FloatingVoter

Villagio wrote: »

I'm curious what the opinions of the German public were of Hitler and the Nazi party in the 5 years or so following their defeat.

There are several books on the subject. Hitlers Willing Executioners (1996) sheds light on the complicity of "ordinary" segments of German society in the Holocaust. Those were active participants. As for the inactive, the unseeing.....life was good, no rationing until the later stages of the war. They won't feel the brunt until Stalingrad and the inevitable aftermath.
Germany itself was in ruins after the war. People were scavenging for food and later trying to rebuild lives. Denial was rife even though the trains going east were not invisible. You cannot murder 6,000,000 people quietly.
And making the records and memories of the lives of 6,000,000 people disappear from the mind of nations is impossible.

Zebra3

Birneybau wrote: »

Well done you.

Those that forget history are condemned to repeat it.

And within a couple of years the British were back with their concentration camps in Africa again.

Lyaiera

Someone linked to pictures of German POWs being shown the video of the concentration camps and their survivors. It brought me to tears. Here were soldiers finally being unabashedly confronted with what they were fighting for. They couldn't deny it any longer.

kneemos

They tend not to get a mention but there was an estimated up to 45 million civilians killed in WW2.
Incredible and kind of scary to think this kind of madness was only seventy odd years ago.

valoren

"We are told that the American soldier does not know what he was fighting for, now, at least he will know what he is fighting against." - Eisenhower.

[Deleted User]

I didn't see it, I did however see some of the footage on a trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau and it was much worse that the tour of concentration camps themselves.

Actually that excursion didn't really hit me until a few weeks later when I watched Generation War and I was completely and utterly traumatised. I think my brain just refused to comprehend it at the time.

I really cannot recommend Generation War/Unsere Mütter Unsere Väter enough. One of the best pieces of television I've seen.

Egginacup

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Watched it last night, pity it was on late on a Saturday. More people need to see this sort of programme to remind them of the atrocities that happened not so long ago.

Atrocities like this are happening as we speak.

Hoop66

Zebra3 wrote: »

And within a couple of years the British were back with their concentration camps in Africa again.

The British concentration camps were mostly during the 2nd Boer war, which was a good bit before WWII. 1900 or thereabouts.

Certainly possible that the Nazis got the idea from these...

valoren

I guess you were in a no win situation as an ordinary german citizen.
Sure you would have known about the camps, the internment ones, perhaps not the mass extermination ones, but what could you have done even if you did know?

Speak out and find yourself and your family interred there too? Thanks to the 'People's Court'.
Form a local revolt against the camp? You'd have been shot.
Or keep your mouth shut and get on with your life as best as you could.

It was a horrible period for everyone. Our enduring fascination with the period will ensure it's never forgotten.

Timberrrrrrrr

Egginacup wrote: »

Atrocities like this are happening as we speak.

Atrocities are happening yes, not on this scale though.

Menas

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Atrocities are happening yes, not on this scale though.

You are right...
6,000 people killed per day in Auschwitz at it's peak. Per day.
That is some operation to kill and dispose of that many humans...every day.

Nothing happening today can be compared to that.

Autonomous Cowherd

valoren wrote: »

I guess you were in a no win situation as an ordinary german citizen.
Sure you would have known about the camps, the internment ones, perhaps not the mass extermination ones, but what could you have done even if you did know?

Speak out and find yourself and your family interred there too? Thanks to the 'People's Court'.
Form a local revolt against the camp? You'd have been shot.
Or keep your mouth shut and get on with your life as best as you could.

It was a horrible period for everyone. Our enduring fascination with the period will ensure it's never forgotten.

I think this is a good point. If some New Reich emerged here complete with internment camps down the road from me, would I run headlong into a hail of bullets to protest it? Especially if my neighbours had voted the leaders of the Reich into power? Especially if my neighbours took up jobs in the camp? The best i could honestly say I would do, given that the safety of my children would be paramount, would be to try and leave the state. Even that might be difficult in such a dystopian scenario.

Capt'n Midnight

Hoop66 wrote: »

The British concentration camps were mostly during the 2nd Boer war, which was a good bit before WWII. 1900 or thereabouts.

Certainly possible that the Nazis got the idea from these...

Lots of people have used concentration camps. Some much worse than other.

What the Nazi's also had were Extermination Camps. If you arrived at one of these you'd be dead in a hour unless you were one of the few forced into the Sonderkommando in which case you might last up to three months.

Many of the extermination camps were staffed by non-Germans

The Ustaše even had their own camp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovac_concentration_camp