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On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, two experts on Auschwitz argue for and against the idea that the former Nazi death camp should be allowed to crumble away.
ROBERT JAN VAN PELT, HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR
Many Auschwitz survivors have told me that a visit to the camp can teach little to those who were not imprisoned there.
Their view is best summarised in the text of Alain Resnais’ celebrated movie Night and Fog (1955), written by the camp survivor Jean Cayrol. As the camera pans across the empty barracks, the narrator warns the viewer that these remains do not reveal the wartime reality of “endless, uninterrupted fear”. The barracks offer no more than “the shell, the shadow”.
Should the world marshal enormous resources to preserve empty shells and faint shadows?
WLADYSLAW BARTOSZEWSKI, CHAIRMAN OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUSCHWITZ COUNCIL
The only people with a full and undeniable right to decide the future of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial are the hundreds of thousands murdered in this concentration camp. The prisoners whom I met as prisoner number 4427, when I was detained in Auschwitz between September 1940 and April 1941, are among them.
To some I owe my survival. They saved me, guided not only by the impulse of the heart, which was heroic at the time. They also believed that the survivors will bear witness to the tragedy which in Auschwitz-Birkenau became the fate of so many Europeans.
But the moment when there will be no more eyewitnesses left is inexorably approaching. What remains is the belief that when the people are gone, “the stones will cry out”.
Because we preserve an archive of evil we remind and remember what that evil was and did to the world. There is no less reason to preserve Auschwitz than to polish and paint the Statue of Liberty or temper the air in the Louvre.
# 29 bobbo said, “I’ve always thought the US Govt “should have” put all the internees property into trust and given it back on closing of the camps. ”
I’ve always thought that a President that ignores the Constitution and thus illegally engages in mass political arrests of US citizens should have been summarily executed.
But, that’s because I believe the Constitution should be followed, even by the President. How about you?
#30–amarangadingdong==full of emotions==must be the carryforward from Sunday?
So, in your view, a country should only recognize its “positive” history? I guess that is a privilege only for the winners.
As to summary execution==THAT certainly violates the due process requirements of the Constitution you claim to think about. See how emotions become palpable things? So–FDR went real far to the right, you would have gone real far to the left, and here, REASONABLE ME is caught in the middle of you two extremists.
I say a pox on both of you. FDR playing the racist card, you being a immature fantacist not able to think outside of protected environments.
HAH!!!!!!!!!!
#29, Bobbo,
You are partly right.
Japanese Americans were discriminated against because of their race. And the Supreme Court upheld the decision too, much to their shame.
German and Italian Americans were also interned. Although not in the same numbers, there were many camps set up in the Eastern US. As I recall, they were rounded up if they had shown any ties to their motherland. That could have been something as innocuous as being a member of a German-American Society or publishing a German language newspaper. Very few assimilated German or Italian Americans were interned.
Canada had internment camps too. In the 1980s there was a big political fluffle as the Prime Minister was accused of trying to make nice with Japan by apologizing and offering compensation to the interned Japanese Canadians solely for political gain.
# 32 bobbo said, “HAH!!!!!!!!!!”
Nice dodge. So, do you think FDR should have been tried & prosecuted for gross human rights & Constitutional violations? Or, do you give him a pass?
One or the other.
#20 – If, as a German, your “The Guilt” and “the responsibility to preserve this heritage” includes comparing Auschwitz to “fucking theme park” or “tourist attraction” then we definitely have to preserve it!
#33–Fusion==thanks again==I did not know that. Quite a judgment call going on there!
We demonize the enemy until we scare ourselves and over react. Same lessons can be applied to our enemies of today. How much of my animus towards muslims is reality based and how much is hysteria?
And more importantly, if an issue is on or near the borderline, and its a war, on which side should I err?
#34–Paddy==I’m willing to say FDR was “wrong” but still give him a pass. War is like that, all errors to be made on the side of winning.
Further, the Japanese have a cultural thing of “honoring their ancestors” moreso than Westerners (ie–English, Italians, and Germans) do so of all the groups, if I was going to intern someone it would have been the Japanese===BUT I would have recognized ((as we did)) that most of the people interned were completely innocent==hence I would have taken steps to protect what other rights of their I could. It was a protective action taken at a time of war through ignornace, suspicion, and a bit of knowledge.
amodedoma,
Our relation to this issue is really complicated.
Firstly, it was only the next generation which really dealt with this issue on a personal level.
The older generation was unanimous in saying that it was wrong, but they did not took much personal responsibility. (Which is ok I think)
Taking responsibility is not the same as taking blame. Especially personal blame.
We don’t take crap from anyone for this.
What we are left with is the responsibility to acknowledge history. We Germans feel very deeply about starting wars (unconstitutional!) and creeping racism and antidemocratic tendencies.
We know how fast something like this can happen, and we know that there is not much that can prevent this besides knowledge.
This is why we will never forget.
# 37 bobbo said, “Paddy==I’m willing to say FDR was “wrong” but still give him a pass. ”
Cool, just so I know where you stand: It is okay for Presidents to illegally seize and imprison US citizens and broadly suspend parts of the Bill of Rights as they see fit, during times of war.
Gee bobbo, sorry if I expressed a little compassion, I didn’t realize you’d find that offensive. Horrors like this are nothing new, I don’t see any such monuments in other countries. History is always written by the victorious. Skeletons in every closet no one likes to be reminded about. Genocide, Mass Murder, tell me the country that hasn’t been there and done that at some point in time.
amodedoma, I don’t think that appropriate to say.
Others wrongdoing never makes your own any better.
I mean, I would never say let me alone with the Jews, just remember what you did with the Indians and black people.
Besides, we are not doing it for anyone. We do this for ourselves. I think it is just healthy to reflect on ones own troubled history.
Compassion, especially a little compassion, will get you killed in a war. You and all you hold dear–so yea==don’t be a minority of a country that attacks the country you are in. Unfair shit always happens after that.
Compassion is a “touch stone” not the final word on an issue.
#30 – “…is detrimental to the people who live there, most of whom are too young to have any responibility in what happend there.”
Why would you hold Poles responsible for what happened in Auschwitz?
#41
Whoa thar, I didn’t do anything to indians or black people, ever. Just like 99% of the residents in the area of Auschwitz never did a thing to the Jews. I mean, nobody should be judged by what their ancestors have done, cause all of us are of murderous ancestry, it’s just a question of how far back you go. I realize that you don’t want to forget your history, you’re aware of yours and I’m aware of mine and I don’t see the difference unless you’re a 100 yearold nazi prison gaurd. I just mentioned it cause it seems unhealthy to do it this way. Make it a beautiful garden full of pictures and flowers. Make it a tribute to those who lost their lives there, not a tribute to those villans and their bloodthirsty cynacism.
Oy, That’s right, auschwitz was in poland boy am I stupid to have forgotten that, so then they need another tribute to all those that Stalin exterminated too.
#45 – and they do have them…
You’re pretty sad…
I have been to Auschwitz. It had a large impact on me, I don’t think it needs to exist to punish the Germans alive today. It needs to exist to remind people of the horror that happened there. Books and videos don’t do justice. When you are there you get a small taste of the scale of it. People should go there not to curse the German’s, but to remember how truely evil people can be. We have to remember this, it was too easy for many to dismiss then and coule easily be dismissed today. We need places like this to remind us that humans have, can, and will committ horrors like this.
#47, US,
Well written post. I only wish the last thought of the last sentence weren’t true.
#34, Cow-Paddy,
So, do you think FDR should have been tried & prosecuted for gross human rights & Constitutional violations? Or, do you give him a pass?
If you knew a bit of history, or even bothered to do some elementary research prior to your stupid comment, you would know that the detention of foreign nationals and Japanese / German / Italian American citizens was upheld by the Supreme Court as being lawful.
# 49 Mr. Fusion said, “If you knew a bit of history, or even bothered to do some elementary research prior to your stupid comment, you would know that the detention of foreign nationals and Japanese / German / Italian American citizens was upheld by the Supreme Court as being lawful.”
I am Soooo glad you agree that the Dread Scott ruling was correct. AND, that you agree the SCotUS decision you cite absolves Bush of wiretapping, renditions, etc., etc.
ROFLMAO!
#50, Cow-Paddy,
You are such a tool.
So whan are you going to provide the source for your claim about Pelosi wanting Gitmo detainees settled in the US?
#50, Cow-Paddy,
Who said I agreed with Dred Scott and why is that case relevant?
I can also see you don’t understand what Statute Law is.
It is so apparent you have no idea what Supreme Court decision I referred to and what their decision entailed.
So how is the gluten intolerance effecting your love for shit sandwiches?
# 52 Mr. Fusion said, “Who said I agreed with Dred Scott”
You did. Since you think that because the C says it’s legal it is. Ergo, you would HAVE to agree, unless you think the SC is right only when it matches your opinion…
Let me know.
Support you public library or even Wikipedia. Make sure that history is never forgotten.
#53, Cow-Paddy,
# 52 Mr. Fusion said, “Who said I agreed with Dred Scott”
You did. Since you think that because the C says it’s legal it is. Ergo, you would HAVE to agree, unless you think the SC is right only when it matches your opinion…
Geeze are you screwed up. Please, post WHERE I agreed with the Dred Scott case.
# 55 Mr. Fusion said, “Geeze are you screwed up. Please, post WHERE I agreed with the Dred Scott case.”
I did. You think that when FDR kidnapped innocent women & children and imprisoned them without trial or recourse without any criminal charges it was legal because SCotUS said so. So, you either agree with that ruling or you don’t.
Well…
#56, Cow-Paddy,
You think
Your first mistake here is thinking. You should try things beyond your capability.
Who said I agree with the ruling? Oh right !!! You did. So that makes it a fact.
Grow up.
# 57 Mr. Fusion said,
As I thought. I was correct. When confronted by a challenge to your flawed logic, you attack rather than answering to it.
Thanks.
“I mean, nobody should be judged by what their ancestors have done”
Oh, yes. Definitely.
But this usually does not happen anyway.
If you like to get smacked in the face by a German, just call him a nazi.
But I don’t feel that we (for example) get judged on this basis. Maybe by some really stupid people, but who cares.
Here’s the troll’s US “concentration camp”
http://tinyurl.com/b7xmuz
Just like Auschwitz, eh?
What a dumbass.