A bit grim.

[zotz]

There were two Holocaust survivors interviewed on Today this morning. One of them had survived from being one of the first group arriving until the camp was liberated, one of only two to do so. He managed this by being the barber for the SS officers. It's terrible that survival can depend on these compromises, but he got to know their faces very well and was able to identify and testify against them after the war was over. He spoke of climbing up to  the loft and lifting roof tiles to watch people being  sent into the gas ovens, the door being slammed, an officer climbing to the roof and dropping pellets into a hole and then the screaming that went on for ten or fifteen minutes despite the efforts to drown it out with the sound of engines.

In other news, USG states that the now-freed Guantanamo returnees are still a threat. MRDA, I think.

Comments

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I almost get the feeling that they were arrested when they arrived home as this is what the British had agreed to do, "Yes, we'll arrest them as soon as they arrive here, don't worry." so they could let them go.
If I was feeling generous that is.

[zotz]

I think you're right. I certainly got that impression with the earlier group, who were treated similarly.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

It's what I was thinking. To let them go immediately would be tantamount to telling the American government that they were lying incompetent bullying fuckwits. And though we all know that to be the case it wouldn't be politically useful to let them know that we know that.

[zotz]

It would amount to giving them two fingers in public rather than in private.

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

I listened to that story on today as well. It was bringing tears to my eyes when he described how long the screams went on for.

I know the logical reasons and history behind the holocaust, or at least some of it, but I just can't begin to understand how so many people were able to just go about this as a normal industrial business. If it were just one person you could say they were sick, or unusual, but for a whole organisation to become dehumanised to this extent makes me wonder, in a very pessimistic kind of a way, exactly how accurate our definition of 'human' is to start with.

[zotz]

Little by little, over a period of years, with people mainly talking to each other so that their strange ideas reinforce each other and start to sound reasonable. Mind you, the various experiments on obediance to authority (the electric shock and prison exeriments, for instance) show what can be done fairly quickly. Just keep it calm and businesslike and people will, surprisingly often, assume there's nothing wrong.

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about similar today. http://www.prisonexp.org/ reveals just how shockingly easy it is to stop treating people with respect.

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

A friend who survived the camps gave one answer to this after shul this morning (someone else was wondering about this): to this day, but especially in places like Prague before the war, a lot of conversations about how awful people were in general would contain a little aside about Jews. It would include the mantra "Moshe, you're an okay guy, but why do all the other yidden do $foo? It's uncivilised?" And this sort of stereotyping was and is thought to be perfectly acceptable behavior by a lot of people of a certain age.

It's really easy to paint groups with such broad strokes when you're sure you have the only exception living next door.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

The interview I heard last night (er - I think) was with a lady who had survived because she was a twin, and was thus used for medical experiments.