Auschwitz

[mrbelfry]

I’d like to say never ever again but with the rise of the fat right across the world who knows.

Don't think we have much to fear from worsleyweb to be honest as long as no one slags his coat.

Crazy to think this was my grandparents generation. Visiting Aushwitz when I was 17 and what surprised me was how organised and 'ordinary' it was. The camps were not the works of raving mad men but ordinary people who worked to make the whole thing super efficient. Prosthetics and glasses were reused and the human hair was made into socks. It was cold and 'logical' and justified to those who committed these crimes. Crimes committed not by crazy madmen but ordinary people. I truly believe that this kind of action wasn't unique to the nazis but the nature of it is within us all and we must challenge bigotry and prejudice in ourselves first and then our communities

 

[deano ou812]

Was over at Auschwitz in may did Birkenau as well,found birkenau more upsetting,the shocking treatment of the Jews and numbers murdered was truly horrific,we didn’t get to see all of Auschwitz as a couple parts where closed off for repairs at the time ..

 

[Mayor West]

Dont want to offend anyone but I have no idea why anyone would want to visit these places. Just watching documentaries is bad enough. Not for me.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I went in a group which included a survivor of Auschwitz. The place is chilling enough on its own, particularly when you get a first-hand idea of the scale of the Birkenau extermination camp where most of the killing facilities were. I reckon it's about the same size as Manchester city centre, from Victoria to St Peter's Square and Deansgate to Mosley St. We walked to Crematoria 4 & 5 on the far side of the 'Canada' warehouse complex and I happened to put my hand down to the ground, which was ash rather than soil, as they'd burned bodies in the open in the summer of 1944 while trying to exterminate the Hungarian Jews.

Truly a chilling moment but what made it even more chiiling was Mayer quietly explaining details of life in the camp. He said there was no grass, as anything that grew got eaten but the worst thing was when he found his old barrack block was still standing and in a matter-of-fact way said that you fought like hell to get the top bunk as if you were in the lower bunks, people couldn't get up to go to the toilet in the night so just pissed and defecated over the people below. He said it was pure luck whether you got through the day alive.

 

[jimharri]

Staggering to think of just how downright cruel and inhumane the human species can be to each other.

 

[Two Gun Bob]

Just been on the tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau and what a truly harrowing and haunting experience it was.

The horrors that went on here were unimaginable and were a stain on humanity.

I’d like to say never ever again but with the rise of the fat right across the world who knows.

RIP all those who died or suffered at the hands of their perpetrators.

Not only Auschwitz but decade after decade of incessant debauchery with mans inhumanity to man ever at the forefront. After two world wars you would think we had finally come of age with that well versed mantra of Never Again. After the holocaust the consensus was no more extermination or slaughter as we slowly began to comprehend the errors of our way whilst never being able to fully admonish or absolve from these dark dank deeds. Yet the decades roll on with Rwanda Pol Pot and the Bosnian genocide.

Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, –
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

Edited for grammer composition and syntax:

 

[hammocity]

Just been on the tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau and what a truly harrowing and haunting experience it was.

The horrors that went on here were unimaginable and were a stain on humanity.

I’d like to say never ever again but with the rise of the fat right across the world who knows.

RIP all those who died or suffered at the hands of their perpetrators.

Was in Germany last year and the intention was to visit Dachau on our last day, Mrs H bottled it and we ended up going to Munich Zoo instead.

I’ve read and watched loads about WW2 and like others a visit to a camp was on my bucket list, not out of morbid curiosity, just as a kind of respect to all those poor people and their families who suffered at the hands of institutionalised murderers. The hierarchy weren’t normal, working class people, they were monsters who had a free licence to inflict their sadistic practices on the weak and vulnerable and indulge in a lifestyle far beyond what they were worth or had achieved.

I felt no pity for the bastards who were caught, punished or terminated in later life by Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal, I hope they rot in hell

 

[manclad]

Dont want to offend anyone but I have no idea why anyone would want to visit these places. Just watching documentaries is bad enough. Not for me.

The wife and I went to the Imperial War Museum on a visit to London a couple of years ago. They have a whole floor dedicated to The Holocaust. As we entered through the door we were asked to make sure our phones were turned off as a sign of respect. We made it about half way around the gallery and then had to leave as it was too harrowing and upsetting to continue.
I personally found "The Holocaust By Bullets" in Poland,Ukraine,Latvia and Russia to be particularly harrowing to be honest.
To be marched through a forest,made to strip naked in the freezing cold,and then forced either to the edge or into a pit already filled with dead and mortally wounded but still alive and writhing bodies horrific. And then one shot into the back of the head which may or may not kill you.
But if you were not fatally wounded you would probably die from the press of the bodies above you. The Einsatzgruppen killers walking all over the bodies looking for survivors and shooting them in the head again.
In the worst atrocity at Babi Yar in Ukraine something like 10/12 SS murderers killed 33,000 Jews in 2 days. The irony is that they used captured Russian sub-machine guns as they had 50 round drum magazines and could thus kill more people without having to reload a fresh magazine.
Absolutely appalling and heart rending.

 

[marco]

very sad reading some of these posts,i would like to go but its probably best i keep away, what still gets me is how the soldiers and other people that worked at the camp just carried on with the daily routine as it was a normal course of events, i was told that those who worked the crems were either permanently pissed or druged

 

[Deleted member 77198]

It’s so grim to think that one dictator and his followers managed to exterminate millions of people in these places just because they were Slavic, Jewish, Gipsies, disabled, mentally ill or homosexual.

This maniac managed to kill millions of people just because he thought these groups of people were inferior and that ethnic cleansing and eugenics would make his vision of the world a better place.

The most chilling thing about it is that it was only 74 years ago.