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Holocaust Remembrance Day begins the night of Wednesday April 15 this year, when people around the world will commemorate the millions of victims of the Nazis’ World War II extermination campaign that killed two out of three European Jews. Six million Jews were slaughtered during the Holocaust, along with millions of Roma, Slavs, political dissidents, people with disabilities and gays. Known in Israel as Yom HaShoah, the remembrance was established by the Israeli parliament in 1951 to coincide with the liberation of concentration camps in Western Europe and the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the largest Jewish-led revolt against the Nazis during the war.
The solemn occasion is typically marked with ceremonies that emphasize the importance of remembering the atrocity and the power of passing on the memories of survivors and their descendants to future generations. As Israeli historian Ben-Zion Dinur once noted, “If we believe that we are to pave the way to the future, then we must first of all not forget.”
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“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” -- Elie Wiesel
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A good friend of my son's is with the B'nai Brith youth organization in Poland right now for this. She's doing facetime sessions with classes in the school talking about the Holocaust from various sites.
I'm pleased to see that history is being brought to life, especially as that whole generation is rapidly dying out. When no first hand testimony exists, the eyes and words of history will remain.
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Bergen-Belsen through the Eyes of Its Liberator
by BERNICE LERNER April 15, 2015 4:00 AM
Seventy years ago today, the British Army entered the infamous camp. In the spring of 1945, with Germany near defeat, Heinrich Himmler countermanded Hitler’s order to kill the remaining concentration-camp inmates. Bergen-Belsen, located in northern Germany, near the town of Celle, was turned over to the advancing British Army.
On April 15, Brigadier H. L. Glyn Hughes, deputy director of medical services for the British Second Army, entered the camp. He sent his reconnaissance party to check on food and water supplies, the availability of electricity, and the method of administration. What did they find? Not a blade of grass. Copious amounts of barbed wire. Bare cookhouses. Thousands of emaciated human beings stumbling along, hanging onto ten-foot-high barbed-wire fences for support, or lying where they had fallen.
Five compounds held 41,000 prisoners. With no working lavatories, the effects of dysentery fouled the overcrowded huts and the entire area around them. More than 10,000 corpses lay in piles on the ground.
Hughes learned that 18,000 inmates had died the previous month. An enormous grave pit was half filled. That evening, back at his billet, the 52-year-old officer sank into despair. He was expert at evacuating casualties. He could organize personnel and communications, medical and surgical teams, and hospitals. He had overseen burials, and controlled chaos during rescue missions. But in this hell, where to begin? . . .
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/41...ice-lerner
Never forget.
/Mr Lynn
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PBS showed the silent film about the aftermath of the Shoah the other night. I believe it is the same film I saw as a young teenager that changed my worldview.
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mrlynn wrote:
Bergen-Belsen through the Eyes of Its Liberator
by BERNICE LERNER April 15, 2015 4:00 AM
Seventy years ago today, the British Army entered the infamous camp. In the spring of 1945, with Germany near defeat, Heinrich Himmler countermanded Hitler’s order to kill the remaining concentration-camp inmates. Bergen-Belsen, located in northern Germany, near the town of Celle, was turned over to the advancing British Army.
On April 15, Brigadier H. L. Glyn Hughes, deputy director of medical services for the British Second Army, entered the camp. He sent his reconnaissance party to check on food and water supplies, the availability of electricity, and the method of administration. What did they find? Not a blade of grass. Copious amounts of barbed wire. Bare cookhouses. Thousands of emaciated human beings stumbling along, hanging onto ten-foot-high barbed-wire fences for support, or lying where they had fallen.
Five compounds held 41,000 prisoners. With no working lavatories, the effects of dysentery fouled the overcrowded huts and the entire area around them. More than 10,000 corpses lay in piles on the ground.
Hughes learned that 18,000 inmates had died the previous month. An enormous grave pit was half filled. That evening, back at his billet, the 52-year-old officer sank into despair. He was expert at evacuating casualties. He could organize personnel and communications, medical and surgical teams, and hospitals. He had overseen burials, and controlled chaos during rescue missions. But in this hell, where to begin? . . .
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/41...ice-lerner
Never forget.
/Mr Lynn
damn... even months of fighting a war couldn't possibly prepare you for THAT kind of a scene. It must have been like living in a nightmare...
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Just finishing up reading Schindler's List now. I try to read Holocaust-related literature on a somewhat regular basis, so as to never forget.
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