Holocaust Museum

[ltorlo64]

It has taken a few days to be able to post this. My family and I went to the Holocaust Museum a few days ago. Very moving, very educational, very well done. I have read much of the Holocaust and how Germany treated Jews and other "undesirables" during WWII but I was still unprepared for what I saw. There was more than once when I was glad that the lighting is low and that my wife and daughter were walking ahead of me because of the tears streaming down my face. There was one exhibit that was just shoes. Thousands of shoes that were in the process of being sorted when the camp they were taken from was liberated. The shoes were from those who had been executed at a camp that its only reason to exist was to kill undesirables. The only ones to make it out of the camp alive, besides the guards, were the slaves that were separating the shoes.

If you are ever in the DC area I highly recommend this museum. But go into it knowing that it will not be one that you will enjoy, but it is one you need to see.

[Helen Keller]

went there a few years ago . a very very quiet place.

[Kadmos]

Was there about 8 years back, actually held it together pretty well until the end. You get to that room with candles to light for lost relatives. We got there at maybe 11am, all the candles were already lit. That was what pushed me over the edge, a feeling of hopelessness at not being able to light a candle for the lost of my family. Hard to explain, but that was my moment when the vastness of it hit.

As a kid I visited Auschwitz. They had giant cages and bins off boots, and others of human hair, from when they shaved their heads. I hear they are behind glass now, but back then you could smell them, rotting leather, all of them melded into one dull gray color with the occasional brightly colored kids shoe still showing a hint of the color it once was. The hair was all the color of mud, almost no variation whatsoever.

To a child it was unimaginable, like every person on earth had sent their shoes to the place.

[Helen Keller]

If You wonder why I hate and have violent feeling towards socialists/communists, Read about Lithuania around 1917ish... thats where my family started.

[Kadmos]

If You wonder why I hate and have violent feeling towards socialists/communists, Read about Lithuania around 1917ish... thats where my family started.

Half my family left from around that area about 10 years earlier.

Actually half of one half of my family. The one's who stayed (from that half) haven't been heard from since 1942, the last letter my grandfather got from Europe.

[Helen Keller]

things must have sucked.... great grandfather showed up on ellis island with an extra t-shirt and a spoon , my mom has the books/certificates.


I've read enough to know they sucked. Most of them in that area by Commie Jews of that era, I wont mention how by. I dont hate jews.. just commies.

Thats the line Adolf crossed, he blamed all the jews for communist atrocities he saw as a young man VS going after the assholes themselves.

[Krupski]

It has taken a few days to be able to post this. My family and I went to the Holocaust Museum a few days ago. Very moving, very educational, very well done. I have read much of the Holocaust and how Germany treated Jews and other "undesirables" during WWII but I was still unprepared for what I saw. There was more than once when I was glad that the lighting is low and that my wife and daughter were walking ahead of me because of the tears streaming down my face. There was one exhibit that was just shoes. Thousands of shoes that were in the process of being sorted when the camp they were taken from was liberated. The shoes were from those who had been executed at a camp that its only reason to exist was to kill undesirables. The only ones to make it out of the camp alive, besides the guards, were the slaves that were separating the shoes.

If you are ever in the DC area I highly recommend this museum. But go into it knowing that it will not be one that you will enjoy, but it is one you need to see.

The "slaves separating the shoes" (as well as all kinds of other tasks) were called the "Sonderkommando" (literally "special detail"). They were "recruited" by the Nazis by giving them special treatment (separate barracks, more food and better clothes) to induce them to do their work.

In addition to "sorting shoes", they also led prisoners into the gas chambers, used meat hooks to remove them from the gas chambers, took the bodies to the crematorium, removed jewelery and gold fillings from the bodies and everything else necessary to "process" the prisoners.

The gold teeth were dumped into a bucket of acid to burn away all the biological material, then the gold was smelted into ingots using graphite molds. These gold ingots were also used by Sonderkommando and Nazi guards as currency. Cigarettes and gold ingots were used to buy "favors" from guards or to have guards bring in items from the outside for the prisoners to use.

In order to prevent any of the Sonderkommando from surviving the war and being able to testify to what they saw (i.e. they "knew too much"), the entire Kommando was executed after about 4 months service and replaced by a new batch (who now had only 4 months left to live).

The only few people (Sonderkommando or otherwise) who made it out alive either escaped successfully or else the last Kommando before the camp was liberated had the chance to escape because the Nazis fled in the middle of the night trying to avoid capture (they left the camps unguarded and therefore some people were able to escape).

A few also managed to smuggle notes and messages out of the camps by hiding them in furniture or other items that they were forced to build for a ranking Nazi (i.e. a carpenter may be told to build a sofa for the Kommandantur) which had a message sewn inside before the sofa was shipped out.

It's a difficult moral question... were they (the Sonderkommando) wrong to herd their fellow Jews into the gas chambers just so THEY could have an easier life?

[Krupski]

If You wonder why I hate and have violent feeling towards socialists/communists, Read about Lithuania around 1917ish... thats where my family started.

The WORST and MEANEST Einsatzkommando (mobile killing squads) were Lithuanian Nazis.

They didn't even need favors, cigarettes, alcohol or sausage rations to kill Jews. They gladly did it for free.

[Aggressive Perfector]

I need to go to this museum like a I need to get sensitivity training from the NAACP.

[LAGC]

Definitely one of the best museums in D.C. -- I still have my Pastor Martin Niemöller refrigerator magnet trinket that I bought a couple years ago when I visited:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The International Spy Museum there in D.C. is pretty cool as well, if you've ever been in there. Lots of history from the Cold War and beyond.

[Krupski]

I need to go to this museum like a I need to get sensitivity training from the NAACP.

Actually, it's quite important to learn about history. As far as the holocaust is concerned, most people think of it as "the Nazis gassed the Jews". They have no idea of the cruelty and brutality of the Einsatzgruppen, the SS and the death camps themselves.

Old men, old women, pregnant women, children... nothing was sacred to these animals. All were murdered with the same cold efficiency.

You should study some history before you pooh-pooh it.

[FunkyPertwee]

Actually, it's quite important to learn about history. As far as the holocaust is concerned, most people think of it as "the Nazis gassed the Jews". They have no idea of the cruelty and brutality of the Einsatzgruppen, the SS and the death camps themselves.

Old men, old women, pregnant women, children... nothing was sacred to these animals. All were murdered with the same cold efficiency.

You should study some history before you pooh-pooh it.

Agreed.

The holocaust isn't some PC bullshit like black history month. We need to be familiar with the holocaust so that we can prevent ourselves from becoming either the perpetrators or the victims of a future holocaust.

[Aggressive Perfector]

Actually, it's quite important to learn about history. As far as the holocaust is concerned, most people think of it as "the Nazis gassed the Jews". They have no idea of the cruelty and brutality of the Einsatzgruppen, the SS and the death camps themselves.

Old men, old women, pregnant women, children... nothing was sacred to these animals. All were murdered with the same cold efficiency.

You should study some history before you pooh-pooh it.

I have actually done a hell of a lot of research on just exactly what the hell the Nazi's did. Spent an entire month learning about it for what was supposed to be a very damn long presentation for a high school project. My history teacher was pretty damn avid about it. I suppose you could say I've had my fill of it.

[ltorlo64]

I have actually done a hell of a lot of research on just exactly what the hell the Nazi's did. Spent an entire month learning about it for what was supposed to be a very damn long presentation for a high school project. My history teacher was pretty damn avid about it. I suppose you could say I've had my fill of it.

I am sorry you feel this way. The Nazis are a great example of what can happen to an educated country when they don't think critically, sort of like what is happening with us. These were not ignorant, uneducated people that perpetrated these horrific crimes and yet they thought nothing of starving, gassing and just shooting men, women, boys and girls, just because they were in some way different. This is something we cannot forget because when we do we will be reminded as it happens again.

[Krupski]

I am sorry you feel this way. The Nazis are a great example of what can happen to an educated country when they don't think critically, sort of like what is happening with us. These were not ignorant, uneducated people that perpetrated these horrific crimes and yet they thought nothing of starving, gassing and just shooting men, women, boys and girls, just because they were in some way different. This is something we cannot forget because when we do we will be reminded as it happens again.

Anyone who studies Nazi Germany from the very beginnings up to the end of the war will see frightening similarities between the USA today and early Nazi Germany.

I would say the US is right around the 1933-1934 German time frame. It's not difficult to predict what's coming...

[FunkyPertwee]

Anyone who studies Nazi Germany from the very beginnings up to the end of the war will see frightening similarities between the USA today and early Nazi Germany.

I would say the US is right around the 1933-1934 German time frame. It's not difficult to predict what's coming...

I'm waiting for the reichstag to burn and for the chancellor to declare himself dictator for life. Then the military pledges its new oath.

[samiam]

[ltorlo64]

Considering it was conservatives who liberated Europe from the hands of a socialist madman, this is almost funny, if it weren't for the lack of knowledge and the wild attempt to rewrite history that is being passed off as sarcasm.

[NAPOTS]

This is a decent thread on a serious topic where members are being respectful of one another, no need to derail the topic with bullshit.

[tank_monkey]

Considering it was conservatives who liberated Europe from the hands of a socialist madman, this is almost funny, if it weren't for the lack of knowledge and the wild attempt to rewrite history that is being passed off as sarcasm.

Does SAMIAM actually BELIEVE THIS? or is he just posting it as a sardonic commentary on how sick liberals are? I'm confused.