The Discovery channel had a program about the end of the 3rd Reich yesterday. Included was a section on Dachau, which was apparently the first death camp to be liberated. The American soldiers that were there were amazed that such a thing could happen! There were boxcars full of dead Jews, bodies were literally pouring out of them. The local German population was forced to go thru the camps, and they, of course, said that they didn't know what was happening there. Then the Germans were put to work burying the dead.
Even today there are Germans who revere Hitler. I worked for a while with a young woran who's parents came from Germany. She felt that Hitler was a great person who made Germany prosper. Yeah, they prospered for a while, but they paid a terrible price for it. It kind of reminds me of the movie "The Producers" where the Nazi writes the song "Springtime for Hitler in Germany". He says that Hitler was merely misunderstood.
Let the economy keep getting worse, our liberties keep being eroded, and let a charismatic leader arise, and you will see it here!
When I hear people here saying they only apparently learned about the holocaust from a book or films they saw as adults, it makes me wonder what has been taught in recent years in history classes. The second world war should be a large part of the curriculum, because it is such a large part of what has shaped the world for the last 60 years.
I lived in Germany for 2.5 years back in the mid 60s...probably most of the German people who were adults in WW2 and who I conversed with, are gone by now. Believe me, that big a "secret" cannot be kept..but it CAN be spoken about in whispers when a tyrannical govt is in charge.
It was Gen Eisenhower who demanded that nearby villagers be marched through the death camps...and it was a stroke of brilliance. Otherwise there would today be those who deny that the holocaust ever happened. Today, most all deniers are folks who did not do that 'walk through' or today have not visited the concrete and steel evidence.
Nazi (National Socialist) party members were forced to bury their crimes...perhaps the smell of rotting flesh clinging to their clothes and persons made it a bit harder for them to deny the truth when such was a 40 year old memory !
In the villages around the concentration camps which had a crematory, the smell of greasy, burning flesh was evident...weather inversions made the smoke issuing from the tall stacks turn down and saturate the surrounding area.
In those days there was a warning often issued to anyone who seemed to disagree with the Nazis. They were told, "you better shut up..or YOU may go up in smoke" !
Yes; there were a few Hitler respecters back then, even in Germany..some of them even wore the funny little, Hitler style moustache..
