No knee jerk reactions please but … I oppose this suggestion to fund Auschwitz memorial.
on 01/13/2010 at 11:28 AM
On one hand, perhaps it would be fitting to let the camps slowly rot back into the earth.
On the other hand such a place should be kept visible for 100 years.
Ordinarily I’d say the “if you fix it up, it’s no longer real” argument is thin, but madhat deniers will clutch at any straw.
Personally I think their estimates are way out of line too. €62,000 is $90,000. You could build 27 wooden guard towers for that much money, and the wood would last 14 years. Figure double that same cost for labor - hire 4 carpenters and some scaffolding for a year, which is all it would take to build them all. €186K is a whole lot less than €868K ($1.25m). Hell, they should be able to find volunteers to do the work.
Seems like they might have the UN coming up with the numbers.
Has nothing to do with reparations. But Drew has it right which reminds me.
I meant to bring up the subject of volunteers and got carried away and forgot so thanks.
They might get some but I really wonder how many have the interest. Then again, I suppose there might be those who would and there might be enough to do the job. Seems that’s a better way to go provided there are the ppl out there.Slight misunderstanding of what they are requesting. They aren’t accusing Britain or France or anyone else of any transgressions. They just want to maintain the place as a museum/monument. And they want donations. But not tied to anything like reparations.
My problem with it is as Drew describes but beyond that, the mere request for donations seems to become an automatic agreement by govts on behalf of their ppl. to, “donate.”The whole thing could be done with volunteers as Drew has pointed out, and for less money too. And also, I truly believe many ppl are just plain tired of it.
Personally, I’m becoming increasingly bothered by the quasi-totalitarian dogmatism that surrounds the whole subject.
I’ve read the literature produced by “mainstream historians” since I was a child - I had a morbid fascination with the obvious evil in the whole horrible nazi machine, the thought that people could be so monstrous. I stumbled over a “revisionist” video a number of years ago and was initially horrified at the very idea, but I read more out of a similar morbid curiosity - this time of people who could question what I believed was a fully settled matter.
As I considered it all - and re-read a lot of the stuff I’d read before - one factor increasingly stood out to me: The absolutely tyrannical and fanatical persecution of anyone who dares question the “official” details of the subject. It is a crime in most of Europe to even suggest the possibility that there might have been errors in the numbers of gassing victims - and people have gone to prison for years. One case in particular stood out to me - that of a man whose research indicated the number of dead at (IIRC) Auschwitz should be lowered. He went to prison for (IIRC, 8) years - and the number was later quietly lowered just as he’d suggested. Likewise, the “lampshades” and “soap” horrors have been quietly resigned to their proper category of legend and propaganda though untold numbers of people have never been told of these changes.
Please don’t misunderstand or mischaracterize what I am saying—I am not claiming ANY conclusion for or against anyone’s version of history. All I am saying is that we - as (supposedly) free people - should be able to investigate history with an open mind, and - if our investigation proves it necessary - adjust our conclusion to fit the evidence. Jailing people for scientific inquiry is not the sort of policy a free people could condone - frankly it smacks of exactly the sort of totalitarian fanaticism that led to the nazi horrors in the first place.
For the record, I have no doubt that the Nazis perpetrated unspeakable horrors on Jewish people and other “undesirables.” Whether people died of gassing, typhus, murder, exposure, malnutrition—or any other cause—the regime which caused their deaths rightly ranks among the most evil acts of our pathetic fallen species. These facts should be obvious to any decent, moral, thinking person.
That said, I believe it’s a mistake to kill scientific and historical inquiry by criminalizing any thought or question that runs contrary to the official history. It seems as barbaric as the Catholic Inquisitions treatment of the so-called “heretics” of their day. Further, it serves to lend some credence to the ravings of modern-day racists, neo-nazis, supremacists and their other - equally vile - fellow travelers. Tarring all who would seek truth with the “evil” or “anti-semitic” brush is exactly the sort of black/white mentality that led to the horrors in the first place. I’m sure we can all agree that becoming our enemy is not the proper way to defeat him…
If it happened as the official histories claim, there’s nothing to fear from research or inquiry, nor can I see any reason for fear if it didn’t. In my opinion it wouldn’t lessen the monstrosity of the nazi scum if the conclusion was there were no gas chambers at all and all the victims died of other causes - in fact I think it would increase the horror. I believe if I were forced to choose I’d be grateful for a quick gassing as opposed to a slow death from overwork, starvation, exposure, abuse and disease. Further, I believe it would take a much bigger, sicker bunch of monsters to be the perpetrators of the more protracted, horrible mass-death. Who is worse - the sociopath who starves and tortures a puppy or the one who shoots it? Both are vermin, but the former is much worse!
Please don’t label me a “denier” - nothing could be further from the truth. What I am is a “questioner” - a person who doesn’t believe the Government of the Allied nations was much (if any) more trustworthy then than it is today. Having examined a sizeable portion of the evidence and literature on the subject, I’m convinced it has and will always serve itself first - for such is the nature of the beast. The only antidote is freedom - most especially the freedom to question the official “party line.” Without freedom of thought, freedom of speech is meaningless - and so long as some speech is criminalized there can be no true freedom at all…
$0.02…
DD
Posted by Dedicated_dad
01/13/2010 at 11:03 PM
Check your email peiper,I just sent you a link that pretty much allows the Eu to fund any damn thing in the Eu with coin from any and all nations within it.
Good call DD.. Also to Drew..
What the hell are they ‘renovating’ those buildings with, Agarwood?
Jehoshaphat, They built them with local materials, not rare imported hardwoods.. IIRC they even made the bricks on-site since they had the clay already around the rivers. I say they build a simple sawmill somewhere out of the way, get some volunteers, and have at.Just a couple of good carpenters (I don’t think they used professional craftsmen, to maintain the buildings and do a rolling renovation, a couple of people for grunt work, some more security, wood, either from the surrounding forests, or lumber mills in the area, and a decent carpentry shop. We don’t need an army of Professional Restoration Carpenters to renovate these buildings, not do we need a computer assisted woodworking shop. Basic tools. The kind of tools one finds in the average shop. not a 15,000 Euro left handed lap joiner they may use 1 time. If they need something like that, they can farm it to an outside shop, but only if they absolutely need it.
I figure a cost of about 300,000 to 400,000 Euros A YEAR. Enough where, if they had 10 million in the bank, they could maintain with the interest.
Just a thought…
BillI’ll second doc deth dd. good call.
Actually, Germans have since forever been very good at record keeping. Just something about their by the book view of things. Many records were kept after WW2 cos they didn’t get a chance to destroy everything. We know it happened pretty much as history says because the Nazis really did keep such good records.
I agree with DD again and his use of the term “quasi-totalitarian dogmatism” is spot on. Just about says it all.I personally believe it to be wrong beyond measure that deniers like David Irving should be jailed for having and voicing an opinion they believe to be true, no matter how at odds with facts they are. The dumb assed laws in Germany and Austria have managed only to stifle opinion and out loud thoughts. But they certainly haven’t eradicated the feelings of haters. In France, sales and or displays of Nazi memorabilia on the Internet is banned, even those views that originate from foreign countries ie the USA or UK. But it’s perfectly okay to have the hammer and sickle as jewelery or flags etc. Cause as we all know, nobody died a horrible death or deprivation under that banner.
On the other hand, maybe the German and Austrian authorities don’t trust their own ppl and believe secretly that ALL are under the bed Jew hating Nazis at heart.
Sad chapter in human history and we’re still paying for it.
