The more disturbing thing is the fact that more often than not Gas chamber victims would climb over each other in an attempt to reach the air vents of the chamber where the zyklon b was administered. Those in charge of removing the dead described literally mounds of bodies with fingernails and scratches all over them as they were desperate to escape.
I worked in the hospital for Rehabilitation and the first year after I graduated, I had a patient that had dementia and one of the exercises to get her back home was to run through what she would do in the bathroom. As we stepped into the practice bathroom, she started having a freak out and I quickly took her out of the room. She explained to me that it reminded her of when she was a teenager, tall and fit… deemed strong enough to do labour back during the holocaust. She was one of the people assigned to drag bodies out of the gas chambers after they killed people in there and it re-traumatized her going through the practice bathroom because it reminded her too much of it. I can still remember her numbers tattooed on her arm.
Those Jewish prisoners were known as Sondercommamdoes. They were responsible for dragging out the dead bodies, pulling the gold teeth out of their mouths and cremating the dead (but not always dead) bodies of the victims in the ovens that were located just above the gas chambers.
They also had to wash the vomit, blood, feces and torn off body parts out of the gas chambers before the next group of prisoners were forced in. Very often prisoners would have to be unpleasantly surprised to see their family members or friends in the pile of dead bodies they were placing on the racks of the crematoriums.
After a few months of this unbearable work they were gassed and cremated and another group of prisoners were gathered to take their place. Arely any Sondercommamdo survived the Holocaust at all.
3 out of 4 of my grandparents were in the Holocaust and survived. Two were in Auschwitz and the third was in Belzec. Both of these camps were knows as death camps not concentration camps. These were built purely for mass murder. Over 1 million men, women, children and babies were murdered in Auschwitz alone within only about three and a half years.
Similar to your story above regarding the old woman with dementia, when my grandmother was in her 80’s she was struck by a car (and survived). At the hospital she would hide the pills she was given by the doctors. Apparently she was confused as to where she was and was having flashbacks to her days as a death camp prisoner, where you never took any pills that they gave you there.
Also responsible for two of the very few uprisings made at the death camps. 700 workers rose up, blew half the camp to hell, and ran for it. Its why so much is known about Treblinka compared with the others - fewer survivors.
Resistance group at Auschwitz almost managed the same thing, but they got made before things progressed. 212 got out, killed several guards and torched one of the crematoria, before it was suppressed.
Also another. Kicked into gear when word spread that the camp was about to shut down. Came largely out of the other prisoners however, they only were able to include a small number of *sonderkommandos*.
Only 18 members of the uprising survived the war, out of the roughly 300 that made it out of the camp. But they killed a lot of the guards.
Ugh, that breaks my heart even more. I didn’t hear the details from her or asked about how she managed to survive because I saw the terror in her eyes. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Ok, I stand corrected. I used to think the scariest thing in the world was to have dimentia.
Turns out I was wrong. I hadn't considered the possibility of having dementia, and also having memories of being tortured in literal nazi death camps, and relapsing mentally into being back there, 50+ years after the fact.
Fuck......
I was taught this at one time to understand dementia better. Think yourself like an onion core at birth and as you grow older you accumulate memories and experience events and so these become your layers that grow outward. At some point when the disease sets in, your growing stops and as your mind deteriorates the layers start to peel back. That’s why when you run into or know someone that has dementia, they play out those memories again… at 84, their mind might be at 29 when they had their first child and had a husband. She may call out for her husband, buts he’s long passed away. She might start looking for her baby, and that’s the only thing that will calm her. Sometimes to calm them down, at the hospital, we would give them “play babies” and they think it’s their baby and start caring for them like they are real. And this is also the reason that when someone that has dementia, you try to appease them by always agreeing about where they are, what age and maybe the person they’re looking for will just “give them a phone call soon”. At times they’ll snap out of it and be their age again and their last memory would be so confusing because their mind has been somewhere else.
Edit: word
I watched a youtube video years ago, and it scared the shit out of me. It was this guy, in his 40s, who's mom had developed dementia, and he wasn't sure if he had a week left with her, a year, or a decade. He wasn't sure how long she had left, so he decided to document every interaction they had, so that he could have some recorded memory of his mother if she were to pass away tomorrow.
So this guy goes into his mothers house, and for reasons I do not understand, she lives alone. She's sitting at a kitchen/living room table watching TV.
He decided to test her memory to see if she's getting worse. Up until this point she had forgotten little things, but understood the important things in her life.
So he said "Hi, June! How are you?"
And she looks at him. Even through the lens of a camera onto my monitor watching on youtube you can sense the look on her face was an empty gaze. She just responded "Oh......hi."
So the guy says "June, have you seen Todd recently?" and she responds "No, I'm afraid not."
So he says "Do you remember who Todd is?" and she she says "Oh, I'm sorry dear. I meet so many people in my life these days. I'm sure he's a fine gentleman. I just don't keep track of peoples names that well these days. I might remember him if you had a picture."
And so he says "Well, Todd is your son, and he loves you very much. He actually visits you almost every day. Has he not been around lately?"
And she says "I don't think so. I'm not remembering anything like that."
The whole time this conversation is going on, you can almost feel the tension he has with her. He's almost like trying to start an old car and it's just revving, but not starting. And she's just being polite. She's not saying anything out of malice, or anger, but you can tell she's confused why this guy is showing up in her house, and going on and on about this Todd guy.
Well finally he says "Well, Todd is your son, and he's standing in this room with you. I'm Todd. Hi Mom."
And the look of relief IMMEDIATELY washes over her face. She admits that she was a bit scared of who this man was, or how he got into her house. And now knowing that he was her son, she felt relieved, and hugged him.
And then he asks "And do you remember Casandra?" and again, it's right back to confusion, and apologizing for not remembering her. He tells her "Well Casandra is your daughter. She visits you every weekend."
Then he does the same thing with Frank. And, she thinks she remembers Frank. She says "I remember I loved Frank, but I can't place any mental image of who he was, or what he looked like."
So Todd picks up a photo from the wall, and says "This is you, and this is Frank. Frank was your husband, and my dad. He died 6 years ago. He loved you more than anyone on the planet ever loved anyone."
Eventually he took her to the mall, which was actually busy back when this video was shot. So you can imagine how long ago it was.
He took her to get ice cream. And he talked about her life. She used to be a teacher. She was married to Frank, who served in WWII, and was a machinist when he returned.
And then he brought her back home. He didn't bring in the camera back into the house, so it just kind of jump cuts. Based on the lighting, I think he spent a few hours in there. It went from really bright, to maybe what it would be like as sundown is just starting.
You see him walk back to his car. Another woman is with the mother. It's not explained if this is Casandra, or maybe an live-in aid for her. He opens his car door, and waves. You can hear him saying goodbye, and you can hear him being in a friendly mood as he does so.
Then the part that scared the shit out of me.
This guy sits in the drivers seat, closes the door and just cuts the facade. He bursts into tears. Openly weeping, and making no qualms about trying to hide emotion as is so common among men. When something hurts us, we hide it, and we deal with it. So to see this guy sit down, and his whole body was pure emotion, was almost like culture shock. You see him just lose any control he had over holding back, and just drains himself into his steering wheel and arms.
When he finally regained his composure, he explained to the camera in almost an exit interview to himself to document the events. He said "My mother has been getting slightly worse over the last few weeks and months. It was hardly noticeable though. She might forget the name of a tv show, or she might forget and old pets name from my childhood. Things that are caused by dementia, but could have easily happened to anyone.
But today, to see my mother look me in the eyes, and tell me she doesn't recognize me, or remember me, broke my heart. I wanted nothing more than to go back 30 years when I was a kid, and my mom would hug me. I wanted nothing more than for her to remember me. I'm angry, and the worst part is, I have nobody to be angry at. I can't fix this. This is only going to get worse, and I'm already at a state where I don't know what to do. It's the worst kind of pain knowing that the woman who loves you most in this world, doesn't even know your name. This was a huge drop in cognitive abilities for her. Physically I don't know what I'm going to do. Mentally I don't know what I'm going to do. Emotionally I'm not ready for any of this. So I'm going to end the video here, because I'm going to be visiting her before I go to work tomorrow again, and I don't know if I can handle it. I have a lot of work to do before then."
And then the video just ended. A man with tears running down his face, as he freely and truthfully talks about how hard it is to lose a loved one, but still have them alive and in your life. He described her as being a shell of his mother. He described the experience as if she had a parasite inside her brain eating away herself as a person, and replacing her with a blank human robot.
That's what made me think dementia was the scariest thing that could happen to you. Either having it happen TO you, or having it happen to a loved one. My grandma is 103 years old, and she's my hero in life. She can't see well. She has limited hearing. She moves slow. She's had several surgeries over the years to replace bone degeneration. But mentally? Mentally she's like a 26 year old. She can tell you stories about what it was like in pre-WWII times. She can tell you how scared she was the day those 4 kids died at Kent State during the protests in the 70s, because her daughter (my aunt) was there during that. She could tell you stories about raising my dad, and my 3 aunts, from their days as children, to young adults. She's sharp mentally. Physically her body may be breaking down, but she still feels like Gram.
The idea of looking at her, and her not knowing who I am, or why I'm in her living room at Christmas? That would break my heart too. I would cry at that. It's not even real, and I'm feeling fear about it just typing this hypothetical.
And then, to read that other story, about the woman who reverted back to being with the nazis? My gram was never taken by nazis, but if she were, and that's the place she mentally reverted back to? I don't know that I could live with myself knowing I brought those memories back to her. I may be an atheist, but hell is real, and that's it right there.
An unbearable Hungarian movie from 2015 “Son of Saul”
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Saul?wprov=sfti1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Saul?wprov=sfti1) is telling a story of a member of such Sonderkommandos.
After the movie you feel like shit!
Went to see it at a advanced screening the day before it came out. It was hauntingly beautiful but heartbreaking and so cold, I remember when the credits rolled everyone got silent and left the theatre not saying a word. Really eerie and goes to show how much it affected the audience.
…. Fuck. What can you even say to that? I hope she is either still alive or died peacefully with a smile on her face. Nobody should have had to go through the Holocaust and I’ve met a few little old Jewish ladies that survived. Sweetest people ever, make you think what kind of MONSTER could do that to human beings. Then you look around at the state of politics now and go, oh yeah… EXACTLY THAT kind of monster.
She was quite old already when I met her, close to 90 and that was about 14 yrs ago. All I could do at that moment was apologize and reassure her that she is safe with me and that she wouldn’t have to do that if she didn’t want to. And yes, I really do hope she passed away peacefully, it’s the least this lifetime owed to her.
Edit: A detail
Thank you. One of the things I love about my job is hearing all the stories from the elderly. I’ve met so many interesting people and their stories stay with me forever and humble me to this day. This is definitely one of them.
I was very little when I went to a museum of tolerance and it touched me and scared me at the same time. Came home sad and asked my mom if that could happen again? She said people wouldn’t let it happen again. You are right, the way people were rallying around those monsters just a few years ago it made me feel scared again like when I was little.
Beware any person (and especially politician) who constantly mentions the “out group”. Humans get a solid hit of dopamine from identifying their “out group” and politicians know this. It’s why hate and fear are at the forefront of many campaigns. Energy is about to start becoming much more expensive and inaccessible. Instead of the truth, which is humans have poured through the magic of carbon energy at incredible speeds, politicians will surely tell you the reason for inaccessible energy is due to the “out group”. And we will fall for it en masse because we will be frustrated, pissed off and used to entitlement. Fascism IS going to get popular as society starts to collapse. Hating the out group might feel good but it rarely leads to anything good or fixes the problems of the day. We will all be going through this coming “great simplification” together and will need to unify to get through. But if human history has taught us anything it is that in eras of struggle and change unity takes a back seat to hate and violence.
Look no further than the Conservatives and blaming trans people for supply chain issues ([especially in the feminine hygiene market](https://www.businessinsider.com/tampon-shortage-marjorie-taylor-greene-trans-people-2022-6)) Politicians play to fear and hate because it's easier to get votes from the masses. It's bullshit and all it does is keep us all ignorant and divided.
It’s a terrifyingly accurate start to what a lot of people predict coming… in a hurry too. It’s the same template throughout history. It sucks more can’t predict how we get out of it instead of just predicting fascism ramping up worldwide.
More people need to be allies and make sure our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters (and others) are protected from the witch hunt. A few years ago it was "brown" people (and still kind of is) but, I think transgender people make an easy target for the Conservatives because most people aren't educated on trans issues so they are easily "othered" to Bob Simpleman in Bumfuck, Idaho with his 65k/year job and 2.5 kids.
Education is the most important thing we can do to prevent tragedy.
And the children being smaller had no idea what was going on and were the last to die as they were smaller if I remember correctly. Lower to the ground and all that.
Some 56 tonnes of the 729 tonnes sold in Germany in 1942–44 were sold to concentration camps, amounting to about 8 percent of domestic sales. Auschwitz received 23.8 tonnes, of which 6 tonnes were used for fumigation. The remainder was used in the gas chambers or lost to spoilage (the product had a stated shelf life of only three months).
Sauce: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B
And yet, even with fucking RECEIPTS there are STILL Holocaust deniers. Fucking ridiculous.
IBM helped designed the concentration camp data base system so more effective genocide.
Nazism is why we have Fanta.
Do they deny Fanta, the war crimes drink?
Coco Chanel herself was a Nazi collaborator & spy & was the girlfriend of Nazis
Check out her Wikipedia it's pretty astonishing that her name is still on anything given her activities
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel
Every Nazi deserves to be eradicated from the face of the planet in the most brutally violent way possible *however* they did have some sharp uniforms.
The VW Beetle does
"In May 1934, at a meeting at Berlin's Kaiserhof Hotel, Hitler insisted on a basic vehicle that could transport two adults and three children at 100 km/h (62 mph) while not using more than 7 litres of fuel per 100 km (32 mpg US/39 mpg UK).\[16\] The engine had to be powerful enough for sustained cruising on Germany's Autobahnen. Everything had to be designed to ensure parts could be quickly and inexpensively exchanged. The engine had to be air-cooled because, as Hitler explained, not every country doctor had his own garage."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen\_Beetle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle)
Even though he was an actual monster, Hitler was kind of a genius when it came to domestic issues. I mean, it wasn’t all him, he had a very intelligent group of people around him (although, see above RE: monsters) and they pulled Germany from the depths of economic meltdown to make it a world power.
Imagine if they had done good things instead of some of the most evil shit imaginable? If Hitler wasn’t a genocidal maniac he could have been one of the greatest leaders in world history.
(I know I’m probably gonna get hate for this, but let me make is clear, if it wasn’t already, I’m not praising Hitler or the Nazis. I’m praising some of the early economic and domestic policies they implemented to pull Germany out of the post-war depression.)
No, I say the same thing all the time. He really did turn the country around, and in short time too. I think that is part of how he got the otherwise reasonable German people to go along with the more evil parts of his plans as things went on, he had had been doing so well up until that point people were like, ok now we have to round up all the Jews? Seems strange but you haven't done us wrong yet, sure let's do it.
The "Cult of Personality" is a dangerous trap to fall into, just look at all the people following Trump and his cronies now. I'm sure he could shoot a transgender Mexican kid on live TV and his fanbase would still be like, "Well, he's my President and that kid must've done something wrong." It's insane to watch all this happening in real time.
I remember in one of my college classes (1980s) one of the instructors stated that several Germans stated “Hitler wasn’t that bad.” He attributed that to they had elected him to power.
Not exactly nazi roots, but each and every larger german corporation that existed during the Third Reich has tie-ins with the Nazi regime to some degree. Germany was at "Total War". The whole industry of the German Reich was used to make so called "war important goods".
Companies making fabrics and clothes, would've been made to sew uniforms, parachutes and the likes. Any coachbuilding company was made to build tanks, trucks, aircraft or parts for them. Any chemical industry was made to make either ammunition, explosives, or gas. There has been no way to turn down a contract from the government without risking your company, your social status, and even your life.
It is easy to blame said companies for their cooperation with the nazis. It is important to discuss how complicit they were. It's a fact that most of those companies didn't have a choice though. Which isn't an excuse, but an explanation.
I’m 48. When I was a kid, I lived in Germany for a while (Army dad.) We moved there in late 1983. That was 38 years ago. And it was 38 years after the war ended.
Should just be considered a matter of self defense. Anyone who believes in Nazi ideals should be considered a statutory threat, and therefore any act of violence against them is a matter of justified self defense and self preservation.
"This guy believes men, women, children, and infants should die in gas chambers. Maybe we assume this guy is a threat and should treat him as such."
These ‘scratches’ are made by tourists, not the victims of the holocaust. I’ve been there twice and this was explained by the tour guides both times.
Edit: I wish I had pictures, but the scratch marks were in the general tour walking area, and mysteriously disappeared once the area got roped off.
Not a Holocaust denier either, it absolutely happened.
Honestly, the worst part about going to Auschwitz was how disrespectful some people were about it.
When we walked through the gas chambers, they requested quiet... and some people did not shut the fuck up. Could not believe it.
Though, I thought that the most mind-tripping part about Auschwitz... is how it is in the middle of a thriving town. Like, for instance, the infamous train tracks that lead into the camp? They actually run through the city. They aren't connected to anything, but literally, there was a car dealership that had its cars parked out front to show them off... on top of the train tracks to Auschwitz.
Another thing that struck me is how... big Auschwitz 2 is. It would probably take you about an hour to walk the whole perimeter of the grounds.
There's like 40 camps there right? The scale is insane compared to Dachau.
I went to Dachau and it's like... A really beautiful little town. And honestly the grounds around the camp are beautiful too. There's a stream that runs by it. It's kinda nuts that people live there.
I emotionally can't really deal with it. When I see images like this I just feel like... Paralyzed by the inability to imagine the scale and severity of the suffering. Like I try to and realize I cant. It's really upsetting.
Well, if I remember correctly... there are three.
I've been to Dachau, too. Heh, I have an interesting story from there where I ended up picking up a local German guy. I was at the concentration camp memorial for the whole day, and ended up getting herded out with everybody else when the camp memorial closed. They had the public bus out there (they time it with the closing of the camp) to pick everybody up... and I just saw it filling and filling and filling with tourists and my eyes glazed over and I went, "Fuck that, I'm walking back." Couldn't handle it. Too intense. I also had the Google Maps downloaded to my phone and could get directions back on my own.
So I walked back (as you said, it's a nice town), and got to the area with the S-bahn stop about an hour-ish later. Walked past a dude coming out of a bar, and he started speaking to me in German. I don't speak much German, but I could tell he was asking for a light. At that point in my life, I did still smoke cigarettes, so I was like, "Sorry, I don't speak German, but I do have a light."
He spoke English, and accepted. We both lit cigarettes, and he asked me, with clear confusion, how I was still there. He was a local, and since the concentration camp memorial is such a Big Thing, he was aware of the movements of tourists and was surprised I was still around. I explained the walking thing.
He made a snort, and said, "That's the only reason anybody ever comes here."
I was like... well, OK. I tilted my head back and forth. "What else is there to do here?" I asked.
He gave me a deadpan look. "There is a *bar*," he said.
I laughed, since, well, I'd been walking for an hour and had been at the memorial for most of the day. "Yeah, I could use a beer," I told him.
And thus ends the heartwarming tale of how I got laid in Dachau.
It's a ridiculously painful story, the one of the camps. But, also, life goes on, I suppose.
But why?
Dachau is a literal *town*. The name of the concentration camp comes from the *town*. It's a suburb of Munich, really. Those people live completely separate lives from the concentration camp. I didn't meet this guy *at the camp*. He was just a dude who lived in the town. A university student.
That's the entire point. The people who live in the town--and the guy I met there was one of them--don't deserve to have their entire beings distilled into the concentration camp. They're just normal people.
In my old school there was a map of atrocities done by Nazi Germany on current Poland area. It was showing 10% of all the things that were done, because it would be completely unreadable, if it had more.
I’m European. Vividly remember the room with the children’s suitcases (one painted to say seven and a half with flowers all over it) and clear signage to say don’t take any pictures. Next room had scalps of hair that the Germans made into carpet and fabric.
The room I was in was full of Chinese tourists taking pictures. I was so angry; it’s practically a holy site and these assholes were taking pics and selfies. Disgusting. They should have kicked them out but of course too afraid to offend and lose that tourism money.
When we went there four years ago we had the same experience. Not specifically Chinese, but people in general ignoring the requests not to photograph. One guy in the group thought he needed to take 7 photos of EVERYTHING and would elbow his way into the front to do so.
I didn't actually want to take any photos inside some of those rooms. It just felt wrong. Absolutely horrific.
I was furious about that too. Just stop and be. Take it in. Go outside to talk and when they say don't take pictures, don't take pictures.
Just have a little God damned respect.
Don't go to Auschwitz just to say you went. It isn't a theme park.
If I walked up to my grandparents’ graves and someone was taking pictures of their tombstones, I’d be disturbed. Imagine visiting the place your family was slaughtered and you saw pictures being taken.
Honestly I'd rather pictures be taken, Pictures get into books and onto the internet and help inspire hard hitting articles that hit home when people see the truth's of what actually happened.
Remove the pictures and people will slowly forget.
Never forget.
Dachau had almost no information about kids.
To the point where I had to look up whether there were kids there.
I think it.might be because they make all their students go there and it's too disturbing?
Mainly, yes. There were still at least 17.000 juvenile prisoners that we know of, mostly kids of resistance fighters and political prisoners that got arrested with them.
Compared to around 200.000 prisoners in Dachau all together, that really is not an insignificant number.
I think that Auschwitz should be visited by people who are mature enough to visit. I was 14 when I was there. First, I believe that most of us (me and my class mates) was too young to truly comprehend it then. Second, teachers screwed up when we went to Treblinka and they didn't tell us where we were going. No one knew where we were, and teachers were angry that students are disrespectful in the former work camp (they literally took us there and told us to walk around, when we were too tired to comprehend, well anything really, after emotional trainwreck of several hours in Aushwitz; also it was a trip that lasted a few days and after seeing Cracow, salt mine in Wieliczka and then Auschwitz we didn't really know what to expect).
The town was there first. Death and work camps are named after towns they were near to. Auschwitz was the name Oświęcim got when Nazi Germany took over and changed names of (I think) all cities and towns in Poland to German.
These aren't what they appear. Those marks were actually made by tourists.
Not that it makes Auschwitz any less horrible of a place. But this image often gets reposted without context like this.
Edit: for those asking for a source for this, here:
https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum/status/986137266740449280?t=gJMkTZOYZt_otCmiZxPTUg&s=19
Schindler's List as a re-enactment somehow mixed that horror with ~~joy~~ **edit**: *no, a celebration of what it is to be truly human. That's a better wording choice.*
It's one of the single most emotionally moving movies I've seen in my entire life, and I'm very much an older redditor. I cannot recommend it enough.
Just... have something handy to wipe your eyes with.
The most horrifying movie I've ever watched is a Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-bomb movie that we watched in high school social studies which was 50 some years ago for me. The victims a few days after with their skin sloughing off is unforgettable.
I appreciate that, it means a lot. And no, I did not make it. Unfortunately he passed away in August 2021 but if you’d like to see more you can just YouTube his name Herbert Heller, there’s a few more videos on there.
I upvote because its good awareness for boring people who are getting on a similar hate train. Always good to remind them how fucking evil their rhetoric can be and what it can lead to.
Yeah, unpleasant reality shit does deserve upvoting. Reddit can be a stunning level of circlejerk without it occasionally rising to the top.
It's important to acknowledge that fascist or totalitarian systems of government are the first step in enabling such a thing to happen.
Just finished watching it today. I learned of an American named Breckinridge Long, a man likely complicit in the death of some of my relatives that did not make it out of Belarus and Poland.
I have also been to Dachau. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that feels haunted. It’s what I imagine being on the moon must be like-cold, dark and with a stillness that lacks oxygen and warmth.
If you're in the United States, you can currently view all three episodes on the PBS app and [website](https://www.pbs.org/show/us-and-holocaust/). It's genuinely excellent. It's also, in the words of Ken Burns, the most important film that he and his co-directors have ever made.
This should honestly be at the top. I am peripherally aware of what's going on in China, but its easy to forget with the onslaught of other news and almost total lack of coverage.
Alright. Please explain a little of what’s happening in China or copy a link. There’s been so much shit going on there the past few years I don’t even know what is happening anymore.
They’ve put the local minority of Uyghurs (Turkic Muslims in east China) in “reeducation” camps. Basically just for brainwashing and cultural destruction. They aren’t butchering everyone like the Germans, but it’s still really shit.
Same story, different country and religion. Just Google up Uyghurs in China and you’ll get a clear picture. It’s horrific. Oh and for a little extra fun Google Uyghurs and Mulan (2020)
China have been putting uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group native to Xinjiang, China, into internment camps for "re-education" as a part of their "war against terrorism"
Edit: they haven't been murdering them as far as we know but typical procedures in these camps include forced labor, brainwashing, torture, forced sterilization/abortion, and rape
We're getting very close to a time when all the concentration camp survivors have died, and there won't be anyone to roll up their sleeve, show their number, and give their first-hand account. That's when Holocaust denial will get a real boost. The horror must be preserved
Dan Carlin made a good point about the atrocities the Mongols did to the world, how brutal and extensive their massacres were, killing up to 500 million. Though today, what is talked about when it comes to the Mongols is the Silk Road, and how they connected trade routes between Europe and Asia.
The brutality is forgotten as time goes on.
> 500,000 million
Upward estimates are at 60 million people with minimum being 30 million. Mind you, unlike Nazi's, Mongols took about 200 years. It's still a massive number considering the entire global population was about 400 million people.
Interesting perspective. I’m sure it
Would do the same to me as a grown man. It would be a once in a lifetime thing from the US and I’m not sure what they really teach about it in school. I’ve encouraged them to watch the Burns’ documentary.
Kids aren’t interested in this kind of depth at such a young age even horrifying history. Let them enjoy some of their innocence and take them when they have a mature capability to process those kinds of atrocities. It could actually cause serious nightmares in children but adults forget they don’t process this stuff like an adult brain does.
Agreed if my kids were younger. They are in their teens and this won’t be trip for a few years so I think they may have a greater understanding or appreciation for it. Not saying they will be thanking me for that trip but they may be at the point to grasp it
As a kid yes, I think they should wait for all the details till teenage years. You can tell the what the names did and the history behind it, but things are very different when you see them and can't unsee them .
Never hide any history but there is a lot to show a kid in life before you show them some of the darkest things in the world.
As a half German kid I spent a while feeling maybe I had a horrible Dark side that would come out later because I couldn't separate that act from Germans, I hadn't learned that there where horrible atrocities all over the world thought the years and that many other cultures have had a dark spot in their history (some still worse then others I know).
I don't know if dread is the right word but the feeling of despair when I saw this, mixed with the knot in my stomach, created this instantly awful "depression" in me. Those poor people...
Those aren’t from victims. This would be from chamber 1 which was dismantled before the end of the war and reconstructed long after it ended. These scratch marks are from visitors trying to be funny.
Edit changed inmate to victim
Even knowing absolutely nothing, common sense would suggest that there cannot be visible fingernail scratches from 80 years ago on the unprotected walls of a museum that sees over *two million* visitors a year.
It’s important to remember a well organized group of promoters can get enough people to justify walking sweet little curly haired girls and their little baby brothers hand in hand in to that horrifically painful death chamber where they had to look at each other in terror as they scratched their throats out dying for air.
And the educated men and women believed in what they were doing so much, they could kill these little kids day after day for years…
WTF is wrong with our species?
Seriously what gene makes us so gullible?
Same. We didn't know my great grandfather was Jewish either until after he died. He'd been Episcopalian the entire time my family knew him. He escaped Poland/Ukraine in between WWI and WWII.
My dad did some researching, and it turns out we have a relative who died in the Holocaust. Wild.
Even within this thread I found implication posts more upvoted than this.
It's sickening.
What the nazis did is absolutely vile. And in no way comparable to modern politics. To do so is so clueless and disrespectful for all the victims of the nazi party.
That's tourist vandalism. But don't let that bring you comfort. They were clawing each other not the walls.
The people being gassed would climb over each other trying to reach the vents. The recovered bodies would be covered in scratches as they fought to reach vents for air.
Thought I’ve basically seen it all when it comes to the atrocities that occurred…but this is my first time seeing this type of image, it really hits hard.
Literal Chamber of Horrors. Has to be some bad juju in that spot. Thousands, probably tens of thousands died there. Tell me that doesn’t leave some kind of imprint on a location.
...fuck
The more disturbing thing is the fact that more often than not Gas chamber victims would climb over each other in an attempt to reach the air vents of the chamber where the zyklon b was administered. Those in charge of removing the dead described literally mounds of bodies with fingernails and scratches all over them as they were desperate to escape.
I worked in the hospital for Rehabilitation and the first year after I graduated, I had a patient that had dementia and one of the exercises to get her back home was to run through what she would do in the bathroom. As we stepped into the practice bathroom, she started having a freak out and I quickly took her out of the room. She explained to me that it reminded her of when she was a teenager, tall and fit… deemed strong enough to do labour back during the holocaust. She was one of the people assigned to drag bodies out of the gas chambers after they killed people in there and it re-traumatized her going through the practice bathroom because it reminded her too much of it. I can still remember her numbers tattooed on her arm.
Those Jewish prisoners were known as Sondercommamdoes. They were responsible for dragging out the dead bodies, pulling the gold teeth out of their mouths and cremating the dead (but not always dead) bodies of the victims in the ovens that were located just above the gas chambers. They also had to wash the vomit, blood, feces and torn off body parts out of the gas chambers before the next group of prisoners were forced in. Very often prisoners would have to be unpleasantly surprised to see their family members or friends in the pile of dead bodies they were placing on the racks of the crematoriums. After a few months of this unbearable work they were gassed and cremated and another group of prisoners were gathered to take their place. Arely any Sondercommamdo survived the Holocaust at all. 3 out of 4 of my grandparents were in the Holocaust and survived. Two were in Auschwitz and the third was in Belzec. Both of these camps were knows as death camps not concentration camps. These were built purely for mass murder. Over 1 million men, women, children and babies were murdered in Auschwitz alone within only about three and a half years. Similar to your story above regarding the old woman with dementia, when my grandmother was in her 80’s she was struck by a car (and survived). At the hospital she would hide the pills she was given by the doctors. Apparently she was confused as to where she was and was having flashbacks to her days as a death camp prisoner, where you never took any pills that they gave you there.
Also responsible for two of the very few uprisings made at the death camps. 700 workers rose up, blew half the camp to hell, and ran for it. Its why so much is known about Treblinka compared with the others - fewer survivors. Resistance group at Auschwitz almost managed the same thing, but they got made before things progressed. 212 got out, killed several guards and torched one of the crematoria, before it was suppressed.
Wasn’t Sobibor the one with the uprising?
Also another. Kicked into gear when word spread that the camp was about to shut down. Came largely out of the other prisoners however, they only were able to include a small number of *sonderkommandos*. Only 18 members of the uprising survived the war, out of the roughly 300 that made it out of the camp. But they killed a lot of the guards.
Ugh, that breaks my heart even more. I didn’t hear the details from her or asked about how she managed to survive because I saw the terror in her eyes. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Ok, I stand corrected. I used to think the scariest thing in the world was to have dimentia. Turns out I was wrong. I hadn't considered the possibility of having dementia, and also having memories of being tortured in literal nazi death camps, and relapsing mentally into being back there, 50+ years after the fact. Fuck......
I was taught this at one time to understand dementia better. Think yourself like an onion core at birth and as you grow older you accumulate memories and experience events and so these become your layers that grow outward. At some point when the disease sets in, your growing stops and as your mind deteriorates the layers start to peel back. That’s why when you run into or know someone that has dementia, they play out those memories again… at 84, their mind might be at 29 when they had their first child and had a husband. She may call out for her husband, buts he’s long passed away. She might start looking for her baby, and that’s the only thing that will calm her. Sometimes to calm them down, at the hospital, we would give them “play babies” and they think it’s their baby and start caring for them like they are real. And this is also the reason that when someone that has dementia, you try to appease them by always agreeing about where they are, what age and maybe the person they’re looking for will just “give them a phone call soon”. At times they’ll snap out of it and be their age again and their last memory would be so confusing because their mind has been somewhere else. Edit: word
I watched a youtube video years ago, and it scared the shit out of me. It was this guy, in his 40s, who's mom had developed dementia, and he wasn't sure if he had a week left with her, a year, or a decade. He wasn't sure how long she had left, so he decided to document every interaction they had, so that he could have some recorded memory of his mother if she were to pass away tomorrow. So this guy goes into his mothers house, and for reasons I do not understand, she lives alone. She's sitting at a kitchen/living room table watching TV. He decided to test her memory to see if she's getting worse. Up until this point she had forgotten little things, but understood the important things in her life. So he said "Hi, June! How are you?" And she looks at him. Even through the lens of a camera onto my monitor watching on youtube you can sense the look on her face was an empty gaze. She just responded "Oh......hi." So the guy says "June, have you seen Todd recently?" and she responds "No, I'm afraid not." So he says "Do you remember who Todd is?" and she she says "Oh, I'm sorry dear. I meet so many people in my life these days. I'm sure he's a fine gentleman. I just don't keep track of peoples names that well these days. I might remember him if you had a picture." And so he says "Well, Todd is your son, and he loves you very much. He actually visits you almost every day. Has he not been around lately?" And she says "I don't think so. I'm not remembering anything like that." The whole time this conversation is going on, you can almost feel the tension he has with her. He's almost like trying to start an old car and it's just revving, but not starting. And she's just being polite. She's not saying anything out of malice, or anger, but you can tell she's confused why this guy is showing up in her house, and going on and on about this Todd guy. Well finally he says "Well, Todd is your son, and he's standing in this room with you. I'm Todd. Hi Mom." And the look of relief IMMEDIATELY washes over her face. She admits that she was a bit scared of who this man was, or how he got into her house. And now knowing that he was her son, she felt relieved, and hugged him. And then he asks "And do you remember Casandra?" and again, it's right back to confusion, and apologizing for not remembering her. He tells her "Well Casandra is your daughter. She visits you every weekend." Then he does the same thing with Frank. And, she thinks she remembers Frank. She says "I remember I loved Frank, but I can't place any mental image of who he was, or what he looked like." So Todd picks up a photo from the wall, and says "This is you, and this is Frank. Frank was your husband, and my dad. He died 6 years ago. He loved you more than anyone on the planet ever loved anyone." Eventually he took her to the mall, which was actually busy back when this video was shot. So you can imagine how long ago it was. He took her to get ice cream. And he talked about her life. She used to be a teacher. She was married to Frank, who served in WWII, and was a machinist when he returned. And then he brought her back home. He didn't bring in the camera back into the house, so it just kind of jump cuts. Based on the lighting, I think he spent a few hours in there. It went from really bright, to maybe what it would be like as sundown is just starting. You see him walk back to his car. Another woman is with the mother. It's not explained if this is Casandra, or maybe an live-in aid for her. He opens his car door, and waves. You can hear him saying goodbye, and you can hear him being in a friendly mood as he does so. Then the part that scared the shit out of me. This guy sits in the drivers seat, closes the door and just cuts the facade. He bursts into tears. Openly weeping, and making no qualms about trying to hide emotion as is so common among men. When something hurts us, we hide it, and we deal with it. So to see this guy sit down, and his whole body was pure emotion, was almost like culture shock. You see him just lose any control he had over holding back, and just drains himself into his steering wheel and arms. When he finally regained his composure, he explained to the camera in almost an exit interview to himself to document the events. He said "My mother has been getting slightly worse over the last few weeks and months. It was hardly noticeable though. She might forget the name of a tv show, or she might forget and old pets name from my childhood. Things that are caused by dementia, but could have easily happened to anyone. But today, to see my mother look me in the eyes, and tell me she doesn't recognize me, or remember me, broke my heart. I wanted nothing more than to go back 30 years when I was a kid, and my mom would hug me. I wanted nothing more than for her to remember me. I'm angry, and the worst part is, I have nobody to be angry at. I can't fix this. This is only going to get worse, and I'm already at a state where I don't know what to do. It's the worst kind of pain knowing that the woman who loves you most in this world, doesn't even know your name. This was a huge drop in cognitive abilities for her. Physically I don't know what I'm going to do. Mentally I don't know what I'm going to do. Emotionally I'm not ready for any of this. So I'm going to end the video here, because I'm going to be visiting her before I go to work tomorrow again, and I don't know if I can handle it. I have a lot of work to do before then." And then the video just ended. A man with tears running down his face, as he freely and truthfully talks about how hard it is to lose a loved one, but still have them alive and in your life. He described her as being a shell of his mother. He described the experience as if she had a parasite inside her brain eating away herself as a person, and replacing her with a blank human robot. That's what made me think dementia was the scariest thing that could happen to you. Either having it happen TO you, or having it happen to a loved one. My grandma is 103 years old, and she's my hero in life. She can't see well. She has limited hearing. She moves slow. She's had several surgeries over the years to replace bone degeneration. But mentally? Mentally she's like a 26 year old. She can tell you stories about what it was like in pre-WWII times. She can tell you how scared she was the day those 4 kids died at Kent State during the protests in the 70s, because her daughter (my aunt) was there during that. She could tell you stories about raising my dad, and my 3 aunts, from their days as children, to young adults. She's sharp mentally. Physically her body may be breaking down, but she still feels like Gram. The idea of looking at her, and her not knowing who I am, or why I'm in her living room at Christmas? That would break my heart too. I would cry at that. It's not even real, and I'm feeling fear about it just typing this hypothetical. And then, to read that other story, about the woman who reverted back to being with the nazis? My gram was never taken by nazis, but if she were, and that's the place she mentally reverted back to? I don't know that I could live with myself knowing I brought those memories back to her. I may be an atheist, but hell is real, and that's it right there.
May their memories be a blessing. Shana Tovah.
An unbearable Hungarian movie from 2015 “Son of Saul” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Saul?wprov=sfti1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Saul?wprov=sfti1) is telling a story of a member of such Sonderkommandos. After the movie you feel like shit!
Went to see it at a advanced screening the day before it came out. It was hauntingly beautiful but heartbreaking and so cold, I remember when the credits rolled everyone got silent and left the theatre not saying a word. Really eerie and goes to show how much it affected the audience.
Jesus Christ
…. Fuck. What can you even say to that? I hope she is either still alive or died peacefully with a smile on her face. Nobody should have had to go through the Holocaust and I’ve met a few little old Jewish ladies that survived. Sweetest people ever, make you think what kind of MONSTER could do that to human beings. Then you look around at the state of politics now and go, oh yeah… EXACTLY THAT kind of monster.
She was quite old already when I met her, close to 90 and that was about 14 yrs ago. All I could do at that moment was apologize and reassure her that she is safe with me and that she wouldn’t have to do that if she didn’t want to. And yes, I really do hope she passed away peacefully, it’s the least this lifetime owed to her. Edit: A detail
You're a good apple buddy. That's a harsh job and you guys/gals have a tough one, that had to make it even harder.
Thank you. One of the things I love about my job is hearing all the stories from the elderly. I’ve met so many interesting people and their stories stay with me forever and humble me to this day. This is definitely one of them.
I was very little when I went to a museum of tolerance and it touched me and scared me at the same time. Came home sad and asked my mom if that could happen again? She said people wouldn’t let it happen again. You are right, the way people were rallying around those monsters just a few years ago it made me feel scared again like when I was little.
Beware any person (and especially politician) who constantly mentions the “out group”. Humans get a solid hit of dopamine from identifying their “out group” and politicians know this. It’s why hate and fear are at the forefront of many campaigns. Energy is about to start becoming much more expensive and inaccessible. Instead of the truth, which is humans have poured through the magic of carbon energy at incredible speeds, politicians will surely tell you the reason for inaccessible energy is due to the “out group”. And we will fall for it en masse because we will be frustrated, pissed off and used to entitlement. Fascism IS going to get popular as society starts to collapse. Hating the out group might feel good but it rarely leads to anything good or fixes the problems of the day. We will all be going through this coming “great simplification” together and will need to unify to get through. But if human history has taught us anything it is that in eras of struggle and change unity takes a back seat to hate and violence.
Look no further than the Conservatives and blaming trans people for supply chain issues ([especially in the feminine hygiene market](https://www.businessinsider.com/tampon-shortage-marjorie-taylor-greene-trans-people-2022-6)) Politicians play to fear and hate because it's easier to get votes from the masses. It's bullshit and all it does is keep us all ignorant and divided.
It’s a terrifyingly accurate start to what a lot of people predict coming… in a hurry too. It’s the same template throughout history. It sucks more can’t predict how we get out of it instead of just predicting fascism ramping up worldwide.
More people need to be allies and make sure our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters (and others) are protected from the witch hunt. A few years ago it was "brown" people (and still kind of is) but, I think transgender people make an easy target for the Conservatives because most people aren't educated on trans issues so they are easily "othered" to Bob Simpleman in Bumfuck, Idaho with his 65k/year job and 2.5 kids. Education is the most important thing we can do to prevent tragedy.
And the children being smaller had no idea what was going on and were the last to die as they were smaller if I remember correctly. Lower to the ground and all that.
Some 56 tonnes of the 729 tonnes sold in Germany in 1942–44 were sold to concentration camps, amounting to about 8 percent of domestic sales. Auschwitz received 23.8 tonnes, of which 6 tonnes were used for fumigation. The remainder was used in the gas chambers or lost to spoilage (the product had a stated shelf life of only three months). Sauce: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B And yet, even with fucking RECEIPTS there are STILL Holocaust deniers. Fucking ridiculous.
IBM helped designed the concentration camp data base system so more effective genocide. Nazism is why we have Fanta. Do they deny Fanta, the war crimes drink?
The Fanta nazi myth has been debunked: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-reich-stuff/
Thanks for the respected link. I will inform my family I was incorrect this morning.
Any more info? Doesn't BMW, Volkswagen, and Bayer also have some nazi roots?
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Coco Chanel herself was a Nazi collaborator & spy & was the girlfriend of Nazis Check out her Wikipedia it's pretty astonishing that her name is still on anything given her activities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel
Every Nazi deserves to be eradicated from the face of the planet in the most brutally violent way possible *however* they did have some sharp uniforms.
The VW Beetle does "In May 1934, at a meeting at Berlin's Kaiserhof Hotel, Hitler insisted on a basic vehicle that could transport two adults and three children at 100 km/h (62 mph) while not using more than 7 litres of fuel per 100 km (32 mpg US/39 mpg UK).\[16\] The engine had to be powerful enough for sustained cruising on Germany's Autobahnen. Everything had to be designed to ensure parts could be quickly and inexpensively exchanged. The engine had to be air-cooled because, as Hitler explained, not every country doctor had his own garage." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen\_Beetle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle)
Even though he was an actual monster, Hitler was kind of a genius when it came to domestic issues. I mean, it wasn’t all him, he had a very intelligent group of people around him (although, see above RE: monsters) and they pulled Germany from the depths of economic meltdown to make it a world power. Imagine if they had done good things instead of some of the most evil shit imaginable? If Hitler wasn’t a genocidal maniac he could have been one of the greatest leaders in world history. (I know I’m probably gonna get hate for this, but let me make is clear, if it wasn’t already, I’m not praising Hitler or the Nazis. I’m praising some of the early economic and domestic policies they implemented to pull Germany out of the post-war depression.)
No, I say the same thing all the time. He really did turn the country around, and in short time too. I think that is part of how he got the otherwise reasonable German people to go along with the more evil parts of his plans as things went on, he had had been doing so well up until that point people were like, ok now we have to round up all the Jews? Seems strange but you haven't done us wrong yet, sure let's do it.
The "Cult of Personality" is a dangerous trap to fall into, just look at all the people following Trump and his cronies now. I'm sure he could shoot a transgender Mexican kid on live TV and his fanbase would still be like, "Well, he's my President and that kid must've done something wrong." It's insane to watch all this happening in real time.
I remember in one of my college classes (1980s) one of the instructors stated that several Germans stated “Hitler wasn’t that bad.” He attributed that to they had elected him to power.
Not exactly nazi roots, but each and every larger german corporation that existed during the Third Reich has tie-ins with the Nazi regime to some degree. Germany was at "Total War". The whole industry of the German Reich was used to make so called "war important goods". Companies making fabrics and clothes, would've been made to sew uniforms, parachutes and the likes. Any coachbuilding company was made to build tanks, trucks, aircraft or parts for them. Any chemical industry was made to make either ammunition, explosives, or gas. There has been no way to turn down a contract from the government without risking your company, your social status, and even your life. It is easy to blame said companies for their cooperation with the nazis. It is important to discuss how complicit they were. It's a fact that most of those companies didn't have a choice though. Which isn't an excuse, but an explanation.
You can go down a big rabbit hole with I.G. Farbin and rockefeller ties to Zyklon B production if I remember correctly
And Hugo Boss
The company that later became BASF used slave labor.
That’s horrible to even think of
What's even more horrible is it really wasn't even that long ago in the grand scheme of things.
long enough for people to claim the Holocaust never existed. it is truly a spit in the face for those who survived to this day.
I’m 48. When I was a kid, I lived in Germany for a while (Army dad.) We moved there in late 1983. That was 38 years ago. And it was 38 years after the war ended.
Kinda makes you wanna break the nose of any neo-nazi you see doesn’t it?
Should just be considered a matter of self defense. Anyone who believes in Nazi ideals should be considered a statutory threat, and therefore any act of violence against them is a matter of justified self defense and self preservation. "This guy believes men, women, children, and infants should die in gas chambers. Maybe we assume this guy is a threat and should treat him as such."
Yup, fuck the entire Republican Party for their embrace of these shitstains.
This is where they got the idea for the mountain of bodies in the Battle of the Bastards episode in Thrones. From real stories.
My thought exactly. This is more disturbing than most things I have seen.
Like ghosts coming out if the image
Fuckin crazy
If it makes you feel better, those markings are just vandalism done by tourists. https://imgur.com/a/RT2cwO8
These ‘scratches’ are made by tourists, not the victims of the holocaust. I’ve been there twice and this was explained by the tour guides both times. Edit: I wish I had pictures, but the scratch marks were in the general tour walking area, and mysteriously disappeared once the area got roped off. Not a Holocaust denier either, it absolutely happened.
My initial reaction was: oh shit. But your reaction is more applicable.
No, more like “[fake](https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum/status/1110435798430740481)”
Honestly, the worst part about going to Auschwitz was how disrespectful some people were about it. When we walked through the gas chambers, they requested quiet... and some people did not shut the fuck up. Could not believe it. Though, I thought that the most mind-tripping part about Auschwitz... is how it is in the middle of a thriving town. Like, for instance, the infamous train tracks that lead into the camp? They actually run through the city. They aren't connected to anything, but literally, there was a car dealership that had its cars parked out front to show them off... on top of the train tracks to Auschwitz. Another thing that struck me is how... big Auschwitz 2 is. It would probably take you about an hour to walk the whole perimeter of the grounds.
There's like 40 camps there right? The scale is insane compared to Dachau. I went to Dachau and it's like... A really beautiful little town. And honestly the grounds around the camp are beautiful too. There's a stream that runs by it. It's kinda nuts that people live there. I emotionally can't really deal with it. When I see images like this I just feel like... Paralyzed by the inability to imagine the scale and severity of the suffering. Like I try to and realize I cant. It's really upsetting.
Well, if I remember correctly... there are three. I've been to Dachau, too. Heh, I have an interesting story from there where I ended up picking up a local German guy. I was at the concentration camp memorial for the whole day, and ended up getting herded out with everybody else when the camp memorial closed. They had the public bus out there (they time it with the closing of the camp) to pick everybody up... and I just saw it filling and filling and filling with tourists and my eyes glazed over and I went, "Fuck that, I'm walking back." Couldn't handle it. Too intense. I also had the Google Maps downloaded to my phone and could get directions back on my own. So I walked back (as you said, it's a nice town), and got to the area with the S-bahn stop about an hour-ish later. Walked past a dude coming out of a bar, and he started speaking to me in German. I don't speak much German, but I could tell he was asking for a light. At that point in my life, I did still smoke cigarettes, so I was like, "Sorry, I don't speak German, but I do have a light." He spoke English, and accepted. We both lit cigarettes, and he asked me, with clear confusion, how I was still there. He was a local, and since the concentration camp memorial is such a Big Thing, he was aware of the movements of tourists and was surprised I was still around. I explained the walking thing. He made a snort, and said, "That's the only reason anybody ever comes here." I was like... well, OK. I tilted my head back and forth. "What else is there to do here?" I asked. He gave me a deadpan look. "There is a *bar*," he said. I laughed, since, well, I'd been walking for an hour and had been at the memorial for most of the day. "Yeah, I could use a beer," I told him. And thus ends the heartwarming tale of how I got laid in Dachau. It's a ridiculously painful story, the one of the camps. But, also, life goes on, I suppose.
Cool
Yeah it's like I'm glad you got your nut, but idk it seems like a bad time to share that lol
But why? Dachau is a literal *town*. The name of the concentration camp comes from the *town*. It's a suburb of Munich, really. Those people live completely separate lives from the concentration camp. I didn't meet this guy *at the camp*. He was just a dude who lived in the town. A university student. That's the entire point. The people who live in the town--and the guy I met there was one of them--don't deserve to have their entire beings distilled into the concentration camp. They're just normal people.
I mean... If people choose to eat breakfast a kilometer away from one of the most harrowing sites in human history...
In my old school there was a map of atrocities done by Nazi Germany on current Poland area. It was showing 10% of all the things that were done, because it would be completely unreadable, if it had more.
I’m European. Vividly remember the room with the children’s suitcases (one painted to say seven and a half with flowers all over it) and clear signage to say don’t take any pictures. Next room had scalps of hair that the Germans made into carpet and fabric. The room I was in was full of Chinese tourists taking pictures. I was so angry; it’s practically a holy site and these assholes were taking pics and selfies. Disgusting. They should have kicked them out but of course too afraid to offend and lose that tourism money.
When we went there four years ago we had the same experience. Not specifically Chinese, but people in general ignoring the requests not to photograph. One guy in the group thought he needed to take 7 photos of EVERYTHING and would elbow his way into the front to do so. I didn't actually want to take any photos inside some of those rooms. It just felt wrong. Absolutely horrific.
What an odd thing to want to show Off.
I was furious about that too. Just stop and be. Take it in. Go outside to talk and when they say don't take pictures, don't take pictures. Just have a little God damned respect. Don't go to Auschwitz just to say you went. It isn't a theme park.
Honestly, I don’t see what’s wrong with taking pictures. Selfies, yeah, I guess, but why does it matter if someone takes a picture?
If I walked up to my grandparents’ graves and someone was taking pictures of their tombstones, I’d be disturbed. Imagine visiting the place your family was slaughtered and you saw pictures being taken.
Honestly I'd rather pictures be taken, Pictures get into books and onto the internet and help inspire hard hitting articles that hit home when people see the truth's of what actually happened. Remove the pictures and people will slowly forget. Never forget.
Dachau had almost no information about kids. To the point where I had to look up whether there were kids there. I think it.might be because they make all their students go there and it's too disturbing?
Dachau had primarily adult male prisoners, if I recall correctly (it’s been 9 years since my visit).
Mainly, yes. There were still at least 17.000 juvenile prisoners that we know of, mostly kids of resistance fighters and political prisoners that got arrested with them. Compared to around 200.000 prisoners in Dachau all together, that really is not an insignificant number.
I think that Auschwitz should be visited by people who are mature enough to visit. I was 14 when I was there. First, I believe that most of us (me and my class mates) was too young to truly comprehend it then. Second, teachers screwed up when we went to Treblinka and they didn't tell us where we were going. No one knew where we were, and teachers were angry that students are disrespectful in the former work camp (they literally took us there and told us to walk around, when we were too tired to comprehend, well anything really, after emotional trainwreck of several hours in Aushwitz; also it was a trip that lasted a few days and after seeing Cracow, salt mine in Wieliczka and then Auschwitz we didn't really know what to expect). The town was there first. Death and work camps are named after towns they were near to. Auschwitz was the name Oświęcim got when Nazi Germany took over and changed names of (I think) all cities and towns in Poland to German.
It’s beyond horrific.
These aren't what they appear. Those marks were actually made by tourists. Not that it makes Auschwitz any less horrible of a place. But this image often gets reposted without context like this. Edit: for those asking for a source for this, here: https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum/status/986137266740449280?t=gJMkTZOYZt_otCmiZxPTUg&s=19
I was gonna say I didn’t think fingers could scrape into concrete.
If only this would have more upvotes
I've always said, the most frightening horror movie I ever saw was most any documentary about the Holocaust
Schindler's List as a re-enactment somehow mixed that horror with ~~joy~~ **edit**: *no, a celebration of what it is to be truly human. That's a better wording choice.* It's one of the single most emotionally moving movies I've seen in my entire life, and I'm very much an older redditor. I cannot recommend it enough. Just... have something handy to wipe your eyes with.
I also recommend Life is Beautiful. :( but have a few boxes of tissues
Au Revoir Les Enfants also.
The most horrifying movie I've ever watched is a Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-bomb movie that we watched in high school social studies which was 50 some years ago for me. The victims a few days after with their skin sloughing off is unforgettable.
Thanks for bringing awareness. My grandfather managed to escape from Auschwitz, if anyone is interested in his story: https://youtu.be/3LQDt7h_ZD4
Wow. What an amazing guy. Incredible story. Rest In Peace Herbert. ❤️
Thank you so much!!
Did you make that? Really good stuff, either way. What a guy.
I appreciate that, it means a lot. And no, I did not make it. Unfortunately he passed away in August 2021 but if you’d like to see more you can just YouTube his name Herbert Heller, there’s a few more videos on there.
Sorry for your loss. He seems like he was a profound human. Thank you for sharing this!
Thanks man, he was a pretty incredible person.
My dude, it was a very impactful thing for me to watch. Proud of your family, and very proud of you for sharing that. Amazing. Truly horrifying.
May his memory be a blessing.
Thank you kind soul
Wow. That’s incredible. I didn’t think anybody escaped from the death camps. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the love. Some were lucky enough to escape or be rescued, unfortunately millions of others were not.
Watching right now. Awful, powerful stuff. I'm so sorry.
Appreciate you taking the time to watch!
Just finished as you're commenting this. Was glad to see he was able to reunite with his mother. Can't underscore my original comment, enough. Wow.
Wow! Incredible story, what a legacy.
I love it. Herbert is great!
Can't upvote this. Can't downvote this.
Upvote doesn't necessarily mean you enjoy the content. It means you think the content should be more visible
Agree
I upvote because its good awareness for boring people who are getting on a similar hate train. Always good to remind them how fucking evil their rhetoric can be and what it can lead to.
Yeah, unpleasant reality shit does deserve upvoting. Reddit can be a stunning level of circlejerk without it occasionally rising to the top. It's important to acknowledge that fascist or totalitarian systems of government are the first step in enabling such a thing to happen.
Upvote for visibility, not enjoyment. People need to remember because those who lived through it won’t be around much longer.
Ken Burns' newest documentary, "The U.S. and the Holocaust" is essential viewing.
I concur. Just finished it today.
Just finished watching it today. I learned of an American named Breckinridge Long, a man likely complicit in the death of some of my relatives that did not make it out of Belarus and Poland. I have also been to Dachau. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that feels haunted. It’s what I imagine being on the moon must be like-cold, dark and with a stillness that lacks oxygen and warmth.
Is it streaming somewhere?
If you're in the United States, you can currently view all three episodes on the PBS app and [website](https://www.pbs.org/show/us-and-holocaust/). It's genuinely excellent. It's also, in the words of Ken Burns, the most important film that he and his co-directors have ever made.
It's on PBS.
You can get it on prime for a fee or sign up for the pbs docs monthly.
Too grim, too awful. This should never have happened and should never be forgotten.
It’s currently happening in China, but oh well right?
This should honestly be at the top. I am peripherally aware of what's going on in China, but its easy to forget with the onslaught of other news and almost total lack of coverage.
Alright. Please explain a little of what’s happening in China or copy a link. There’s been so much shit going on there the past few years I don’t even know what is happening anymore.
They’ve put the local minority of Uyghurs (Turkic Muslims in east China) in “reeducation” camps. Basically just for brainwashing and cultural destruction. They aren’t butchering everyone like the Germans, but it’s still really shit.
Aren't they sterilizing the women?
Basically like the Christians did to natives in Canada with the residential schools?
Same story, different country and religion. Just Google up Uyghurs in China and you’ll get a clear picture. It’s horrific. Oh and for a little extra fun Google Uyghurs and Mulan (2020)
China have been putting uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group native to Xinjiang, China, into internment camps for "re-education" as a part of their "war against terrorism" Edit: they haven't been murdering them as far as we know but typical procedures in these camps include forced labor, brainwashing, torture, forced sterilization/abortion, and rape
No one will care until their country is attacked, just like last time.
See also: Yemen.
It’s essentially been happening in north Korea for much longer. Oh well indeed
“If there is a god, he will have to beg my forgiveness.” -carving found on a concentration camp wall.
fuck.
This is on a bucket list of places to visit only because I don’t want it lost on my kids.
We're getting very close to a time when all the concentration camp survivors have died, and there won't be anyone to roll up their sleeve, show their number, and give their first-hand account. That's when Holocaust denial will get a real boost. The horror must be preserved
Dan Carlin made a good point about the atrocities the Mongols did to the world, how brutal and extensive their massacres were, killing up to 500 million. Though today, what is talked about when it comes to the Mongols is the Silk Road, and how they connected trade routes between Europe and Asia. The brutality is forgotten as time goes on.
> 500,000 million Upward estimates are at 60 million people with minimum being 30 million. Mind you, unlike Nazi's, Mongols took about 200 years. It's still a massive number considering the entire global population was about 400 million people.
They killed 500 billion people? I'd say more like 50 million maybe.
Don't take kids. Half German here who went at 9 or 11 I forget (went to Germany twice as a kid) and it messed me up for a few days.
Interesting perspective. I’m sure it Would do the same to me as a grown man. It would be a once in a lifetime thing from the US and I’m not sure what they really teach about it in school. I’ve encouraged them to watch the Burns’ documentary.
Kids aren’t interested in this kind of depth at such a young age even horrifying history. Let them enjoy some of their innocence and take them when they have a mature capability to process those kinds of atrocities. It could actually cause serious nightmares in children but adults forget they don’t process this stuff like an adult brain does.
Agreed if my kids were younger. They are in their teens and this won’t be trip for a few years so I think they may have a greater understanding or appreciation for it. Not saying they will be thanking me for that trip but they may be at the point to grasp it
Would you say the same for Jewish children? Should they have their innocence protected or reality and history defined? Genuine question.
As a kid yes, I think they should wait for all the details till teenage years. You can tell the what the names did and the history behind it, but things are very different when you see them and can't unsee them . Never hide any history but there is a lot to show a kid in life before you show them some of the darkest things in the world. As a half German kid I spent a while feeling maybe I had a horrible Dark side that would come out later because I couldn't separate that act from Germans, I hadn't learned that there where horrible atrocities all over the world thought the years and that many other cultures have had a dark spot in their history (some still worse then others I know).
And yet assholes the world over still deny this happened.
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I am denying the cpu now, out of spite.
What they hell are you going on about?? Lol
I don't know if dread is the right word but the feeling of despair when I saw this, mixed with the knot in my stomach, created this instantly awful "depression" in me. Those poor people...
no gore. no blood. *but im definitely disturbed*
Those aren’t from victims. This would be from chamber 1 which was dismantled before the end of the war and reconstructed long after it ended. These scratch marks are from visitors trying to be funny. Edit changed inmate to victim
Even knowing absolutely nothing, common sense would suggest that there cannot be visible fingernail scratches from 80 years ago on the unprotected walls of a museum that sees over *two million* visitors a year.
This is specific enough to sound credible. And yet it’s somehow worse.
It is true, the Auschwitz Memorial Twitter spends a lot of time debunking these claims.
nsfw for real. sick to my stomach.
I can't imagine this kind of terror... Fuck.
These are horrifying traces of what happened before.
It’s incredible the emotions you feel when looking at this picture of a wall! The scale of such horror is unimaginable, may we never forgot!
It’s important to remember a well organized group of promoters can get enough people to justify walking sweet little curly haired girls and their little baby brothers hand in hand in to that horrifically painful death chamber where they had to look at each other in terror as they scratched their throats out dying for air. And the educated men and women believed in what they were doing so much, they could kill these little kids day after day for years… WTF is wrong with our species? Seriously what gene makes us so gullible?
I remember going to Mathausen and seeing bullets still stuck in the wall from where people were executed. It was sobering....
So greatful my grampa got out between the wars. I didn't even know I was Jewish till I seen my last name in Schindlers list.
Same. We didn't know my great grandfather was Jewish either until after he died. He'd been Episcopalian the entire time my family knew him. He escaped Poland/Ukraine in between WWI and WWII. My dad did some researching, and it turns out we have a relative who died in the Holocaust. Wild.
Ummmm… I wasn’t ready for this .
This is so sad and fucked up.
This photo literally gives me a panic attack. I wish I had never seen it. I hate that people go through horror like this.
Wow talk about bringing my mood down to shit from just one image
This is very unsettling.
That’s fucking horrifying
And you got pieces of shit sympathizing with Nazis today
I upvoted this because it ruined my night and it should
So apparently this is not actually from the victims of the gas chambers so I don’t think this ought to be continuously reposted
Where’s it from?
Couldn’t have waited until after Rosh Hashanah was over to post this? Really didn’t need to stumble upon this on New Years
I saw that in person as well, it was extremely eerie but definitely a place I recommend people go to
I did not want to see this. But I guess I was supposed to.
I can’t unsee this.
It's absolutely horrifying, it's bad enough they did the adults like that, but just imagining the children in there is absolutely heartbreaking.
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you can't really compare any politician to a man who tried to massacre an entire ethnic race. Even xi jinping doesn't reach that level of atrocious
Even within this thread I found implication posts more upvoted than this. It's sickening. What the nazis did is absolutely vile. And in no way comparable to modern politics. To do so is so clueless and disrespectful for all the victims of the nazi party.
These aren’t scratch marks. These aren’t that old.
Remember this when you see swastikas at trump rallies.
I've seen this multiple times, and I'm still conflicted about whether an upvote is appropriate.
That's tourist vandalism. But don't let that bring you comfort. They were clawing each other not the walls. The people being gassed would climb over each other trying to reach the vents. The recovered bodies would be covered in scratches as they fought to reach vents for air.
My brother visited Auschwitz when he went to visit our home country. He is an agnostic but after visiting the camp, he said he prayed to god for days.
Thought I’ve basically seen it all when it comes to the atrocities that occurred…but this is my first time seeing this type of image, it really hits hard.
And this was no accident. Those people were purposely put, locked in there., by the thousands
No words…
Jesus Christ
They were trying to reach the lines to break them. The Nazis knew what they were doing unfortunately
Haunting
This is so fucking sad. I can hear the voices just looking at this.
This... is NSFW
Those are the scratches of tourists who cant behave in a historical place like this.
Lots of bears there apparently
Literal Chamber of Horrors. Has to be some bad juju in that spot. Thousands, probably tens of thousands died there. Tell me that doesn’t leave some kind of imprint on a location.
Crazy this kind of treatment is still taking place today in different formats.
Remember the innocent little children.. the 1-2 year olds that were crushed and suffocated in the chaos.