Today is World Holocaust day, It is 70 years on – Never Again: spare a couple of minutes for thought

Comments

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   Malcolm Stacey

   27 January 2015, 09:54

   Well said.Tom. I could never understand racism. Where does the feeling come from? What’s the point? Unless it is driven by some kind of insecurity, perhaps. But no, I can’t understand that either. People who indulge in it must be of very low intelligence, that’s all I can think of. And how a bunch of egotistic crooks, like the Nazis came to power is also beyond comprehension. Imagine a world where we were all of the same race and religion! How boring is that!

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   pink53

   27 January 2015, 10:14

   My utter respect for those who fell or suffered in the face of the filth. Let us not let this happen again. Somehow Goebbel’s great lie ““If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” comes to mind.

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   sherlock

   27 January 2015, 10:20

   Well said on all fronts Tom.

   Not to in any way take away from you making these points – but why have I not heard similar points made by anyone else in public life ? Is our media really so obsessed with conflict and disagreement in discussion that it would rather hear from idiot representatives of UKIP than eminently sensible comment such as this.

   and when is TW going to be on QT ?

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   J P Spaghetti

   27 January 2015, 16:26

   Sound words Tom.

   I heard from a news report in the light of the Paris attacks that more Jews are leaving Europe today than at any time since the start of WWII because of unease. I hoped this was either simply untrue or down to a simple statistical fluctuation with no causal link to increasing antisemitic feeling. Perhaps it is, though it sometimes seems to me that the more freely available information becomes the more ignorant people get. Perhaps that IS just me.

   “And how a bunch of egotistic crooks, like the Nazis came to power is also beyond comprehension.”

   Beyond sane and reasonable comprehension Malcolm. But – following SHERLOCK’s mention of the media above – why in the name of providence must Goebbels and his scum have come of age at the dawn of mass communication, with all the potential it afforded for permeating perverted propaganda? And I concur fully with your assertion that racists must be stupid (even if – heaven forbid – a part of me harboured the poison of racism I’d be compelled to draw that conclusion on the grounds of empirical evidence alone, let alone genetics).

   I watched the memorial service held in the UK earlier this evening and found it beyond moving. What I found particularly harrowing were the recollections of a Muslim survivor of a Serbian concentration camp in the early 90s. I say particularly harrowing not – of course – because what he described was more so than the experiences of Jewish victims of WWII but because the realisation that such atrocities had happened in my lifetime (and I’ve a fair few years left before I’m due to draw my pension) in my continent had never TRULY hit me. I remember package holidays to Yugoslavia being awarded as the star prize on naff TV game shows as a kid. Yes – I’d read about it and heard reports by journalists, but I’d never looked into the eyes (albeit on TV) of one who’d seen it first hand as he recounted what he witnessed. I feel a bit stupid and ignorant myself for that. Actually, I’ve just recalled an interview with Goran Ivanisevich from the 90s (after this war, I believe) in which I seem to recall his expressing disdain for Monica Seles because she was Serbian. (Now is not the time for sanctimony.) At least what happened then in the Balkans was on a much smaller scale, though. We can take some comfort in that can’t we? I mean I take the point that what occurred at the hands of the Nazis to the Jews did so incrementally, but it did so on a large scale from the outset didn’t it? So – again – can’t we?

   I’m with Milligan in believing Hitler was a twit (verbatim). Not a twisted genius or military mastermind (we know the history). PINK53 points out above that Goebbels’ (born with a club foot and himself of Jewish ancestry, apparently) great lie was exposed. So he was wrong too. Intellectually he was proven completely wrong – another evil, pathetic, moronic twit.

   Shalom (from a gentile).

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   Elrico

   27 January 2015, 16:52

   Well said, Tom. I have had many heated debate with my father on theology (me being a Christian and he ex Christian seminary) and the Holocaust. Both subjects I know well, and my father now atheist and what I call a holocaust revisionist. He denies the holocaust as western propaganda. I have no time for the like. Needless to say, today has been very heated and wonder how many people suffer such foolishness, especially from a father so blind to the truth and yet claim not to be anti-Semitic or racist….twice the fool and twice as dangerous.

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   David Russell

   27 January 2015, 16:55

   70 years today liberation of Auschwitz. The camp was the hell on earth. My wife wanted to go last year but my friend who is a very hard scrap man broke down when he went to the camp and said its a horrible feeling and really sad he believed People who did this was not human AND I AGREE. We have a lot of polish friends who said you can feel Auschwitz as you enter it and my mate said that is true. The people who was responsible for all this like Josef Mengele who was a German Schutzstaffel who experimented on people should rot in hell. I would like to say to close this God bless the people in every unmarked mass grave and rest in peace.

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   David Russell

   27 January 2015, 17:53

   I have just got out of bed to write this and I have loads of Muslim friends who I have loads of respect but there are more racists Muslims than racist British white people in the UK and you must have been living on another planet if you do not realise that.. I say British white because people born in this country am classed as British, white, black, pink, green but they do not class their selves as British. My mate believes is country is Pakistan even when he was born in my street and went to school with me.The problems today as nothing to do with the evil 70 years ago. People use racism as a get out of jail free card and some just have nothing in life so they want to destroy all the other peoples live who have done well. One of my white mates at 18 married an Asian girl 17 and her family kicked her out of her house. Sorry the dad beat her up because her boy friend was a white British lad, Did they care no, they loved each other, and they had 2 kids but now at 48 my mate talks to the Dad and they am best friends he is old and wise .:)

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   lokie

   27 January 2015, 18:15

   Well said. Racism has no place in modern society. Muslims themselves have been killed by extremist fanatics. Fact more Muslims have been killed by fanatics than other religions. Always remember those who lost their lives. The 6 million Jews and the countless others who were either killed or gave their lives in battle so to rid the world of the evil tyrants.

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   Striebs

   28 January 2015, 08:50

   I’ve been to visit Auchwitz Birkenau the site of so much of that evil . It can definitely happen again unfortunately .

   Fully agree that the Moslem’s have almost been set up to be the fall guys this time around .

   I trust you are not advocating the adoption of the Left’s tactic of dismissing UKIP as “racist” in order to close down debate on the grievances of ordinary people ?

   We have been heading towards a fifth Reich for the past 40 years and it hasn’t been UKIP holding the steering wheel Tom .

   As a journalist you must be deeply concerned about the implications of the Leveson Inquiry and censorship of the press in peace time . They say that truth is the first casualty .

   Approving the European Arrest Warrant from countries which do not respect habeus corpus , getting wrid of jury trial , gradually sacrificing a millennia of Common Law and changing the burden of proof to the European model .

   Our personal freedoms have been suspended indefinitely under the pretext of “security” and a phony “war on terror” .

   The danger of drifting into a new national socialist era comes not from UKIP but from the established LibLabCon order – who have form in supporting national socialism in the 1930’s until Churchill prised control from their hands .

   We need a new Churchill more than ever . Unfortunately Farage is not that but he’s closer than any of the others .

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    sellbydate

    29 January 2015, 04:37

    Well said Tom. Yes its a slippery slope and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We have to be vigilant. Although these people who foment hatred and discrimination are clowns they are extremely dangerous clowns and should be treated as such.
    Public ridicule in the form of humour and sending these madmen up in much the same way as Spitting Image did in the previous generation has to be our weapon and despite the Charlie Hebdo tragedy is one of many ways to disarm these thugs in their poisonous ideology no matter who they represent.
    The sad truth is that despite claims to the contrary the root cause is religion and the bigots and extremist who want to destroy our values and society in its name.