Posted on 12/04/2008 6:25:47 PM PST by Star Traveler
(CNN) -- Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic. They are household names, infamous for masterminding genocide. But who were the foot soldiers who did the dirty work?
Recently discovered photos show Nazi officers relaxing at a retreat near Auschwitz. 1 of 4
In many cases they were equally notorious in their communities because they were the friends, neighbors and co-workers of those they raped, slaughtered and buried alive.
Nusreta Sivac watched ordinary people become killers while imprisoned in a concentration camp in Bosnia.
She saw prisoners beaten beyond recognition and watched camp guards force a Muslim prisoner to rape a Muslim woman in front of everyone.
She was shocked to see people she knew running the camp. "They acted as if they had never seen me before," she said. "It was difficult for me to understand how people could turn into beasts overnight."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
“The dividing line between good and evil runs through the center of the human heart.” (Author unknown.)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago.
My BS detector is going off on this. What few Muslims the Nazis came across in Europe, mostly in the Balkans, were more likely allies than victims.
But overall, I will agree with this from the article "People will do almost anything in a group and will do anything not to be rejected..."
All one has to do is look at the near genocide occurring among black and Hispanic inner city gangs in this country to see what people will do for "the group". Add a charismatic leader to that mix, and you have the Nazis.
This is one of the reasons I have always despised the 'ethnic identity' nonsense even before before it became a political tool in this country. My way of thinking is that we are all individuals and should be measured that way and measure others that way. Who your parents were makes absolutly no difference in the world.
It’s “Totenkopf”- Death’s Head
In the interests of accuracy, it’s not totally clear whether the people in the picture actually worked at the camp.
I’ve been digging a little bit more, and found that some sources indicate the women in the photo were SS communication workers on a retreat near Auschwitz. Other sources identify them as part of the camp staff, enjoying a day off.
In any event, they appear completely oblivious to the horrors surrounding them.
The Totenkopf Standarten formed the 3rd SS Pz. Div., named TOTENKOPF, and fought frm 1941 on on the Eastern Front [They did murder British prisoners at La Paradis, France, in 1940].
The troops responsible for the Malmedy Massacre were from the 9th SS Pioneers [Engineers], of the 1st SS Pz. Div., LEIBSTANDARTE SS ADOLF HITLER. They were part of Kampfgruppe Peiper. The man who fired the first shot was a vehicle [tank?] driver named Georg Phleps.
Rather like the abortion supporters claiming a fetus is not a person.
I just made the mistake of looking at the photos and descriptions on another site of the little children who were brutally tortured and slaughtered by ordinary people. I’ll be depressed for a week now. S***!
It’s just a reminder of what is in store for the future and how it is impossible to prevent. Will someone please kill me now? PLEASE?! Just a bullet through my head is all I ask...
If I remeber correctly, the Croatian Ustashi was the only bunch I ever read about that was written up by the SS - fior cruelty to prisoners. Must be something in the Balkans water.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I forgot about that. The 'war' from 15,000 feet.
I was telling somebody in the office that I just wanted my two oldest sons to wheel me up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain...a hill by Colorado Standards, and stand behind me and tell me the story again of that farm we're going to own. And I can have chickens, and hors....POW....
Screen to black. LOL!
How can anyone know of reality and still have faith in humanity?
I’m glad you caught that. Miloshevich never had a hand in any so-celled genocide, but was guilty only of trying to defend his Christian country from Muslim terrorism in the Serbian provinces of Bosnia-Herzogivina and Kosovo-Metohija. It was the Serbs who were the victims of genocide (more than a million killed) at the hands of the Croatian Ustashe and the Muslims in World War II. I will never understand why the United States government under both Clinton and Bush have deliberately adopted a false history for the truth, and in so doing antagonized the nations of Serbia and Russia, who could have been the closest allies you’d ever want.
The article is poorly written; the concentration camp being referred to in this instance was one from the recent Bosnian WSar, not World War II.
I have heard stories about Einstagruppen that entered Poland and Russia to murder Jews and other undesirables soon became overcome with grief and committed suicide. I can imagine some would behave in this way, although others morphed into desensitized killers, their very souls frozen in casks of ice.
I will never understand how people can be complete and abject Serb apologists and propagandists.
That the Serbs suffered greatly in World War II (and World War I, for that matter, which is now forgotten) doesn’t excuse anything they did in the Yugoslav wars.
And yes, all three sides committed atrocities. But it’s pretty clear the majority were by the Serbs, since they had the most people of the other two groups under their power.
Short, incomplete answer -- because some element of humanity is willing to stand up and put a stop to the brutality. Elements of both Mother Teresa and Adolph Hitler live, side by side, within every human.
thanks! At first I was worried about myself being a bystander, but how many times has a Christian lead a purge, or genocidal mission? And do we know that we cannot because vengeance is God’s and Jesus will do it for us upon His return?
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