Posted on 06/28/2016 7:19:37 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
It is clear to me that you never had the privilege of speaking with someone who had numbers on their arm about their experiences. ...................................... Yeah, my Yiddish speaking mom, she had many of her co workers from the garment industry at our home in Brooklyn, several had #s. None of them were at Berkinau, but the stories were the same.
Prosecute the NKVD, KGB, and go all the way to the Cheka, what was ever done in that area? Not a damn thing. Russian Lives Mater too. Russian on Russian, not only German on Russian. There was a reason the Ukrainians and Belorussians volunteered for the German Units after the invasion. My mother had friends who escaped from Russia during the famine, same kind of stories as those who survived the German Camps. (Cooperate or die.)
"Crimes against humanity" are personal to all humanity?
-PJ
They wanted to annihilate all Jews, and that includes me. They were slaughtering human beings as if they were lice, and that includes everyone, as well as me.
“Was this guy a trigger man?”
“The judges in the case found that Hanning worked as a guard in the German extermination camp on Polish soil in the years 1941-1944, while being involved in the deaths of 170,000 camp prisoners, most of them Jews.”
That doesn’t explicitly say that he was a trigger man, but I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t have gone after him if he was a cook for the guys who were. He did SOMETHING pretty bad, and now he’s paying PART of the price.
Without knowing anything more for sure, I’m betting that there were very few concentration camp guards who DIDN’T shoot anyone. In any case, if he didn’t, but “merely” herded prisoners into the gas chambers under threat of being shot, then he’s just as guilty.
The difference is that the Soviets won the war, and the Nazis lost.
We've been chasing, prosecuting and jailing old Nazis for decades. Continental Europe yawns and anti-Semitism creeps steadily upward, year after year. Are these cases worth the effort? I think they are, but it's more about going on record about who we are and what we believe.
We can't count on any measurable deterrence factor, people who would commit those vile acts are predisposed to ignore such factors. In the old days when pickpockets were hanged in the town square, other pickpockets often worked the assembled crowd.
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Now let the SOB pay the price for the privileges. I have no sympathy for him.
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I can understand your feelings but is that justice? The SS was declared a criminal organization at Nuremberg and as such members were bared from migration to many countries, employment in West German government and in the Bundeswehr. So the fellow likely paid some penalty already for being a member of the SS.
If the fellow is to be convicted of a crime, should he not be guilty of it? Not saying he is not guilty, but it does seem like you want the guy to suffer regardless of if he is personally guilty of a crime or not. To many here being a 21 year old outer perimeter camp guard does not seem to rise to that level of being a crime, unless he was involved in the internal crimes.
Now being a staff sergeant he might have been involved in more than just sitting in a guard tower, but how do we know at this late date? I suppose the real argument seems to a concern for individual justice vs. folks who want to see justice done for the many folks killed in the camp. I can see both sides.
If I am missing something feel free to correct me.
kind regards
Again, I didn’t see anyone disagreeing with you.
FWIW, I happen to agree with you - prosecute ANYONE guilty of a war crime or crime against humanity, regardless of their nationality or that of the victim.
FYI, I don’t exactly have a warm spot in my heart for the Soviet bastards. Though I’m Jewish and have my viewpoint regarding the Germans and their helpers during WW2, my paternal grandfather was born in Russia, and was forced to leave right after the Revolution in order to save his life. His remaining family lost everything material that they owned, save their own home, and they were as oppressed as any of the remaining population throughout the Communist era. He never saw his parents again, and several of his siblings had died by the time he was able to visit family some 46 years after leaving. They created a lot of misery and heartache in his life and those of his family, and I cannot forgive them for that.
Ok I get that, that would make it personal.
Actually no, it is not an “”interesting” notion” I have about defiling the bodies of the dead.
There is a historical precedent going back many hundreds of years regarding digging up dead enemies and defiling their bodies.
I am not a proponent of that. Seems like you might think I am.
He did a lot worse than merely guard the perimeter of a concentration camp.
First of all, it was Auschwitz, the worst of the death camps.
Second, he was accused of overseeing the selection of prisoners who were sent either for labour or to the gas chambers. He tried to get out of the conviction by saying that he wasn’t in the part of the camp where the gassing took place, but he clearly participated. People died because of this bastard - THOUSANDS of them.
Nonetheless, we have to do what is right. We need to bring wrong-doers to justice, particularly those that do things of this sort.
That others will do the same in the future, regardless of our punishment of past perpetrators, is of no consequence to us - THEY are guilty of what they do, not us. But if we turn away, then we are guilty of indifference to some of the most hideous crimes ever committed. I can’t live with that.
well according to this he did escort folks to the gas chamber.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Hanning
However if you look at the footnote reference on that page , the prosecutors say he may have escorted prisoner to the gas chambers, and that charge is not one he admitted to. Not proven, though it seems he was at the gates. It is kind of hard to believe he did not know what was going on.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36560416
So..it seems there is , on the day of the conviction already a campaign to impute crimes to him he denies. As the prosecutors could not prove that charge, it is rather fishy that Wikipedia has said it is true.
That said he did stay at the camp when he could have gone to the front. Of course being a camp guard is much safer than Russia. But he had to know what was occurring and he had an out. If he is guilty of a crime, five years seems to not be a very severe sentence given how bad the holocaust was.
I can see folks with sincere opinions concerning justice taking either side of this argument.
If their courts of appeals are anything like ours, he’ll be dead before the trial starts.
There are abortion mills slaughtering far more people than the Nazis did, and what do we do? Nothing. We could be protesting and picketing in a non-stop wave, defying the courts, methodically voting out any and all public officials who don’t make abortion their #1 issue, or whatever, but we don’t, do we? I’m not justifying the guard or saying he should be let go, but we are all just as guilty as he is and shouldn’t be so comfortable throwing stones. There is no need to wonder what we would do in the same situation, because we ARE in the same situation, and are doing exactly what he did.
They are why, when we are forced to rebellion, THOSE WHO GIVE THE ORDERS must be the primary targets.
Well, something under half of them were.
Just because one group is not prosecuted does not mean another persons crimes are absolved.
If the guy is guilty he got off with a light sentence.
It just occurred to me he was promoted while a camp guard. He must have in some way been with the program, so to speak to be promoted. The Germans did not promote based on time in grade, NCO rank had to be earned and only around 5 to 6 % of soldiers were NCOs.
The more I read about this chap the worse it seems he was, though to be fair, I do not know how you can reliably determine guilt after 72 years, at least according to English standards of right and wrong.
Pope Stephen VI put the rotting corpse of Pope Formosus on trial in January of 897.
Glad to hear that you’re not. I don’t know why you mentioned it, though, as I’ve never heard anyone ever mention doing something similar with the Germans or their helpers. That must be a Turd World thing.
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