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Man who claimed to have escaped Auschwitz admits he lied for years
The Guardian ^ | June 24, 2016 | Alan Yuhas

Posted on 06/24/2016 9:06:55 PM PDT by Trump20162020

A Pennsylvania man who claimed for years to have escaped from Auschwitz, met track and field star Jesse Owens and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, confessed on Friday that he had fabricated the entire story.

“I am writing today to apologize publicly for harm caused to anyone because of my inserting myself into the descriptions of life in Auschwitz,” Joseph Hirt, 86, wrote in a letter sent to his local paper, LNP, this week. “I was not a prisoner there. I did not intend to lessen or overshadow the events which truly happened there by falsely claiming to have been personally involved.”

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: auschwitz; hirt; holocaust; josefmengele; josephhirt; mengele; pennsylvania; whoops
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To: Bob

Not sure what some of that means, but it is a HORRIFIC insult to my father and uncles, your kin and any others who fought in our wars!!

Is that a crime?? it should be.

Brother in law who died 3 years ago was in Vietnam. One year in hell he said. Medic for marines.


21 posted on 06/24/2016 10:46:38 PM PDT by dp0622 (The only thing an upper crust conservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: lee martell

While visiting my parents years ago, I stayed up all night reading “One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, could not close it up. Read about half of Gulag but visit didn’t last long enough. I just bought it for about $1 on Amazon so I can finally finish it.


22 posted on 06/24/2016 10:46:53 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Half the truth is often a great lie. B. Franklin)
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To: lee martell

Speaking as someone who lost friends in 9/11, the woman who became a semi celebrity by lying didn’t do #### nor remind anyone of ####.

There were plenty from the holocaust and their families and 9/11 victim families to remind us.

This is ####ing disgusting on both o them.

I forgive them, but i see NO GOOD in it like you do


23 posted on 06/24/2016 10:51:43 PM PDT by dp0622 (The only thing an upper crust conservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: All

Sounds like people in my family, frauds.


24 posted on 06/24/2016 10:54:27 PM PDT by 80skid
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To: Trump20162020

I met an old woman one time when going from door to door as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

We were to ask people if they believed in God, in the Bible. The woman let me in, saying she did, but I believe she mostly let me in out of the hot sun, it was a very hot day in Phoenix, Az in the summer.

She gave me water and as I continued on regarding the Bible she told me politely she was Jewish. She seemed reticent to speak at all about religion, me thinking it was because she was Jewish and not wanting to become Christian.

I did not press her. We were taught to only speak with ones who were interested but I did ask her if she believed in God, did she think about God at all and after a few minutes she admitted to me she had been in Auschwitz. She added she did not want to speak further on it. She said this quietly and politely.

She looked away when saying it. When she said it she had lowered her voice. She seemed that just by saying the name she felt as if she were ‘there’ again.

I was so shocked by her obvious emotional response, I could tell it was not something she admitted often, in fact I had the idea it was rarely spoken.

I said I was so sorry. After a minute of thought I said, ‘did you pray?’ meaning when she was there. Not thinking she didn’t but trying to grasp that awful situation of hers.

She looked at me in a confiding way and said, “We prayed all the time. We were numb with fear”. Indicating her prayers were the only thing that made her feel some kind of solace, feeling terrible things were likely going to happen but it was the only way to get through that. Like a child terrified and staying close to their father.

The horror she still remembered was evident in that fleeting moment she and I looked into each others eyes. The conversation was only that. She spoke in her soft old womans voice, with the eyes staring at me briefly with the fear and the pain still in them. It was palpable.

I cannot imagine anyone ‘pretending’ that. I imagine she got free because the war ended. No heroics. No meeting famous people. ]

I’ll never forget that poor dear woman who offered me a glass of water and a minute out of the heat with compassion for me only as another human being.


25 posted on 06/24/2016 10:56:23 PM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: VRWCarea51
I had a first grade substitute teacher with Auschwitz "inventory" tattoos. In fact, she now lives (assuming she is alive now) in Terre Haute, IN (not too far from where I went to grade school in Henderson, KY). She's one of the little girls they show in film marching out right at liberation. Here's a pic of her then and "now".
26 posted on 06/24/2016 10:56:53 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: lee martell

Tolstoy didn’t witness the Napoleonic wars...

Tolstoy died in 1910 so he would not have been old enough to remember or born at that time...


27 posted on 06/24/2016 11:04:45 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: WKUHilltopper

Since she did not expect to get out she prob saw this photo later.

Bet that surprised her!


28 posted on 06/24/2016 11:08:49 PM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: Beowulf9

I was just surprised to see a woman tattooed. That just didn’t happen in those days—unless one was a bar fly. And what struck me even stranger was the 7 had a slash in the middle of it. Had never seen anything like that. I think that’s one of the reasons I still remember it to this day.


29 posted on 06/24/2016 11:19:02 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: Tailback

It’s an old joke, Einstein. They used to tell it about Pat Buchanan.


30 posted on 06/25/2016 12:14:49 AM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: little jeremiah
There are actually 3 volumes of The Gulag Archipelago. It took me a couple of months to read them all.
31 posted on 06/25/2016 12:16:11 AM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: ozzymandus

I could see Bill Kristol saying that about Buchanon. I don’t think there’s a true conservative that Kristol hasn’t bashed and that includes Reagan.


32 posted on 06/25/2016 1:10:57 AM PDT by Tailback
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To: little jeremiah
I did the same in my 30s. It changed me. I’ll see what titles I can remember - Anus Mundi, Babi Yar (not exactly camps), Dora and a couple more. I think the one about Sobibor maybe. This was a long time ago.

The "assh*le" of the world?

Perhaps you mean Annus Mundi - the year of the world.

Regards,

33 posted on 06/25/2016 2:47:49 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Trump20162020

His wife was Morgan Fairchild.


34 posted on 06/25/2016 3:43:25 AM PDT by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: dp0622

Like yours, she was my first thought, “The Woman Who Wasn’t There.” Sick people.


35 posted on 06/25/2016 6:17:27 AM PDT by mancini
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To: skr

That is so true, and very sad for those people.


36 posted on 06/25/2016 6:19:44 AM PDT by jonathonandjennifer
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To: little jeremiah

I too read that book many years ago. Never forgot it. Whenever I start to get cranky about something trivial like pizza not being delivered as hot as I’d like it ,I remember that book, and am content with my less than perfect pizza.


37 posted on 06/25/2016 6:31:53 AM PDT by jonathonandjennifer
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To: alexander_busek; little jeremiah

“Anus Mundi” (the “assh*le” of the world) was a name given to the KL by members of the SS.

little jeremiah had it right.


38 posted on 06/25/2016 6:33:32 AM PDT by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
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To: Trump20162020

What Stalin?

Jewish bureaucrats made up 60% of Russian government, just prior to Stalin’s purge of millions. I read perhaps that is why the gulag horrors get small mention compared to the holocaust.

Count the high number of Hitler movies from Hollywood, but not a single Stalin movie even when 10 times were murdered. Victim classes are very PC.


39 posted on 06/25/2016 7:23:21 AM PDT by TheNext (Hillary Hurts Our Children)
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To: Fungi
“Check the tattoo number, all “inmates” of the death camps were tattooed. I had an experience one day when a former survivor showed me his tattoo, a number on his arm. it was very humbling.”

Don't rely on that. I had a supervisor back in the day that had a number on his forearm. It was in the right place. He was old enough to have been in the camps if he was a child at the time.

I always figured he was a camp survivor. One day the curiosity got the better of me and I commented on the unusual tattoo. He told me he got it in the Navy when he was on shore leave in San Diego. Him and his buddies were drunk and wanted to get tattooed. He couldn't figure out what he wanted so he opted for his SSN. He never thought about what it would look like.

40 posted on 06/25/2016 7:44:56 AM PDT by Polynikes ( Hakkaa palle)
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