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I Was At Berger-Belsen This Week
Vanity | 10/30/2010 | RB

Posted on 10/30/2010 4:51:41 PM PDT by Free America52

I was in Hamburg Germany this week for business, and had the fortune (?) of visiting the memorial at Berger-Belsen, one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. By the time the camp was liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945, there were 12,000-13,000 Jews dying every day from starvation and disease.

It is one of the most notorious of all Nazi concentration camps for several reasons:

1) Anne Frank and her sister Margot died in this camp.

2) As the allied forces pushed their way into Germany, Hitler had prisoners from camps in the encroachment areas moved to other prisons. Berger-Belsen received many of these prisoners and severely overloaded an already overloaded camp. Deaths became staggerlingly high.

Here are two historical clips that will make your hair stand up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzdtPcNwRtM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUxSxQlwR6s&feature=related

Several things really stuck out to me:

1) In a very eerie way, the Berger-Belsen grounds were very quiet. There were no birds, no animals, no insects or any sort of non-plant life although the prison was surrounded by thousands of acres of forest. According to local lore, no living thing exists.

2) This was not a re-enactment with buildings, etc., this was just a solemn walk through a beautiful place where some very horrible things happened. The area is simply breathtakingly beautiful.

3) They have a fabulous museum on site that tells the whole story. I could spend 1-2 days just in the museum.

I am 54 years old, and this was the most emotional experience in my life (outside of life / death issues). I will forever be touched, and plan to make a German vacation visiting more of these camps.

It is impossible to describe ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: bergerbelsen; nazi
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To: nkycincinnatikid

To each of the a-holes that have commented on my misspellig, I have a short message. F-you! It was an honest mistake, don’t take away from the message because of some minor error. Geez ...


41 posted on 10/30/2010 6:01:06 PM PDT by Free America52 (The White guys are getting pissed off. We beat Hitler Hirohito and Krushchev. Obama will be easy.)
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To: Guenevere
WE have as much blood guilt as Germany....and the rest.

Yes we do and if Obama and his minions aren't stopped there will be A LOT more.

42 posted on 10/30/2010 6:01:30 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Guenevere

I do. I’ve been a pro-life Catholic for many years, and visiting a “death factory” only solidified my beliefs. I also know that good always wins in the end. always.


43 posted on 10/30/2010 6:02:11 PM PDT by Gapplega
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To: Free America52

You will like this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzXDi_f9PUY


44 posted on 10/30/2010 6:04:16 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache (In a world where I feel so small, I can't stop thinking big.)
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To: Free America52
One of my uncles that fought in Europe was in on the

liberation of one of the death camps,,,

The only one he talked to about it was my Grandmother,,,

He cried like a baby,,,

She told me about it when I got older,,,(camps),,,

He moved away when I was 6 or 7yo,,,

That was the first guy I saw with that “10,000yard stare”...

45 posted on 10/30/2010 6:06:55 PM PDT by 1COUNTER-MORTER-68 (THROWING ANOTHER BULLET-RIDDLED TV IN THE PILE OUT BACK~~~~~)
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To: wagglebee
wagglebee, although I agree with you....

..this started way before Obama....

..this was allowed to begin in 1973...

..Obama is probably the most hostile administration to the unborn, you are right.....

..but for almost 38 years it has progressed unabated.

Just like the original Holocaust.....folks ignore it until they have to look at the pictures or witness it personally.

Someday.....our nation will have to look at the pictures of our Holocaust....just like Germany did.

Monsters always preen and exult in the destruction of others.....they are known to keep journals, tapes and video of their gruesome carnage.

some day...maybe soon....we won't be able to look away ...

..what was hidden, will be revealed.

46 posted on 10/30/2010 6:08:46 PM PDT by Guenevere (....)
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To: bboop

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a wonderful man.


47 posted on 10/30/2010 6:12:20 PM PDT by Gapplega
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To: Guenevere
I agree, it actually started before 1973, but Roe was the "green light" to kill babies.

When the culture of death crossed the 50 million mark with babies they became emboldened and began to push euthanasia.

Terri Schiavo was the "test case" for killing the disabled (the media was taking polls constantly to gauge which talking points were working).

Now Zero wants to MANDATE (not just legalize, but mandate) rationing by death panels.

If Obama isn't stopped politically, the only other thing to save civilization will be civil war.

48 posted on 10/30/2010 6:14:20 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: MestaMachine
Yes. Most people cannot name the nazi concentration camps. They have forgotten the death camps. They think it’s a “Jew” thing. They are wrong. Humanity is teetering on the brink of much worse and refuses to see it.

IMO, even those who do keep it in mind don't pay enough mind to WHY it happened and only focus on WHAT happened.

I read "The Nazi Doctors" by Robert Lifton and found it chilling, but it was when I later read "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek that I gained a greater understanding of the mindset of the Nazis and how they came to do the things they did.

When the population comes to believe that the people in government have the answer to all the problems, and that the ends justify any means, it always leads to people like Hitler and Stalin leading the likeminded in getting rid of any people they view as threats to their vision of the ideal society.

Hayek's book was the warning of where it leads in relatively vague terms. Lifton's book told specifically where that thinking leads, but I didn't grasp WHY they came to act as they did until Hayek's book laid it out for me.

WE are the ones the far left views as the threat to their vision of the ideal society, and if they aren't stopped, WE'LL be the ones disposed of.

49 posted on 10/30/2010 6:15:18 PM PDT by Wissa (Gone Galt)
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To: Gay State Conservative

I went to Dachau a long time ago, too. It looked like an extremely rustic summer camp. Nothing. You have to look at a lot of photos to understand that a population like the entire city of Cleveland was there, and the barracks that looks like it would house twenty had two hundred.I think the pictures that show the arriving transports are the most horrifying - it’s like they packed up an entire city to dump into the camp.


50 posted on 10/30/2010 6:16:21 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: Free America52

Hey! That is definetly the spirit! You go girl!


51 posted on 10/30/2010 6:22:16 PM PDT by nkycincinnatikid
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To: wagglebee
Terri Schiavo was the "test case" for killing the disabled (the media was taking polls constantly to gauge which talking points were working).

Euthanizing the severely disabled was where the Nazis started. Once people came to accept the idea that society as a whole was better off if they weren't using scarce resources supporting those who had "a life not worth living", they simply kept redefining what constituted "a life not worth living".

52 posted on 10/30/2010 6:22:40 PM PDT by Wissa (Gone Galt)
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To: kabumpo

One thing about Buchenwald, was that after the war it became a Soviet-run Concentration Camp.


53 posted on 10/30/2010 6:24:47 PM PDT by dfwgator (Texas Rangers -You Gotta Believe)
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To: Gapplega

The book I would recommend is by Rudi Vrba. I believe it is now titled “I Escaped Auschwitz” or “Escape from Auschwitz”. Reading it changed my life forever. It has some shocking information that no other writer has ever dealt with.


54 posted on 10/30/2010 6:27:00 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: wagglebee
It's called ...the slippery slope...and we're on it!

Every situation you've mentioned was understood 20 plus years ago at my introduction to Right to Life...

They said it would happen just like this.....and it is.

They said if we didn't hold the line then.....

..we would be holding the line years later and it wouldn't be babies.....or the infirm ....it would be us, the aging.

It's here.....and Obama is trying very hard to meet that mandate.

55 posted on 10/30/2010 6:27:19 PM PDT by Guenevere (....)
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To: Free America52
I was in Hamburg Germany this week for business, and had the fortune (?) of visiting the memorial at Berger-Belsen,

Actually, and I probably shouldn't do this, but it is Bergen-Belsen not Berger-Belsen.

56 posted on 10/30/2010 6:28:17 PM PDT by calex59
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To: Guenevere

“I’m sure you are ALL sincere and your memories of these harsh places are heartfelt & genuine.”

“...as they should be.”

Speaking as someone whose entire family was nearly wiped out, maybe you should be one of the first to understand why we keep trying to point to these horrors.
Some of the nazis’ most malevolent “medical” experiments were done on pregnant women to force them to abort in the most horrific ways possible.
They murdered hundreds of thousands of “imperfect” children and other “imperfect” human beings, including retarded people and cripples.

“My husband has been to Dachau.....unspeakable.”

Yes it is. Is that why you don’t want us to speak of it?

“But have you ever considered how these horrors compare to our own American Holocaust?.”

Talk Radio host I know is quite fond of saying that anything before “but” is BS. BUT, giving you the benefit of the doubt, have you read ALL the posts? Mine and ExTexasRedhead’s for example.

Here is part of mine.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2617940/posts?page=27#27

Yes. Most people cannot name the nazi concentration camps. They have forgotten the death camps. They think it’s a “Jew” thing. They are wrong. Humanity is teetering on the brink of much worse and refuses to see it.


57 posted on 10/30/2010 6:28:48 PM PDT by MestaMachine (VOTE!)
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To: calex59
you should probably read through the whole thread before posting...

..we've been there, done that

58 posted on 10/30/2010 6:29:25 PM PDT by Guenevere (....)
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To: Wissa

Well said.


59 posted on 10/30/2010 6:29:46 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: MestaMachine
I'm not trying....nor would I try....to prevent any of you from speaking of these horrors!...(not sure why you think this)

Unspeakable (to me) means.....horrific/indescribable, ..beyond words....vile...etc.

60 posted on 10/30/2010 6:32:51 PM PDT by Guenevere (....)
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