Posted on 02/14/2025 8:58:36 AM PST by george76
Holocaust survivor Marian Turski reflects on the dangers of bystanding in this speech excerpt.
This is an excerpt from the speech by Holocaust survivor Marian Turski, which he gave at the memorial ceremony on 27 January 2020 in Auschwitz.
I shall not be telling you about my sufferings, about my two death marches, about how I experienced the end of the war, when I weighed just 32 kilos, verging on the edge of exhaustion and life itself. I shall not be telling you about the very worst experience, the tragedy of being separated from my nearest loved ones and sensing what awaited them after the selection. No, I shall not be speaking about this. I want to talk with the generation of my daughter, and the generation of my grandchildren about themselves.
I see that our gathering includes the President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen … [who once] used the phrase “Auschwitz didn’t appear from nowhere”. …
Of course it didn’t appear from nowhere. That might seem to be a trite observation, but it contains a deep, and very important conceptual abbreviation in order to be understood. Let us for one moment go back in our minds, in our imagination, to Berlin in the early 1930s. … And one day in the early 1930s a sign suddenly appears on the park benches saying: “Jews are forbidden to sit on these benches”. Some might say: that’s unpleasant, unfair, not OK, but after all there are so many benches nearby, so people can go and sit somewhere else, it’s no disaster.
…
A bit later the sign appeared at the swimming pool: “Jews are forbidden to enter the swimming pool”. Some people might again say: that’s unpleasant, but Berlin has so many places to swim … they can just go somewhere else.
…
And the sign with the order appears: “Jewish non-Aryan children are forbidden to play with German Aryan children”. They shall play by themselves. And then the sign appears: “Bread and food products will only be sold to Jews after 5 p.m.”. Well that’s a bit more difficult, because the choice is more limited then, but people can still go shopping after 5 p.m.
But be careful, be careful, we are already beginning to become accustomed to thinking that you can exclude someone, stigmatize someone, alienate someone. And slowly, step by step, day by day, that’s how people gradually become familiar with these things. Both the victims and the perpetrators and the witnesses, those we call bystanders, begin to become accustomed to the thoughts and ideas, that this minority that produced Einstein, Nelly Sachs, Heinrich Heine and the Mendelssohns is different, that they can be expelled from society, that they are foreign people, that they are people who spread germs, diseases and epidemics. That is terrible, and dangerous. That is the beginning of what can rapidly develop.
…
The rest follows in swift succession: the ban on employing Jews, travel prohibition … deportation to ghettos … From where most people are taken to Kulmhof on the River Ner, where they are murdered in trucks using the exhaust fumes, and the rest go to Auschwitz, where they are murdered in modern gas chambers, gassed by Zyklon B. And this is where it was proven, what the Austrian president said: “Auschwitz didn’t appear from nowhere”. Auschwitz crept up, step by step, came closer, until what happened, happened here.
…
My friend, the President of the International Auschwitz Committee Roman Kent … has formulated an Eleventh Commandment … . It says: “You should never, never be a bystander.”
And that is what I want to say to my daughter, to my grandchildren. To the peers of my daughter and my grandchildren, wherever they may be living: in Poland, in Israel, in America, Western Europe. It is very important. Don’t be complacent, whenever you see historical lies. Don’t be complacent, whenever you see the past being misused for current political purposes. Don’t be complacent, whenever any kind of minority is discriminated against. The essence of democracy lies in the rule of the majority. But democracy itself lies in the fact that the rights of minorities must be protected. Don’t be complacent, whenever any government violates already existing, common social contracts. Remain faithful to the Eleventh Commandment: Never be a bystander.
Because, if you become complacent, before you know it, some kind of Auschwitz will suddenly appear from nowhere, and befall you and your descendants.
Ultimately, it was the perfect expression of the pathological desire to fully organize and micromanage society.
We see that today all around us, where government thinks it should know everything you think, say, do, possess, etc.
They think it is legitimate to decide what you eat, medications you must take, where you can go, when, etc.
It was German efficiency doing all they could back then.
Today, DC doesn’t need to put you in a camp and kill you. They can silence your voice, steal elections, censor you, cause you to lose your livelihood, confiscate your money, cause your unemployment and ostracization. They can isolate you to the point that anyone engaging you is also at risk of the same.
They no longer need to gas you, or usually even imprison you.
Today they have the tools to isolate, impoverish, enslave and ruin anyone, or any entire class of people. Auschwitz camps are an anachronism... they have better ways to do the same thing today.
If not for the anti- masks and anti-vaxxers .. we would be living in *show us your papers* society.
The planned-emic was to force you to get the vaxx.. The vaxx was to force you to get the vaxx passport.. The vaxx passport was to force you into the ESG / social credit system.. The social credit system is to force you into digital currency / obeying the tyrants.. ~ Emerald Robinson.
UN Agenda 21 , 2030 , Great Reset, ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
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I'll never forget the sick feeling in my stomach I had when my company was asking for everyone to acknowledge their status, in writing, did you receive the CV19 VAX or not? I felt that the mandate was coming soon after that. I was so fricking scared that this was the end of 33 years of my engineering career.
I think it was literally one or two days later that the USSC blocked FJB's workplace mandate. My company never went full third reich and there was no mandate. So happy that I never got that injection. One more time:
FU Joe Biden
I know a guy who found the PDF of the card on the internet. That scoundrel bought some white cardstock and printed out his own card.
And most treacherous of all, saw people posting their cards on Facebook in his area bragging they got their shot. Well this low life copied the date, manufacturer and lot number on his fake card.
He successfully kept his job.
I swear, some people you could hand a 9 dollar bill and they could make change in threes.
I wish I could remember that fellow’s name. He was something else.
I know a guy who found the PDF of the card on the internet.
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I don’t blame this guy one tiny bit. I may have tried that if it came down to it.
People with no symptoms were kicked out of grocery stores / denied food for refusing a useless cloth mask.
I’ve heard of a simular guy, however he didn’t need it to keep his job. He did it just in case.
When government started classifying jobs as essential, I got a sick feeling in my stomach.
If government would “allow” someone to work because they were absolutely necessary for society... how long until an order came down FORCING those people to work?
That option had to be rolling around in some bureaucrats brain.
Thanks
Fine, and let us recognize the difference between a minority and a criminal clearly. The left thinks the most criminally deviate sexual predators are just a minority. I disagree; they’re criminals.
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