A book review in the Jerusalem Post contains this little bit of horror from the death camps:
In the early years of the war, the jaded German tourist could give himself an unusual treat: a visit to the graveyard of the Warsaw Ghetto to see for himself how the Final Solution was progressing. And because he could, he did.
“Most of them show no sympathy at all for the Jews,” noted a ghetto diarist in 1941. “On the contrary, some of them maintain that the mortality among the Jews is too low. Others take all kinds of photographs. The shed where dozens of corpses lie during the day awaiting burial at night is particularly popular.”
Welcome to Disneyland, Nazi style.
They knew.
Friedlander quotes copiously from letters written by soldiers who witnessed the murders and either approved of them or found nothing exceptional about them. Even civilians far from the death camps had a good idea of what was going on.
They knew.
and hence many of the anti-Israel attitudes found in Europe today…
They know what grandpa/grandma were doing during the war, and the only way to ease that guilt is to accuse the Jews of equal atrocities…
Of course they knew.
The guards had friends and relatives. They went into town. They spoke to people.
And, on occasion, they got sick and went to see the local doctor (who, very likely was new, having replaced the town’s long time Jewish physician.) And the new guy quietly asked the question: “What happened to Dr. Abrams?”, probably hoping the rumors about the death-camps were true, because the gain for him was that no one would be returning to reclaim the practice.
However, notice: No anti-semitic seems to be able to sustain a victory. The Germans were vanquished, and (to name one example,) Poland, an exceedingly anti-semitic country — still is — lost big. Not only to Germany, but was subsequently occupied by Russia.
Again and again, countries and people-groups that choose evil seem to be consumed by evil.
Whereas people taken up with the God of the Bible, seem to help the Jews and are in turn blessed by them — which as it happens is exactly what the declares would happen.
(Why!, it’s almost as if someone planned this.)
My Father’s parents came to the US. My Father, and his Mother and Father are all that was left from every relative my Father knew. He counted 31 people, all near relatives, who were killed by Nazi’s.
And for them to say they didn’t know is a slap in the face. If someone, a German, want’s to be honest and good, that person needs to say something like this:
“How could they not now. We are ashamed.”
Oh, I didn’t write very carefully.
My Father came to the US with his Mother and Father from Germany. (I omitted their country of origin.)
I notice I didn’t write my note very well, on occasion leaving out necessary words. Sorry. I will compose notes off-line in the future and endeavor to do better work.