Posted on 06/08/2004 8:48:02 AM PDT by robowombat
The voice of experience and reason
I think it's healthy for a government to be just a little afraid of its citizenry.
just a little afraid?
I'd rather they be justifiably terrified.
Thank you for posting this.
It is past time for survivors of these camps to exhibit some brainpower over what happened to them and what the solutions should/could have been. They should be leading us to the truths of the curse of a weaponless culture!
Does anyone know whether there is there a memorial set up at the dentention camp in France?
My understanding is that the people of Germany, Poland and France hadn't sufficient food for their people. As matter of fact the Brits struggled for food, and in the US food stamps did not get us anything we wanted either even though we were a "bread basket".
BUMP!
I'm going to the Holocaust Museum in my city and see if I can ruffle some feathers. This should be interesting.
Ironically, "international socialism" has been overrun with various forms of mystical nationalism for a long time (even in the old days Communists fought wars of "national liberation" in which they labelled their side the "patriots"). The appeals to the "dark peoples" may have been originally merely an appeal to people long left out of things, but it morphed into a positive affirmation of the nationalism (including the mystical ties to the native soil) and even to the folk-religions of the "oppressed." This nature and earth worship has replaced atheism as the hammer with which many on the radical left attack the Western religions.
It is the Celtic nationalist movements that seems to unites various nationalist themes from both "left" and "right." Even the furthest Left of the Irish Republican movements, the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (which says it is not interested in liberating anyone other than "the Irish working class") nevertheless insists on a single "indigenous" Gaelic government over the entire island (including long-Protestant Ulster). How this need for an independent and sovereign island in northwestern Europe (with the foreign "occupier" kicked out) is reconciled with the abstract universalism of earlier days (which you describe so well) is beyond me.
#1 "Why didn't you fight back? Why not take up arms against the nazis?"
Answer: "Well the nazi's passed gun control laws YEARS before they put the first one of us on a cattle car to a death camp!"
#2 "I see. Have you ever been to Israel?"
I live there. It has been my home since it was created in 1948."
#3 "What is the incidence of personal firearms ownership in Israel?"
He SLAMS his fist down upon the lecturn and shouts: "All who desire them may have guns! NEVER AGAIN!!!"
Whereupon I swung around to face the audience of 500 or so teachers and asked them:
"Do you UNDERSTAND? Do you SEE the nexus between the ownership of personal firearms and FREEDOM? If you do not now return to your students and tell them, you not only condone the first Holocaust, you invite the Second!" I sat down and there was a shocking silence. None of them would meet my eyes. I knew they wouldn't.
Later at the coffee time, the survivor only wanted to hang around me and talk guns. Everytime somebody walked up to him, he'd snarl at them and they'd scurry away. He knew the gun haters well. He also knew enough about our system to know that I was in trouble. I didn't know, I was a first or second year teacher and a Second Amendment activist. Yes, I was in deep poo poo. When I got back to my high school, I was hauled into the principals office and chewed on for HOURS. That was okay, as a former army Second Lieutenant, I'd been gnawed on by Generals. I'll never sweat a mere principal. But the lasting effect is that I was literally banned from going to the seminar again. Until two years ago.
At that time, I was issued a by name invitation to attend. This time, the Israeli government was running the seminar and they had my name. Apparently, when the survivor returned and briefed them on my predicament, they made a note and when they had the chance they tried to make amends. They didn't even know for sure if I was still a teacher!
I went (this time from a new high school) and was asked to present my point of view. This time, it was a part of the overall presentation. I couldn't believe it. And there was still some "resistance" from American Jewish teachers. But no complaints this time. I was fully vindicated. It felt pretty good.
Great read! Thank you for posting it.
Thank you most sincerely for this post.
I is consoling that someone is doing something pragmatic with holocaust experiences.
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