This is why Hitler wanted the Jews out of Germany

My four photos above, taken in 2002, show what the heart of Berlin looked like just before the Jews built the monstrosity called “Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe” which is shown in the photo below.

GERMANY, Berlin. Memorial to the Victims of the Holocaust.

Hitler was an artist himself.  He painted beautiful pictures, that were nothing like Jewish art. If Hitler could see Berlin now, he would be turning over in his grave, that is, if he had a grave.

This quote is from a news article which you can read in full at http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-inadequacy-of-berlins-memorial-to-the-murdered-jews-of-europe

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Just south of the Brandenburg Gate is Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, with its two thousand, seven hundred and eleven gray concrete slabs, or stelae. They are identical in their horizontal dimensions (reminiscent of coffins), differing vertically (from eight inches to more than fifteen feet tall), arranged in a precise rectilinear array over 4.7 acres, allowing for long, straight, and narrow alleys between them, along which the ground undulates. The installation is a living experiment in montage, a Kuleshov effect of the juxtaposition of image and text. The text in question is the title of the memorial: in German, Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas—a Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Without that title, it would be impossible to know what the structure is meant to commemorate; there’s nothing about these concrete slabs that signifies any of the words of the title, except, perhaps, “memorial”—insofar as some of them, depending on their height, may resemble either headstones or sarcophagi. So it’s something to do with death. And as for the title itself—which murdered Jews? When? Where? Does the list include Rosa Luxemburg, who was killed in Berlin by rightist thugs in 1919, or the foreign minister Walther Rathenau, also killed here by rightist thugs, in 1922? Or Isaac Babel and Osip Mandelstam, who died in Soviet captivity? Or, pardon my sarcasm, Claude Lanzmann’s uncle, who was (as Lanzmann writes in his autobiography) killed in Paris by his jealous mistress?

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You can read more about the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Berlin2002/JewishMemorial/index.html

What British students learn from the HET tours to Auschwitz

Arbeit macht Frei gate at Auschwitz main camp
Photo credit: REUTERS

You can read about the latest British HET tour of Auschwitz in this news article:  http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/14248333.The_horrors_of_Auschwitz_recounted_by_North_Berwick_High_School_pupil_whose_great__great_gran_died_there/

I have written about the HET tours several times in the past.  I am very critical of this student program because I think that it gives the students the wrong impression of Auschwitz and the Holocaust.

The following quote is from the news article, cited above:

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The coldness of the gas chambers, the vast scale of [Auschwitz] Birkenau, the hallway lined with faces of prisoners who died and mounds of hair, shoes and glasses – these are the images which will have a lasting impression upon me.

[…]

One week prior to the visit, we attended the orientation seminar. This was useful as it not only allowed us to get to know the other young people who would be going through the same experience but it addressed our expectations of the camp.

[…]

At the seminar, we were incredibly privileged to have heard from survivor Ziggi Shipper. Ziggi’s story of being separated from his grandparents and imprisoned in Auschwitz to later finding his mother again after the war is truly remarkable.

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I first learned about Ziggi and the hair exhibits at Auschwitz when someone made a comment on one of my very first blog posts:  https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/hair-today-gone-tommorrow-the-exhibits-at-auschwitz/

The news article about the HET tour ends with this quote:

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I now feel ready to do this as part of the Next Steps programme, though, and hope to achieve this through various channels such as assemblies we will be presenting during Holocaust Memorial Week.

‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ – these are the hollow words which confront you as you enter Auschwitz.

‘Work sets you free’ – these are the words which met millions of prisoners, some of whom made this sign, who would never experience freedom again.

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I wrote about the meaning of the Arbeit macht Frei sign on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/KZDachau/Gatehouse.html

“Arbeit macht Frei” does NOT mean “kill the Jews” as some people might think, after reading this news article.