The “always perspicacious” Glenn Beck has written a book on Common Core

Last night, on his TV show The Factor, Bill O’Reilly introduced his guest, Glenn Beck, as “the always perspicacious Glenn Beck.”

O’Reilly then proceeded to define this highfalutin word for Glenn Beck, who didn’t know what it meant.

Or maybe Beck was just pretending that he didn’t know.  Glenn Beck is self educated, and he doesn’t know what everyone in America should know, due to their indoctrination in the American school system.

Beck was a guest on The Factor because he is promoting a new book, which he has just written, on today’s educational standards, which are called Common Core.

Glenn Beck’s complaint, about Common Core standards, is that it is part of America’s “cultural war,” about which Bill O’Reilly has spoken many times on his TV show. Beck thinks that the purpose of the Common Core is to produce “good little workers” for American business firms.

Beck specifically mentioned a speech, given by Bill Gates, one of the founders of Microsoft. Beck said that America is now “adopting  a new kind of capitalism, like that in China.” He added that “a truck driver doesn’t need to read Huck Finn.  He was making the point that today’s students are taught to be “good little workers.”

Glen cited the Common Core English test, which has sentences to “indoctrinate kids” into progressive thinking.

Way back in the Dark Ages, when I was in “grade school,” English was taught by having students diagram a sentence on a blackboard, a method which is not taught any more.  If you know how to diagram a sentence, you will never make the mistake of dangling a participle.  Today’s students, who type with their thumbs, on their “mobile device,” don’t know what a participle is and they couldn’t care less about English grammar.

Early on, during Glenn Beck’s former TV show, I deduced that Glenn is not a college graduate. He revealed many times, that he doesn’t know what every college graduate knows.  It was very clear to me that Glenn is completely self educated.

Just to make sure, I went to Wikipedia to confirm that Glenn Beck did not graduate from college.

I found this quote on Wikipedia:

In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck’s show at the time.[38] Beck enrolled in an “Early Christology” course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.[36][39]

[…]
As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck’s first attempt at self-education involved six wide-ranging authors, comprising what Beck jokingly calls “the library of a serial killer”: Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche.[38] During this time, Beck’s Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the “comprehensive worldview” offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later.[36]

I will probably not rush out to buy Glenn Beck’s new book, and I will tell you why:  I have now come to the conclusion that Common Core is a good idea for American’s schools.  All young people are now learning what they need to know to get along in today’s world.  They don’t need to learn the truth; what they need to know is accepted history.

Regarding the recent assignment, given to students in the Rialto Unified School District, to read a revisionist website, and then write a “critical thinking” essay on the Holocaust, I now believe that this was not a good thing. Today’s children need to know the accepted beliefs in America, whether these beliefs are true or not.

If a student wants to get a good job in America, he or she needs a progressive education in a progressive college, and they need to be able to regurgitate all the accepted details of the Holocaust.  A young person, who persists in reading Holocaust denial websites, should be advised that they will have to start their own company because they will not get a job in corporate America.

BTW, my father never read Huck Finn. He didn’t have a Common Core education. He never even made it past the 4th grade. So how was he able to get a job in corporate America? He didn’t. In fact, he NEVER had a job; he bought a truck and became a truck driver, working on his own.  He eventually founded a multi-million dollar, nation-wide trucking company, which is still in business.

Students who live in the 4 states in America, which do not have the Common Core, can always get a job as a truck driver. Or they can start their own business.

 

 

I finally got to see the video of Glenn Beck’s trip to Auschwitz

I signed up for Glen Beck’s GBTV and was finally able to see his “Restoring Courage” video which included footage of his trip to Israel on August 24, 2011 and his visit to Auschwitz before that.  Very early in the video, Glenn says “I couldn’t show you the video in Auschwitz.”  Nevertheless, there is some footage of Glenn and his wife on their trip to the main Auschwitz camp and then to the Birkenau camp.

Photo of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau

On his visit to the Auschwitz Museum in the main camp, Glenn pointed out a huge photo hanging on the wall, which shows Hungarian women with small children walking down a road at Birkenau. This is one of the photos in the Auschwitz Album, taken by the SS men in May 1944. Glenn was overcome with emotion when he saw this photo, which he described as “grandmothers” holding the hands of the children.   

Dying victims scratched the walls of the Auschwitz gas chamber with their fingernails

Scratch marks on the wall of the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp

The photo above, taken by Simon Robertson on January 12, 2004, shows fingernail scratches on the wall of the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp.  Notice the star of David on the right hand side in the middle of the photo. To the left of that star of David, there is another one in the white patch in the middle of the photo.

Scratches on the wall of the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp

When I visited Auschwitz in October 2005, I did not notice these scratch marks; possibly they had been painted over.  On my first visit to the Auschwitz main camp in October 1998, I did not see any scratches on the walls of the gas chamber.

Scratches on gas chamber wall when Glenn Beck visited the Auschwitz main camp in 2011

The following quote from Glenn Beck is on the website which shows the photo above:

The gas chambers. Glenn Beck: I have always assumed that it killed relatively quickly. But when I saw this wall – I knew I was wrong. To stand in this room where hundreds of thousands died was horrifying. The children were always on the top of the bodies. Heroes to the end. – the adults all assumed the air would be clearer higher and they tried to give these children a chance to live by holding them up close to the ceiling. It didn’t work. The gas killed everyone – but not instantly. It took twenty long horrific minutes. And the walls show it. Many of the children weren’t with their mom or dad, but with strangers. Oh, the special hell that awaited all those who were silent.

How does Glenn Beck know that it took “twenty long horrific minutes” to kill the victims in the Auschwitz gas chamber?  In the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp, where these photos were taken, there was no way to heat the Zyklon-B gas pellets. In the winter time, it would have taken much longer for the victims to die. The manufacturer of the Zyklon-B gas pellets recommended that the pellets be heated to a temperature of 78.3 degrees in order to speed up the release of the poison gas fumes, but the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp has no way to heat the pellets and no fan to circulate the gas fumes throughout the room.

Zyklon-B gas pellets on display in a glass case

On my trip to Auschwitz in 2005, I spent a long time in the Auschwitz gas chamber. I examined every inch of the room and I did not see any scratch marks on the walls.  All I saw were light blue patches of paint that appeared to be covering something on the wall.  These patches of paint are very obvious in the photos below.

My photo of the Auschwitz gas chamber, 2005

My photo of Auschwitz gas chamber, 2005

Update May 9, 2013:

Since I first wrote this post, I have found one of my photos, taken in 2005, which shows fingernail scratches on the wall. The photo, which is shown below, shows scratches near the ceiling of the gas chamber in the main camp.  I was taking a photo of the ceiling, and did not notice that my photo showed fingernail scratches near the ceiling on the far left side of the photo.

Fingernail scratches on the wall of the Auschwitz gas chamber, 2005

Continue reading my original post:

You can read more about the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp on my website here.  You can read more about the fingernail scratches on the wall of the Auschwitz gas chamber here.

Glenn Beck made a documentary film about his trip to Auschwitz with his wife Tania which can be seen on his new Glenn Beck TV (GBTV) online channel.

This quote is from the promotion for the documentary:

There is perhaps no single location representing all of history that better depicts pure evil, man’s greatest inhumanity to his fellow man, than the stark, cold set of buildings in southern Poland called Auschwitz-Birkenau. During WWII more than one million people, mostly Jews were executed there. Murdered in cold blood. The Nazis called it “the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.”

From 1942 through 1944 Jews were delivered to the camp’s gas chambers from all over Europe.

But in the face of unthinkable horror there were people who displayed courage beyond imagination. Regular men, women, and children who put their very lives on the line in defense of righteousness. It was a small but important triumph of the human spirit then and equally important lesson for us today.

Note that Glenn Beck’s emphasis is on the righteous Gentiles who displayed courage and stood up to save the Jews.  There is a “special hell” for those who remained silent and did not intervene to stop the gassing of the Jews, even as they scratched the walls of the gas chamber in a last desperate attempt to escape, lifting their babies up so that they could gasp their last breath of air.  Oh, the Humanity!

The composite photo below was prepared by one of the readers of my blog.  It shows an old photo at the top with one of my 2005 photos and then a blueprint of the Auschwitz I gas chamber building.  Note that the blue paint that is now on the walls was not there in the old photo.

Click on the photo to see a larger size

Read more about Glenn Beck’s visit to Auschwitz here.

Whatever happened to Glenn Beck?

I was a big fan of the Glenn Beck show, which used to air at 2 p.m. in California.  The show started on January 19, 2009 and was on for two and a half years.  It was a sad day when I saw his last show on June 30, 2011.  It was like a death, but Glenn is not really gone.  He is still around on his syndicated radio talk show (which I never listened to) and on his GBTV network.  I have not signed up yet for GBTV, but I suppose I will have to pay to follow Glenn from now on.  Today, I watched a documentary here that Glenn decided to offer for free.

In the text that comes before the documentary, I was startled to read this:

“….if you fear the Lord (generally a good idea) you know God says that He will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse it.”

Funny, I never heard God say that.  Does God talk to Glenn Beck?  Did God make a YouTube video about this?

The first part of the documentary shows Glenn Beck on his trip to Auschwitz in August this year.  Early in the documentary, it is mentioned that there were 35 million people in Poland.  But there were only 6,266 righteous Gentiles who tried to save Jews.  Glenn asks why there weren’t more people in Poland who stood up for the Jews.  Was that a rhetorical question?  Glenn Beck is a self-educated man.  How come he never learned why the Poles hated the Jews?

Glenn Beck plans to visit the town of Auschwitz

On his TV show today, Glenn Beck said to his guest Rick Santorum:

“I’m going over to Poland in a couple of weeks on something that’s a venture that I’m doing.  I am not doing a special on Auschwitz per se — I’m visiting Auschwitz, but I’m talking about the town which is just a few miles outside of the gate.”

Beck plans to broadcast from Oświęcim, the Polish town formerly known as Auschwitz. He wants to “figure out” what happened at the Nazi extermination camp. He wants to know “How did this happen?”

It is common for tourists to blame the Germans in the town of Dachau for not doing anything to stop what went on in the Dachau concentration camp.  Now, it seems that Glenn Beck is thinking the same thing about the people in the town of Auschwitz.

The town of Auschwitz in 1940

If Beck does some research before his trip, he will learn that the Auschwitz main camp was set up in June 1940 for Polish Resistance Fighters, not for Jews.  There was a war going on and Poland was occupied by the Germans. If the people in the town had tried to rise up and stop the Germans from putting their enemies inside the old Polish Army garrison, they would have soon wound up as prisoners themselves.  Poland never surrendered during World War II and the Poles continued to fight as illegal combatants throughout the war.

Oświęcim is now a factory town with 50,000 residents, but before the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, it was a market town with a population 12,000, of which 7,000 residents were Jewish. The next largest ethnic group in Oświęcim in 1939 was the Roma (Gypsies). The Jews, who had lived for over 500 years in the town, which they called Oshpitzin, were evacuated by the Nazis to three different ghettos in 1941, but eventually ended up back at Auschwitz, where most of them perished in the death camp.

Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue Photo Credit: Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation

Interior of Synagogue, 2005

At one time there were more than 12 Synagogues in Oshpitzin, but all except one were destroyed by the Nazis. The one surviving Synagogue, originally opened in 1930, has been reconstructed and since the year 2000, it has been open to tourists.

The Synagogue, which is shown in the photo above, is located on a small square near the Catholic Church that was formerly called Church Square, but was renamed Jana Skarbka square after the Synagogue was opened to the public in 2000. The building is connected to the Auschwitz Jewish Center.

A movie is shown on a TV screen in a small room in the Jewish Center. In the movie, several survivors, who were children in 1939, tell about what it was like in Oświęcim before the German invasion of Poland. There was a “large Jewish presence in Auschwitz,” according to one survivor. All of the survivors said that they now live in Israel or the United States, but none of them mentioned anything about how they managed to survive the Holocaust.

One survivor said that the Jewish houses in Oświęcim had no running water, no electricity, no central heating or air conditioning, and no inside toilets, but the Jews had “culture.” Another said that the Jews were not rich, but they had a “rich Jewish life.” One survivor described the life in Oswiecim before the war as “a life of dignity.” All that is now gone; the Nazis not only killed the Jews, they destroyed their rich, dignified way of life in Europe.

Prominently mentioned in the Jewish Center are the Haberfeld and Hennenberg families who were engaged in distilling and selling liquor. Some of this liquor found its way to America during Prohibition.

Poland is a Catholic country and the Poles will not be pleased if Beck makes a big fuss about the Poles not rising up to save the Jews. If Beck wants to know “How did it happen?” he should know that the Poles hated the Jews more than the Germans did and still do.

The area of Europe that was inhabited by the German tribes in the Middle Ages became the Holy Roman Empire in the year 800 and by 1270, the Empire had expanded to include the area known as Upper Silesia, where the town of  Auschwitz was built by the Germans that year. In 1457, Auschwitz became part of the Kingdom of Poland and it then became known as Oświęcim.

Most of Silesia was annexed to the German state of Prussia in 1742, except for four duchies. The duchy of Auschwitz was annexed to Galicia, a province which was given to Austria when Poland lost its independence in 1772 and the country was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Western Galicia soon became known as The Corner of Three Empires: Russia, Prussia and Austria. The town known as Auschwitz, or Oświęcim or Oshpitzin, became a prime location for Jewish traders or merchants during the time that Galicia was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

In 1871, Prussia and the other German states, except Austria, united into the country of Germany. After the defeat of Germany and Austria in World War I, Galicia and the industrial area known as Upper Silesia were given to Poland. In 1939, after the joint conquest of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, Upper Silesia was annexed into the Greater German Reich, which at that time consisted of Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland in what is now the Czech Republic.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and the town of Oświęcim was captured on September 6th. Following the conquest of Poland, the name of the town reverted back to Auschwitz.

The city of Krakow, located 37 miles from Auschwitz, became the capital of German-occupied Poland, known as the General Government.  Auschwitz was located literally at the junction of the Greater German Reich and occupied Poland; it was also in the heart of “The Black Triangle,” an industrial area with large coal deposits, which is why it was such an important location for the Nazis.

The gateway to Auschwitz is the city of Krakow which has its own airport.  The airport is actually closer to Auschwitz than to the city of Krakow, so it is best to drive directly from the airport to Auschwitz.  On the way you will see charming houses like the one shown in the photo below.

Old log house on the road from Krakow to Auschwitz

The photo below is a view of the front of the Catholic church in the town of Auschwitz, as seen from the road that enters the town over a bridge that crosses the Sola river. The Auschwitz Museum, which is the former Nazi concentration camp, is on the opposite side of the Sola river, and a world away from the town.

View of the Catholic Church as you enter the town of Auschwitz

The actual town of Oświęcim has virtually nothing to recommend it to a typical tourist. There is a 17th century Catholic church at the entrance to the Old Town, shown in the photo above. There is the ubiquitous Duke’s castle on a bluff overlooking the Sola, a small stream that passes for a river, but nothing is left of the original castle except a small tower, now obscured by trees, which is not at all impressive. Like the church, the castle tower will never make it into most tourist guidebooks.

Bridge over Sola River with Castle in background Photo Credit: Tomasz Cebulski – http://www.republika.pl/polin_travel

The Castle in Oświęcim is located on what appears to be a man-made hill, which overlooks the Sola river. Most of Poland is as flat as a pancake and a hill rising out of nowhere seems out of place. According to information in a brochure about the town, the hill was built in the 11th century as a place of pagan worship. When the hill was first constructed, it was the site of a fortified stronghold with wooden buildings. The buildings were repeatedly destroyed by fires and floods, and in 1813, almost half of the city buildings fell into the Sola river in a mud slide.

The tower of the Castle dates back to the 13th century when it was one of the earliest brick buildings in the region called Malopolska or Lesser Poland. It is now almost completely hidden by trees and can only be seen when the leaves have fallen. The southern section of the Castle, originally built in the beginning of the 16th century, was later rebuilt. The middle part of the Castle was built in the first half of the 20th century. The castle looks like an ordinary building, not at all ornate like a typical Castle.

Old town hall in Auschwitz Photo Credit: Steve Wejroch

Building on the Auschwitz town square

The town of Auschwitz is almost completely devoid of charm. No famous artists come here to paint. There is no house that has been preserved as the birthplace of a famous person, nor any important historical buildings. The town square is surrounded by very ordinary looking buildings, constructed during the last 200 years, and has only one building of interest: the District Court building.

An ugly looking modern store built right in the middle of the town square has totally ruined any character that Auschwitz might have had. In the town, there were no thatched-roof cottages, no log houses, nor half-timbered buildings that I saw on either of my trips there in 1998 and 2005. It appears that most of the residents live in high-rise apartments built during the Communist era.

Communist era building in middle of town square

View of District Court and Catholic church in the background

There are many ordinary towns in Poland and it is only because Auschwitz has become the most famous town in the history of the Holocaust that anyone today marvels at how ordinary it is. Yet a suburb of this ordinary town is included in every package tour of Poland or Eastern Europe: an afternoon of horror at the Auschwitz concentration camp, sandwiched in between stops to see the famous salt mine and the Black Madonna, the other main tourist attractions of Poland.

District court building

The photo above shows the Siebarski house, which was built by Michael Siebarski, the Parish priest of the Church of Assumption of Holy Mary in the early 1800s. It is a two-story brick building with a basement. It was modernized by the Germans during their occupation of Poland in World War II. This building is currently the seat of the District Court in Oświęcim.

The town square in Oświęcim dates back to the Middle Ages when it was first built with wooden structures. The buildings were all destroyed in the numerous fires in the city. The present buildings were all built over the last 200 years.

Today, Oświęcim is a modern town with 50,000 inhabitants. It is a factory town where 5,000 of the residents are employed in one chemical factory. Upon entering the town from the east, visitors are immediately aware of the factories with their high smokestacks. Some of the factory buildings that were built during the German occupation of Poland are still in use, and still surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed wire.

Catholic Church in Auschwitz

Interior of Church, 2005 Photo Credit: Steve Wejroch

The first Catholic church in Oświęcim was a wooden building, built in the 12th century. After it was burned in 1241 during an invasion by the Tartars, it was rebuilt out of bricks in the second half of the 13th century. It was repeatedly damaged by fires and was rebuilt. The present church is called The Parish Church of the Assumption of Holy Mary.

Driving through the Polish countryside, you can’t fail to notice the numerous statues of the Virgin Mary or Catholic saints placed close to the road. Many of them are decorated with streamers of ribbons and usually there are fresh flowers left there. I learned from my tour guide, on my trip to Poland in October 1998, that they are called “little chapels” and the custom of putting statues for protection along the road dates back to the pagan days before Poland was converted to Catholicism about 1,000 years ago.

Little Chapel on the road to Auschwitz

Little Chapel near the town of Auschwitz

The little chapels are located at a crossroads or any place that might be dangerous on the highway. In 1998, that meant almost anywhere on the road since the highways were all two lanes with opposing traffic. When one driver from each opposing lane of traffic decided to attempt to pass, both cars were driving down the center of the road, ready for a head-on collision. Adding to the danger on Polish roads were the many horse-drawn wagons carrying loads of coal, traveling in the same lanes as the cars and trucks. Then there were the pedestrians, all dressed up, who seemed to be walking to work along the highway. It was only by the grace of God, and the protection of the Virgin Mary along way, that we made it safely from Krakow to Auschwitz and back on my 1998 trip.

Glenn Beck is planning to broadcast live from the town formerly known as Auschwitz.  I’m guessing that he will broadcast from the Jewish Center which is connected to the one remaining synagogue in the town.  The Jewish Center has a large reception area that is mostly empty.

Reception area in the Jewish Synagogue at Auschwitz

Notice the old black and white photo on the left in the picture.  The photo shows Jewish women drawing water from the well that was in front of the synagogue before the Germans took over the town in September 1939.  This is proof that the town of Auschwitz was very primitive before the Germans fixed it up in 1940 so that German engineers and their families could move there.

The steps in the photo lead up to the Synagogue, which I thought was very attractive when I visited it in 2005.  The photo below shows displays in the reception area.

Displays in the Jewish Center at Auschwitz

Today, there are no more Jews left in Oświęcim. Shimshon Klueger, the last surviving Jew, died in 2000. Klueger is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Oświęcim.  However, there are still plenty of Gypsies in the town.

If Beck wants to pay his respects to the Jews of Oshpitzin, who were wiped out (literally) after 500 years, the Jewish Center is the logical place for him to do his broadcast.

If you go to Auschwitz…tips for Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck is planning a trip to Auschwitz in the near future.  I assume that his trip will be a big production with video cameras following his every step; the trip will probably be made into a documentary.  I assume that he will be guided by Holocaust experts who will direct the trip.  I don’t know if he will have any input himself, but if he does, I have some suggestions.

First of all, there are TWO Auschwitz camps: the main camp and the Birkenau camp.  [The third Auschwitz camp, Monowitz, is no longer open to tourists because the factories there are still being used.] I’m not sure if Glenn Beck knows that. The main camp has the exhibits of hair and shoes and the famous black wall.  When I visited Auschwitz in 1998, the main camp was the only part that was shown on the guided tours.  I had to hire a separate guide to take me to the Birkenau camp because the regular guide told me that there was nothing to see at Birkenau.

I learned later that Raul Hilberg, who wrote The Destruction of the European Jews, had seen only the Auschwitz main camp on a 1/2 day tour before he published his famous book in 1961; he wrote a two-volume history of the Holocaust without ever seeing the Birkenau camp where the Jews were gassed.

Location of the “black wall” at Auschwitz main camp

The famous “black wall” at Auschwitz

When any well-known person makes a pilgrimage to Auschwitz, the usual procedure is to place flowers at the famous “black wall.”  This will be Glenn Beck’s first photo opportunity.  However, the black wall was the place where political prisoners were executed after a short court trial that was held in the building shown on the right in the first photo above.  Only a few Jews were executed at this wall.  Glenn Beck should save the flower ceremony for Birkenau where the Jews were gassed.  You can read more about the black wall here on my web site.

The International Monument at Birkenau

The photo above shows the International Monument, which is located between the ruins of Krema II and Krema III, the two largest gas chambers. You can read about the Monument here.

The Birkenau camp is huge and it is a long walk to the Monument, which is at the western end of the camp.  I would seriously suggest that Glenn Beck and his entourage take a couple of golf carts to ride around Birkenau, which is a 425 acre site.

The first stop at Birkenau should be the gate house, where visitors can climb up into the tower and look out over the vastness of the camp.  To give you an idea of the size of the camp: you literally can’t see from one end of it to the other. To see everything at Birkenau requires a 5 mile hike.  Not that Glenn Beck can’t walk that far, but if he is there for only one day, he will have to conserve time in order to see everything.

I’m sure that Glenn Beck has read Night by Elie Wiesel, but if he hasn’t, he will undoubtedly read it in preparation for his trip.  The photo below shows the road on which Elie and his father saw the two burning pits where Jews were being burned alive when he arrived at Birkenau.  The photo at the entrance to the road is a famous photo from the Auschwitz Album; this photo, which was taken by the Nazis themselves, shows a woman and two children walking to the gas chamber.

Road through the center of the Birkenau camp

The road shown in the photo above goes through the center of the Birkenau camp, from south to north.  When the death camp was in operation, there was another road midway along this road, which went west to the gas chambers in Krema IV and Krema V and also to the Sauna, where the prisoners who had been selected to work, took a shower. The photo below shows the other side of this intersection where the entrance to the women’s camp is located.  There are other ways to get to the women’s camp, and tours do not go through this gate.

Entrance to the women’s camp at Birkenau

The buildings where the clothes were deloused are located in the section shown in the photo above. I was told that these buildings were “off limits” but I went through this gate anyway and photographed one of the disinfection buildings which you can see here.

The Sauna is not to be missed.  That’s why I am seriously suggesting that Glenn Beck take a golf cart to get there.  Most tour groups don’t go to the Sauna because it is such a long walk.  You can see photos of the Sauna building here.

The road to the Sauna building at Birkenau

Glenn Beck mentioned on his show last Thursday that he had seen the movie Schindler’s List.  The building shown in the photo above is where the Jewish women on the List were taken when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau; there is a very dramatic scene as they wait for the gas to come out of the shower heads; then they are overjoyed when water comes out instead.  After their shower, the women exit the building and look across the road where the Krema IV and Krema V gas chambers were located.  This scene in the movie is hard to understand because Jews are shown walking down the steps into the gas chamber, but both Krema IV and Krema V were above ground.  It was Krema II and Krema III that had stairs down into underground rooms.

The water treatment plant at Birkenau

On the road to the Sauna, you will be some large round brick structures, which are shown in the photo above.  This is the water treatment plant.  Birkenau is located on very wet ground and the water was not fit to drink; the water had to be purified in these large tanks.

Behind the Sauna is the ruins of the “little white house” where Jews were gassed while the gas chambers were being built in Krema II and Krema III.  You can read about “the little white house” here.

Bunker No. 2, known as “the little white house”

The Birkenau camp was in the process of being expanded when it had to be abandoned because the soldiers of the Soviet Union were in the area.  The photo below shows the new section, called Mexico, which was never completed.

The Mexico section of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Notice the houses in the background.  These are new houses that were built after the war.  There were seven small villages that were torn down to build the Birkenau camp.  Birkenau is like a bog garden, which is the name for a place that is always wet and plants that love water grow there.  The photo above shows the spot where there was a barrack and the location is now filled with standing water.  This means that Birkenau was a very unhealthy place.  (What was Himmler thinking when he chose this place for a camp!)

The big attraction at Birkenau is the ruins of the two largest gas chambers, Krema II on the left side of the main road through the camp and Krema III on the right side.  These two buildings were mirror images.

Ruins of Krema III gas chamber

Ruins of Krema II gas chamber

The photo above shows the ruins of the Krema II gas chamber with the International Monument in the background.   I took this photo in 2005; I’m not sure, but I think that this place is now fenced off and guarded to keep people from climbing down into the very room where the Jews were gassed.  You can read about Krema II here.

If Glenn Beck and his entourage go all the way around the Birkenau camp, they will return to the entrance on the road shown in the photo below.  This road was heavily traveled by local farmers when the Birkenau camp was in operation as a death camp. The small hole in the foreground of the photo is a one-man air raid shelter.  The Nazis expected that Auschwitz might be bombed.  There was a lot of talk about bombing the camp to destroy the gas chambers, but the Allies decided against it.  The Auschwitz III camp, aka Monowitz, was bombed instead because there were factories there.

The road that goes along the outside of  the Birkenau camp

For more photos of Auschwitz-Birkenau, go to my photo gallery here.  Or go to my Auschwitz Scrapbook here.

Glenn Beck is going to Auschwitz

Yesterday, Glenn Beck announced that his last TV show will be on June 30, 2011. Then he will be going to Poland to visit Auschwitz.   He said that Auschwitz “is the last place on earth” that he wants to go. He wants to go to Red Square; he wants to go to England. Auschwitz is not on his list but he’s going there because he “knows the story” and he “knows it’s true.”

Has Glenn Beck’s life been threatened?  Has “Spooky Dude” ordered a hit on him?  Months ago, I wrote on my blog here “Is Glenn Beck Trying to Get Himself Killed?” After years of insulting the Jews, Glenn Beck has taken a 180 degree turn and he is now peddling “Stand with Israel” banners.

On yesterday’s show, Beck compared himself to Oskar Schindler. He pointed out that Schindler “didn’t get it at first.”  But then Schindler “saw the light” and he “put his life on the line to save the Jews.”  Now it seems that Glenn Beck is following in Schindler’s footsteps.  He is going to save Israel from the “Freedom for Palestine” people; the “Israeli occupation” is a LIE, according to Beck.  Why the concern over the “plight of the Palestinians?”  It is Israel that is in danger from Hamas and Hezbollah.

Beck cried more than John Boehner as he described how he was overwhelmed by the movie Schindler’s List. He said that he “was weeping at the end” and he couldn’t move.  He had to be escorted out of the theater.  He had been totaled out by the ending of the movie when Schindler’s Jews present him with a ring engraved with a line from the Talmud: “He who saves a single life, saves the world.”

Beck mentioned that he also saw the movie Life is Beautiful.  Then he said, regarding these two movies, “Here’s what hits you so hard — they are true.”  It’s been years since these movies came out, but Glenn Beck is just now “getting it” and he’s going to Auschwitz.  He’s never been to England, and he would like to see the pyramids in Egypt, but he’s going to Auschwitz instead.  Did he cut a deal with the Jews?

Beck’s show lost more than 300 advertisers over the years, which probably led to his show being taken off the air. But there is one ad that has been played many times — the one about the elderly Holocaust survivors who are now starving in Siberia.  Yesterday, the ad was shown again, and I noticed the part where the tattoo on the arm of one of the Jews is shown.  That part had been cut out, but now it’s back.  The tattoo starts with an A, followed by several numbers.  This indicates that the person with this identification number arrived at Auschwitz in 1944 when the Hungarian Jews were deported.

Beck’s show on Wednesday laid the groundwork for the theme of Thursday’s show.  On Wednesday’s show, Beck told about how the Jews have been “oppressed” since the year 175 BC when the King of Syria outlawed circumcision.  Now by an “amazing coincidence” it is starting all over again in San Francisco where a ban on circumcision has been proposed.

On Wednesday, Beck went through a long list of countries that had expelled the Jews over the years; he mentioned around 12 of the 82 times that the Jews were expelled and then said that the Jews had been “kicked out of every single country in the world.”  He was not blaming the Jews — it is the rest of the world that is at fault.  But don’t worry; Glenn Beck is going to save Israel.

Glenn Beck mentions the Balfour Agreement

I was watching the Glenn Beck show yesterday, along with some young college students who were gathering at my house for an event that was set to begin later.  When Beck mentioned the Balfour Agreement, I asked the students at the next commercial if they knew what Beck was talking about.  What?  The Balfour Agreement?  Never heard of it!  Is the text of the letter online somewhere?  Yes, of course.  Everything is online.  You can read the Balfour letter here.

The Balfour letter mentions what the British are going to do for the Jews, but what did the Jews agree to do for the British?

As I understand it, and correct me if I’m wrong, the Jews promised to lend money to the British to continue fighting in World War I.  In 1916, America was not yet involved in World War I and Germany was winning.  The Jews also promised to get America into the war.

The significance of the Balfour agreement is that it contributed greatly to Germany losing World War I, which really pissed off young Adolf Hitler who was lying in a hospital bed, blind from a mustard gas attack, when he heard that Germany had surrendered.  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

At Versailles, Woodrow Wilson brought along 17 Jews who made sure that the 5 million dollar loan was paid back. Germany had to pay back the money loaned to the British by the Jewish bankers in New York. And the bankers demanded the money in gold, not paper money backed by gold.  Eventually all the gold in Germany wound up in the hands of the Jewish bankers.  This really pissed off Hitler and when he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he had no love for the Jews.  Hitler was forced to print paper money, not backed by gold, which started something new, that is now considered to be acceptable.

After I explained all this to the students, I saw light bulbs over their heads as they began to realize why Hitler hated the Jews.  They had always thought that Hitler was just an evil man who wanted to kill all the Jews for no reason at all.  Or because they were a different race.  No, it was because Hitler blamed the Jews for causing Germany to lose World War I.

Why doesn’t Glenn Beck tell you these things?  And why don’t the students learn this in their college classes?

Another thing that Glenn Beck didn’t explain on his program yesterday was why President Roosevelt didn’t persuade Congress to change America’s immigration laws to allow all the Jews in Europe to come to America after Hitler came to power in 1933.  He mentioned a ship full of Jews that was turned away from America, not allowing the Jews to enter.  Beck didn’t mention the name of the ship, but he was obviously talking about the ship called the St. Louis.  He made it sound like Roosevelt was against the Jews. But how could this be?  Hitler believed that Roosevelt himself was a Jew.

Since Beck didn’t provide an explanation, I am going to jump in and give my opinion on why America didn’t allow all the Jews to come here before the Holocaust got started.  Beginning in 1921, the immigration laws in America limited the number of German immigrants, which included German Jews.  However, during World War II, German Jews were allowed to come here under the limited quota.  Those who were allowed in were mainly young men who then returned to Germany during and after the war, as American soldiers, and helped with the roundup and  prosecution of the German war criminals.

If America had saved all the Jews of Europe by allowing them to come here, there would have been no Holocaust, but there would also be no Israel today. Most of the Jews would have stayed in America and would not have gone to Palestine.  I think that Roosevelt did not bring all the Jews here because he wanted to encourage the Jews to go to Palestine and set up the Jewish homeland of Israel.  The survivors of the Holocaust were forced to go to Palestine because America did not change its immigration laws until 1948.  Why wait until 1948?  Because it was in 1948 that Israel became a country.

History professor Glenn Beck and Bernaise sauce

On Thursday night I was watching the Glenn Beck TV show with some young family members; Glenn started off by mentioning “the big Lie.”  Glenn Beck is a self-taught historian and I expected him to get “the big Lie” story wrong.  As everybody knows, the term “big Lie” is associated with Hitler and this expression has been twisted to mean that Hitler advocated big lies.

I soon learned that Beck was not going to educate us about Hitler, but rather he was going to tell us about a man named Edward Bernays. The name Bernays was very familiar to me, and for a moment I thought that he was going to talk about the man named Bernays who came up with the “common plan” charge that was used against the Germans by the Nuremberg IMT.  I thought I should prepare my young family members for what was coming next, so I began by asking: “Do you know who Edward Bernays was?”  One family member spoke up and said, “Was he the guy who invented Bernaise sauce?”  

Is Glenn Beck trying to get himself killed?

Glenn Beck just recently had a three-part series on George Soros.  Soros is a public figure and he is fair game for a news commentator.  But Beck offended some Jews when he claimed that, as a 14-year-old Hungarian Jew, Soros helped the Nazis steal property from the Hungarian Jews in 1944.