My Sunday Thought for 05012016: Holocaust Remembrance

The Lilliput Troupe

Who is the Lilliput Troupe?  I'm in the middle of a terrific book about them called, Giants - The Dwarfs of Auschwitz.  I don't read biographies, as a rule, because I find the boringly tedious.  I will allow exceptions when it comes to the Nazis.  I picked up this book at my local bookseller, read the dust cover, and was instantly enthralled by their story.  It is more than a story of the vertically challenged.  It is a story of loved ones that looked beyond the surface, a story of family, of staying together at all costs, of strength, pride, and humiliation.  Most of all it is a story of survival.

The Nazis made it their goal to not only eradicate the "sub-human" scourge of the Jew from mankind but, also, any other less than perfect human; the retarded, the mentally and physically infirm, pretty much anyone who would not be a productive member of their society was, one way or another, put to death.  One step up from death would be slave labor, and if you became unable to labor you would be put out of your misery and, for many, this was preferable.

Dr. Joseph Mengele, the "Angel of Death," used the millions of doomed at Auschwitz-Birkenau for his personal twisted experiments to further the sick medical knowledge of the Third Reich.  The book gives a good depiction of life in constant dreaded fear of what mental and physical tortures the next day held in this camp of horrors.  A graphic movie of Mengele in the camp would make men with the strongest of constitutions taste bile.  Just reading some of the accounts, knowing and visualizing what specifics the authors weren't telling for obvious reasons, made my skin crawl, and I'm only halfway through the book.

His sick fascination with dwarfism and the chance to study a large family of dwarfs and their normal sized spouses is the only saving grace for the Ovitz family whose only crimes were to be born "different" and to be Jewish.  Marked as cursed by their own Jewish faith, the story outlines their struggle in life even before they are gathered up and shipped to the camp for final disposition.  Their story is well worth the read.

Including the 6 million Jews, an additional 13 million non-Jewish people were also murdered for a variety of reasons not the least of which was thinking you had a right to life in Adolf Hitler's Thousand Year Reich.  72,468,900 people died in WWII, including 23,637,900 military, 33,833,000 civilian, 5,907,900 Jews.  Put into some context, the Soviet Union lost 9,750,000 military, Germany lost 5,533,000 military, and Japan lost 2,120,000 military.  Compared to theses staggering numbers the U.S. lost 416,800 and Great Britain 382,700.  Now, granted, these numbers do not include all Allies and Axis nations, but it gives one some idea of our own losses compared to the enemy.  If anyone ever wondered why the Soviets spent their entire budget on weapons of war and surrounded their country by a buffer of other communist nations, one only has to look at their military and civilian losses against Nazi Germany.    

Those who follow my blog know I hold a special place in hell for the Nazi perpetrators of the "Final Solution."  For those folks young enough to be products of what our country now refers to as a "quality" education, you probably think this refers to some math problem.  You know who you are, because you'll also point to Texas when asked where Russia is located and also say that Groucho Marx is the father of Marxist philosophy.  The Nazi "Final Solution" referred to "die Endlösung der Judenfrage", the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

JANUARY 20, 1942

WANNSEE CONFERENCE AND THE "FINAL SOLUTION"

The Wannsee Conference, a meeting between the SS (the elite guard of the Nazi state) and German government agencies, opens in Berlin. They discuss and coordinate the implementation of the "Final Solution," which is already under way. At Wannsee, the SS estimates that the "Final Solution" will involve 11 million European Jews, including those from non-occupied countries such as Ireland, Sweden, Turkey, and Great Britain. Between the fall of 1941 and the fall of 1944, the German railways transport millions of people to their deaths in killing centers in occupied Poland.

-- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

I am not going to bore anyone with history the old folks know and the young folks should be well pissed off that their liberal education is putting a pretty face on.  I have written about this on "The Path," ad nauseam, since I began the Blog in 2013.  I even dedicated several posts specifically to the subject, and have listed the links to those:

Holocaust Remembrance Day - April 27-28, 2014  

Monday is "Holocaust Remembrance Day" 

Is there no one left to speak out?  

The Holocaust: A Museum for Tolerance  

Holocaust Remembrance Day - April 15, 2015   

Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah - Holocaust and Heroism

History never held a place in my heart until I realized we Americans constantly change history which we find distasteful or politically incorrect. We do it by removing Confederate battle flags, we do it by blaming our own Civil War on slavery, we even do it by changing the racial profiles of our comic book heroes instead of allowing a particular race to find and develop their own.

The longer our government lies to us about history, the more apt we are to buy into the bullshit. The minute we buy into the bullshit we are just a short plunge into socialism, communism, totalitarianism, and slavery. Philosopher and poet, George Santayana, once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Ignorance may be the first step to enlightenment, but for any good military psychological operation, or PSYOP, it is also part of the larger scheme to controlling the hearts and minds of a population.  You may not be able to cure stupid, but it seems you can teach stupid to almost any American willing to listen.  Maybe it's time we all start asking questions which they, the government stooges, can't answer; questions backed up by facts, proof, and history they've forgotten or never knew existed.  Maybe it's time we all wake up and smell the bullshit.

"It is our will that this state shall endure for a thousand years. We are happy to know that the future is ours entirely!"

-- Adolf Hitler

As much as Uncle Adolf was "happy to know the future is ours entirely," I am so happy to know we kick his insane Nazi ass and took our future back.  As I look at what had to be accomplished, and sacrificed, to attain victory over the Nazis and the Japanese, I can only ponder what will have to happen against the insanity which is ISIS.  By the way, the acronym "ISIL" is only used by those who refuse to utter the words "Islamic terrorists," and I harbor no such ignorance.  If it smells like a turd, it's a turd.  Sadly, in order to ensure some semblance of a lasting peace for the world, I think the only option which comes to mind is in the form of a quote from the 2009 movie, Avatar:

"...we will blast a crater in their racial memory so deep, that they won't come within 1,000 klicks of this place ever again. And that, too, is a fact."

-- Col. Quaritch

The stories of the Holocaust are the stories of us.  They are an unfortunate reminder of our own ultimate, sometimes inevitable, ability for cruelty and evil beyond measure.  We only think we are different, however, as we keep evidencing with people and groups like ISIS, we remain at the mercy of our worst.  If you are in search of the human animal, you need look no further than your mirror.  Whenever we degrade people because of race, religion, national origin, sexual identity, or peaceful beliefs, we are lifting the lid of Pandora's Box.  When we find fault with those of lesser mental or physical capacity, we prove to the world, as much as we deny it, our own proclivity to repeat history and, once again, travel down this same railroad to evil.  Were the Nazis guilty of the Holocaust?  No more than the rest of us were guilty for allowing it.

"The sad and horrible conclusion is that no one cared that the Jews were being murdered..." nor did the world seem to care that innocence, children, the infirm, those that could not defend themselves, were being slaughtered.  The Nazi legacy lives on with their Islamic terrorist lap dogs throughout the world.  We once again refuse to get fully vested in a fight against a virus that has already breached our gates.  We were almost too late the last time.  Do we ever learn?

As for the Ovitz family, I hope I did right by them, any other survivors, and the millions of slaughtered innocent victims of the evil which continues to infect our world.  Cinco de Mayo, May 5, is also Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Not to put a damper of festivities, but it might be a nice tribute to raise a glass to all the innocents that died at the hands of insanity, and to those which helped to rid this world of this human plague.  If I have made just one of you take a moment out of your day to think, perhaps it has been worth the read.  If not?  Well, God help us for we certainly cannot help ourselves.

The sad and horrible conclusion is that no one cared that Jews were being murdered... This is the Jewish lesson of the Holocaust and this is the lesson which Auschwitz taught us.

-- Ariel Sharon (1928-2014), Former Prime Minister of Israel

Editor's Note 

(re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card) 

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so. This is also why, occasionally, I will present an "opinion" just to stir an emotional pot. Where it may sound like I agree with the statements made, I'm more interested in getting others to consider another viewpoint. 

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth. After over twenty years with military intelligence, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.

Pastor Tony spent 22 years with Air Force Intelligence as a planner, analyst, briefer, and instructor. He is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path," which offers a vehicle for commentary and guidance concerning one's own personal, spiritual, path toward peace and the final destination.