Disgrace

[celtic]

I wonder how many people were aware it was holocaust memorial day?

[ ] Me

[ ] Proud

[WarBwastard]

Auschwitz being open hasn't prevented programmes of ethnic and religious genocide since the war.  It's happened in the Balkans and in Africa.  To forget what happened in Auschwitz is to forget the second world war really and I don't think it's possible. And whether we should forget is open to debate.  I also don't think it's possible to comprehend the level of suffering and the atrocious conditions of all of those camps unless you were there.  The reason why these camps are so notorious is because the suffering is incomprehensible, so keeping them open so people can visit them serves little purpose and also gives those with some horribly morbid fascinations with the holocaust an opportunity to indulge in really unhealthy voyeurism.  Auschwitz is a scar on humanity isn't it, and I think scars should be allowed to heel.  This is pretty tenuous metaphor but people who suffer horrific injuries in a car accident say, don't keep their wounds open so they remember to not drive like a tw*t.  It's in our nature to destroy ourselves and noe way or another we'll find reasons to justify wars and indulge in sort of thing whether the tools of the Nazi's final solution are completely forgotten or preserved forever.  

[Royal Flush]

The more i think about it the less i see the need for Governments to pay for it, i haven't been there, however i know its there and i know of the holocaust. I don't need a camp that i will probably never visit to remind me of it.

The argument that it's a reminder that prevents the same things happening again is just wrong, genoicde goes on today, lets put our efforts into stopping that rather than preserving an old camp.

Maybe there is a good reason for keeping it around, all i know is one hasn't been mentioned on this thread yet.

[gatso]

genoicde goes on today, lets put our efforts into stopping that rather than preserving an old camp.

the 2 are not mutually exclusive

[thetank]

This isn't an opinion, just a question, but why do we want to maintain a place where millions of people were slaughtered?

So future generations don't forget that they were slaughtered, and that humans are capable of such acts.

From the world heritage citation.

The site is a key place of memory for the whole of humankind for the holocaust, racist policies and barbarism; it is a place of our collective memory of this dark chapter in the history of humanity, of transmission to younger generations and a sign of warning of the many threats and tragic consequences of extreme ideologies and denial of human dignity.

Still, as days out go, I prefer the SeaLife Centre

[thetank]

Auschwitz being open hasn't prevented programmes of ethnic and religious genocide since the war.  It's happened in the Balkans and in Africa.  To forget what happened in Auschwitz is to forget the second world war really and I don't think it's possible. And whether we should forget is open to debate.  I also don't think it's possible to comprehend the level of suffering and the atrocious conditions of all of those camps unless you were there.  The reason why these camps are so notorious is because the suffering is incomprehensible, so keeping them open so people can visit them serves little purpose and also gives those with some horribly morbid fascinations with the holocaust an opportunity to indulge in really unhealthy voyeurism.  Auschwitz is a scar on humanity isn't it, and I think scars should be allowed to heel.  This is pretty tenuous metaphor but people who suffer horrific injuries in a car accident say, don't keep their wounds open so they remember to not drive like a tw*t.  It's in our nature to destroy ourselves and noe way or another we'll find reasons to justify wars and indulge in sort of thing whether the tools of the Nazi's final solution are completely forgotten or preserved forever.  

+1

While it may be true that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it, if we do remember history we are still doomed to repeat it.

Keep concentration camps open as a memorial if you want, but don't kid yourselves that it's going to do shit all good in the grand scheme of things.

[bolt pp]

I wonder how many people were aware it was holocaust memorial day?

loads, but you run the risk of looking a right tit if it didnt happen.

[thetank]

Auschwitz is not a nice place, I have been.
It wasn't a very pleasant experience as you can imagine. I don't think I learned anything, the holocaust was an awful period of history, I knew that anyway.

I did see kids run around and nudge each other daring each other to go to the gas chambers like it was a lot of fun.
I saw a British tourist in his mid 30s mutter something about wanting to see how the bastard Germans would like it. I'm not altogether sure if he was meaning hisotrically or the one's today.

I don't think it's a positive place. If you take the likes of Hitler and Goring, Himmler and Goebbels when they were kids, and take them round the concentration camps that Britain used in the Boer War, what good would it have done?

I think those sick fucks would have been looking around and seeing how they could improve on the design.

So do what you like with the complex, but don't use my money. To be honest, I'd rather see the buildings crumble to dust.

[WarBwastard]

I think destroying a place like Auschwitz is symbolically far more powerful that it's preservation.  The Berlin wall for example was another symbol of an inhumane ideology and when it was pulled down it was a huge moment of catharsis for so many people who had suffered behind it.  In fact the whole world united in seeing it being destroyed.  They didn't need to remove the wall to unite Germany, they could have left it up there as a symbol of the oppressive regimes that caused the partition of Europe, but it needed to come down to allow the unification to really being.

Auschwitz is essentially a mass grave and I hate the idea of 100's of thousands of tourists trampling through it every year mostly out of a morbid fascination with what went on there.  I think the same think should happen with Auschwitz as the Berlin Wall.  I think if Auschwitz was destroyed and certain parts of it cremated there might be that same sense of catharsis and closure for an atrocious period in our recent history. 

[WarBwastard]

I wonder how many people were aware it was holocaust memorial day?

loads, but you run the risk of looking a right tit if it didnt happen.

That reminds me, I must finish knitting that sweater