70th ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ

http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/liberation-of-auschwitz

Let us remember those poor souls who died in this camp.    LL

Indeed; pity Poland didn't learn, and opened a 'black' prison at the behest of the US, allowing people that weren't charged with any crime to be tortured on its soil all over again.

Good coverage of the events here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2928081/Almost-impossible-human-mind-comprehend-Hundreds-gather-mark-70th-anniversary-fall-Auschwitz-remember-1-1million-Jews-executed-there.html

To give her her due, I was impressed by Angela Merkel's speech; she didn't beat about the bush as to who was responsible and who liberated the camp. I am not impressed with the current Polish government's conduct, playing politics over this most terrible of events, and I have seen a good few of the survivors  making the same point.

This is tremendously sad.  

Numbered tattoos are heartbreaking.......

Mrs Merkel has always been upfront on the Nazi legacy, much as Willi Brandt was. I watched it on BBC News but got irritated by the President of the World Jewish Congress who used his speech to praise up Israel and lambast the rest of Europe. He is the son of Estee Lauder, born in New York in 1944. I haven't visited Auschwitz or Beelsen but my late grandfather took me to Dachau near Munich, Sachsenhausen near Berlin and to Mauthausen where his brothers and one sister were murdered. Unlike many other concentration camps, which were intended for all categories of prisoners, Mauthausen was mostly used for extermination through labour of the intelligentsia, who were educated people and members of the higher social classes in countries subjugated by the Nazi regime. My relatives were teachers, professors etc. and were worked to death in the granite quarries near the camp. LL

got irritated by the President of the World Jewish Congress who used his speech to praise up Israel and lambast the rest of Europe.

I missed that, which is probably just as well, LL. I have been more interested in the survivors' stories, today was about them, and all the millions who didn't survive.

It was NOT an occasion for anyone at all to be scoring political points. That some did it, leads me to conclude that actually, humanity hasn't really learned ANYTHING. Or at least our so-called 'leaders' haven't.

Full marks to Ms Merkel, though.

Lauder was bleating on about the rise of anti-semitism in Europe and around the world, and religious intolerance, but I notice he didn't mention Gaza etc or the intolerance in Israel for non-Jews. Religious intolerance is not a 'gentile only' phenomenom. LL

I doubt very much if there actually is a rise in 'anti-semitism', LL. There are, however, a great many objections to the behaviour of the current Israeli government, and it's shameful of him to lump the two together.

Things might improve a bit if Netanyahu loses the upcoming election, though.

From the memorial service yesterday, with mention by Lauder re the rise of anti-semitism.  he claimd that Jews in London, Paris, Berlin and Budapest do not dare to wear the yarmulka (skullcap) for fear of attack, which is a load of cr*p. I have seen yarmulkas worn in London, Budapest and Berlin, haven't been to Paris for 20 years so can't comment re there. That's a bit like that noodle in the US ranting on about Birmingham being a no-go area for people who are non-muslims. Lauder never experienced the camps, he sat comfortably in NY while the slaughter went on, safe in the arms of his wealthy family and friends. It's people like him who ratchet up the ante and cause the problems. LL

Agree 100%, LL. IMO, this is being done on purpose - the pretence that Jewish people and Zionist Israelis are interchangeable.

It can be very revealing to do a bit of reading on what rich Jews, in places of safety, did during the Holocaust - it often turns out to be worse than nothing. Like that scumbag Soros, they weren't averse to exploiting the suffering of their own people for war profiteering.

They're doing it all over again, lumping all Jewish folk in with Israel's disgusting conduct.