So far I never visited any of the real extermination camps. I've visited the Dutch camp Westerbork, which was used to gather all people destined for concentration camps. From there, just over a 100 000 people were put on transport to other camps in Nazi occupied territoy. Including Anne Frank and her family.
WWII for the Dutch is mainly the occupation starting in May 1940, the collaboraters and resistance members (not as many on either side as we sometimes think), the people who hid and fed jews and others in danger and the ones who ratted them out, the starvation in the cities in the last winter of the war (forgetting how we thrived in the first years of occupation, when the germans were able to pay for our goods) and liberation day on May the 5th, 1945.
I have a book called Grey Past (Grijs Verleden), where the writer (Chris van der Heijden) opposes the Black and White thinking that used to predominate here when discussing WWII.
The nation suffered under the occupation, but we were spared the utter brutality of the Eastern Front.
The events in Indonesia (a former colony of ours) were again very different. To begin with, the Japanese as of yet, never apoligised for the behavious towards civilians and POW's. That's still a sore point with people who suffered in their camps. Very different from the German behaviour over the last decades.
There are always new thing to learn about WWII, which may not be known by the public at large.
Like the fact that the jews did not find any country to take them in. If Sweden and other countries had given them asylum, less jew would have been killed.
Or the "concentraion camps in Sweden". People were sent there without trial or sentences. They were not killed but something like the Japanese American ínterment, I imagine.
The people who were sent there were communists, anti-nazis, unreliable foreigners etc.
My son went to Dachau this summer, and said it was very moving.
It sure is. I was there on Saturday morning, and I was fit for nothing else the rest of the day.
I'm not someone who sees ghosts everywhere (and I didn't at Dachau), but that place has one heck of an atmosphere. I walked around crying, which is very unusual for me, and I wasn't even trying to think about what had gone on there. Very odd :?
Like the fact that the jews did not find any country to take them in. If Sweden and other countries had given them asylum, less jew would have been killed.
I know jews in general had a hard time leaving nazi Germany. The Franks (Anne Frank's family) were relatively well to do and her father had prepared for it a bit, so they managed, but it wasn't that easy for the larger population. Bloody sad they picked the Netherlands to flee to though...
But I thought the Swedes took in the Danish Jews en masse when the situation in occupied Denmark deteriorated?
But I thought the Swedes took in the Danish Jews en masse when the situation in occupied Denmark deteriorated?
Indeed they did: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/denmark.html. Would that other countries had behaved as honorably.
I wonder if Spaceflower meant before the outbreak of the war though. The 1930's in Germany were very harsh for jews already, but it's not like many nations really cared much.
No, they didn't. America had quotas in place and it was nearly impossible to immigrate here unless you had relatives who would agree to sponsor you.
People forget how widespread and acceptable anti-semitism was in Europe and the US pre-war.
Interestingly, the three Jewish people in the Channel Islands were refused permission to leave by the local authorities when it became clear that the islands would be occupied. They were later transported and murdered.
People forget how widespread and acceptable anti-semitism was in Europe and the US pre-war.
And post-war as well. It wasn't until the 1970's here that Jews could join certain law firms, that quotas were done away with in college admissions, that 'restrictive covenants' for real estate (i.e. no Jews, blacks, or Catholics allowed) ceased to exist, etc. I could go on....