Trial begins for Oskar Groning the 'book keeper' of Auschwitz

[Pickman's model]

Fifty years after publication of the Brown Book, the upper ranks of today’s military and members of the political establishment are still dominated by a caste whose ancestors were deeply involved in the worst crimes known to humanity. These forces are intent on following in the footsteps of their forebears. really?

that's rather different to what you said.

 

[Pickman's model]

I read the rest broadly agree with it the last paragraph strikes me as worthy of jazz though.

that's rather different to what you said before.

 

[butchersapron]

I think that you could do with a closer reading of that failed link too dylanredifined

 

[Yossarian]

I agree mate, I just like the idea of nazis getting punished.

I don't understand why he was even prosecuted - seems like the man was a scapegoat for all the crimes of the many, many Nazis who got away with it in the years immediately after the war. The man was born in 1921, which means he came of age under the Nazis and knew nothing else - I can't honestly say that I would have done anything different if I was in his shoes.

 

[dylanredefined]

I don't understand why he was even prosecuted - seems like the man was a scapegoat for all the crimes of the many, many Nazis who got away with it in the years immediately after the war. The man was born in 1921, which means he came of age under the Nazis and knew nothing else - I can't honestly say that I would have done anything different if I was in his shoes.

What he did was enough to deserve prosecution on its own. That others even more guilty escaped does not make him less guilty.
Growing up believing jews are subhuman filth that need to be exterminated does not excuse you if you actually carry it out.
Any of us may well have grown up as card carrying nazis believing the fuhrer is a god if we were born in nazi germany. We would still need putting down like rabid dogs if we carried out the crimes they did.

 

[DotCommunist]

- I can't honestly say that I would have done anything different if I was in his shoes.

plenty did. They suffered for dissidence but they did it anyway.

 

[Yossarian]

Any of us may well have grown up as card carrying nazis believing the fuhrer is a god if we were born in nazi germany. We would still need putting down like rabid dogs if we carried out the crimes they did.

I don't agree - I think people who grew up under totalitarian regimes should not be judged by today's laws. I would like to think that if I was a young soldier at Auschwitz, I would stand up and say "This must stop," but I can't put myself in that person's shoes because my experience of life is radically different.

Every person who was an adult in Nazi Germany and a lot of other places is an accessory to murder. In most of Europe, everybody turned a blind eye to the deportation and murder of Jews.

 

[Buckaroo]

Every person who was an adult in Nazi Germany and a lot of other places is an accessory to murder.

Really?

 

[Yossarian]

Really?

Everybody stood by and let their neighbors get deported to death camps because they were too scared to do anything about it. Or they actively took part in the deportations. Or they had no idea what was going on and they were too scared to ask questions about what happened to their neighbors.

The people in Germany, Hungary, Romania, and a lot of other places who let the Holocaust happen weren't monsters, they were just ordinary people who had no realistic way of standing up to what was happening and staying alive - and I don't see a very big gap between them and Groening.

 

[Buckaroo]

Everybody stood by and let their neighbors get deported to death camps because they were too scared to do anything about it. Or they actively took part in the deportations. Or they had no idea what was going on and they were too scared to ask questions about what happened to their neighbors.

The people in Germany, Hungary, Romania, and a lot of other places who let the Holocaust happen weren't monsters, they were just ordinary people who had no realistic way of standing up to what was happening and staying alive - and I don't see a very big gap between them and Groening.

yeah the gap is small.

 

[dylanredefined]

yeah the gap is small.

He got to see it first hand and help. That makes him guilty.

 

[bubblesmcgrath]

why? to me still prosecuting auld men for things which happened 70 years ago feels to me more like defeat than victory. all the senior people are long dead, all the officers are long dead, you're now getting people who were in many cases peripheral to the entire process in their own culpability. yes, they were there, yes, what they did deserved punishment: but it seems to me little's gained by making them die in prison after so long. i think the game's no longer worth the candle as the prizes are all dross.

Prosecution is not ageist. The fact that someone is old does not negate the duty of law.
Neither the qualities of "victory" or "defeat" , as you describe, have relevance to the prosecution of anyone. It's not a "game" as you say...despite your feelings on the matter.

 

[Pickman's model]

Prosecution is not ageist. The fact that someone is old does not negate the duty of law.
Neither the qualities of "victory" or "defeat" , as you describe, have relevance to the prosecution of anyone. It's not a "game" as you say...despite your feelings on the matter.

i said it felt more like defeat than victory because it is so long after the event. and it's not like yer man was living in argentina or in paraguay, or that no one knew what he was or what he'd done. it's hardly the kidnap of eichman! it feels more like defeat than victory precisely because he was known, he was known fully 60 years ago or more.

if you think i said it was a game, it's back to the classroom for you - the idiom classroom in this case. saying the game's not worth the candle isn't saying 'this is a game', it is saying 'this activity is not worth the effort'. and your post certainly hasn't persuaded me it was worth the effort, perhaps you might explain why you think it's worthwhile pursuing small fish who were put back into the water in the '40s and '50s.

as for prosecution not being ageist, some countries have maximum ages for defendants while others have statutes of limitations: you may have seen part of the case against julian assange was no longer being investigated.

e2a: i hope you enjoyed june and july.

 

[Pickman's model]

Prosecution is not ageist. The fact that someone is old does not negate the duty of law.
Neither the qualities of "victory" or "defeat" , as you describe, have relevance to the prosecution of anyone. It's not a "game" as you say...despite your feelings on the matter.

further to previous replies, there is no 'duty of law'.

 

[Sue]

Again, sort of, but not quite. The documentation on concern for soldier's welfare when faced with mass murder was not from the camps (and it's also worth noting that the camps were quite diverse- from work, punishment, containment, relocation, prisoner d war, reeducation, death etc. Of course the outcome was overwhelmingly death, but that wasn't the intention of a number of the camps, though they changed over time) it was from the Eastern front and those working with the death's head units: it was complaints from the einsatzgruppen that precipitated the development of new methods of mass murder. Similarly the idea of gassing people was initially used as part of the euthanasia programme against genetic undesirables: then, in response to einsatzgruppen complaints they developed mobile gas trucks aimed to alleviate the stress in those divisions. The first static gas chambers (and the explicit development of a final solution after the wannsee conference) weren't opened until 1942- and, chillingly, it was a financial decision, not an ideological or pastoral one. It was considered to be cheapest and most efficient to ship Jews to static sites to be gassed- and so the death camps were born

The Kindly Ones gives a fictionalised account of this and is definitely worth a read for anyone interested in the Einsatzgruppen. As harrowing as you'd expect.

The Kindly Ones (Littell novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia