Holocaust memorial day – Remember

[bumble-b]

At the age of 73, I have the honour and privilege of having shared part of my life with survivors of World War 2 and the Holocaust. Most of you will not be old enough to have had this experience and will only know from films or TV the horrors that were perpetrated by the Germans and others. It is also a sad fact that there are many young people who do not even know about these tragic events.
I grew up in post-war London, playing in bomb craters and running errands for my mother being careful not to lose the ration card. These are faint memories, but my biggest memory is going to the local shop and asking for a bag of broken biscuits as these were cheaper. After the war, in the 1950s, my mother, trying to make ends meet, worked as a cleaner for a wealthy Jewish family. The wife treated her very badly and I was witness to many a cruel act. We lived in one of the first high rise buildings built to house young families. I remember my mother, after another bad day at work, saying to the neighbours on the landing, “the only good thing Hitler did was to get rid of the Jews”. This was my mother, a loving, kind hearted, hard working treasure. What made her say that I can only guess. I think I know but that’s between my mum and me.
My father fought the Japanese in Burma and witnessed the unbelievable cruelty dished out by these fanatics. At the end of the war against Japan, he didn’t come home but was sent to Germany as there was a shortage of people trained in communications. There he witnessed more horrors. In the 60’s my parents went on holiday to Spain together with a couple of friends. In the hotel were some German guests that were apparently being rude, loud and arrogant. According to their friends, my father cracked and verbally assaulted these Germans, not shouting “we won the war” which is the usual cry, but “murdering bastards, look what you did to the Jews” and then set about physically assaulting them. He had a soldier’s respect for another soldier but not for people who committed these crimes. Sadly both have now passed on.
When I left school at the age of 15 I joined the Royal Navy and experienced the Cold War at first hand – enough said! Having left the Navy I went into the Print industry because it paid well. In 1975 we joined the Common Market (not going there!!!) and within the year, to avoid the stranglehold of the trade unions, I went to work and live in Holland for Philips Electronics in the computer division. Remember this is only 30 years after the end of WW2. People I worked with had experienced the German occupation first hand and related tales of things they did to upset the enemy, some quite amusing. One tale is that they made light bulbs that didn’t work so as to keep the Germans in the dark. They also shared what it was like to be occupied, and the cruelty the Germans were capable of. I met people that hated the Germans so much that they wouldn’t serve them in their bars or shops. I once went into a bar with a German work colleague and the bartender made it quite clear that he would serve me but not my German friend. The one subject that always resulted in deep reflection was the way the Jews were treated and sent off to the death camps. The usual response was “Yes we knew but what could we do?”. The Dutch did hold a 2 day national strike to protest against the way Jews were being treated, a very brave thing to do. This was the only strike against the way Jews were treated by the Germans in occupied Europe. Later during the final stages of the war, to punish the Dutch for going on strike to aid the allies, the Germans set about starving them into submission. I was told many a tale of how people survived eating tulip bulbs and anything they could find. Many people died, mainly the elderly. I also met Jewish people that had survived these death camps and, on the rare occasion they told their stories, it would make you weep.
After Holland I worked for a large computer company looking after computer systems in both West and East Europe. When I visited our Austrian dealer, I was always shocked by how open they were about their dislike of the Jews and just shrugged their shoulder at any mention of the holocaust, with statements like “Jewish lies – it didn’t happen”. This was in deep contrast to my main customer in Vienna who was deeply ashamed of their part in the holocaust. I found a similar situation in Hungary and Czechoslovakia when working there. This is in the time when they were under communist rule led by the Soviet Union. Working under these conditions gave me a small, very small idea of what it was like to live and work in an occupied country. I could write another huge thread about working under communist rule but that can wait for another day. I loved the Czech and Hungarian people, and when they felt it safe to do so they would tell me tales about German occupation, followed by Russian occupation. Whilst doing so they would be looking over their shoulders to check no-one was listening. I find it a great shame what Prague has now become. In both of these countries it was very rare to see a Jewish person as most had been murdered by the Germans.
Finally (thank God I hear you say) one of my last jobs before retiring was to Jerusalem. I spent a few months there, the last being during the first Gulf War. Strangely enough the hotel was quite empty so I had the choice of rooms! I was looking after a computer system used to generate one of the major newspapers in Israel so I was able to meet some very interesting people, some from high positions of government and military. Not being the shy sort I always enquired why they treated the Palestinians, in my opinion, so badly. The heart felt reply I usually got was “No-one will ever do that to us again, never!” Here, more so, I met many people that had survived the holocaust and I listened to their stories and was in awe of how they carried on to have a normal life. Some of them were children at the time and told how they lost their parents and close family. Some of the older ones would cry when relating how they survived and so many others didn’t. You couldn’t help but me moved to tears.
So what was the point of me rambling on? Having met all these incredible people that made a huge impression on how I lived my life I felt the urge to put pen to paper on this special day. Or in modern parlance mouse to keyboard! There are people that deny the holocaust even happened and those that deep down don’t care. I hope and pray that the holocaust will not be forgotten and eventually people will learn the lessons from history. But I very much doubt it. Since the holocaust there have been many cases of genocide that makes you wonder if lessons will ever be learnt.
I’m glad I lived my life through these times and met these remarkable people and will treasure my memories of them till the day I die.

Shalom Aleichem

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Every village needs an idiot.

[RS Lurker]

An image forever burned into my memory. https://facesofauschwitz.com/gallery/czeslawa-kwoka/

[white-rs2]

The Russians where worse or at the least as bad as the Germans but got good PR as they where on the winning side.

I’m in no way defending the Germans and their leadership of WW2.

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RS Edition.

FPM375 Rocks

The rest of the “M” maps suck

[mondeoman]

Thank you bumble-b for your very moving account.  I have visited Auschwitz and I don’t believe anyone with a half open mind could deny the holocaust if they felt the atmosphere there and saw the place.  I certainly will never forget it.

[RS Lurker]

Everyone got their dirty hands in WWII: you could mention Dresden and Hiroshima. The Germans committed murder on an industrial level, it was the cold and methodical way they did it that made it so unpalatable. If they’d won the war they wouldn’t have been so apologetic, believe me.

[RS Lurker]

[andy thornton]

Very informative bumble-b,my brother has been to Aushwitz  a very solemn experience. Even the birds don,t sing there! and may the suffering the jews encountered should never be forgotten along with the many thousands of soldiers who all paid the ultimate price in both world wars,People remember for a long time but Governments seem to have short memories.

We all seem to be driving German cars which is a pity.

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Former RS Edition owner

[red-leader]

Thank you @bumble-b, well put across.

[bobcat]

Thank you bumble-b, I remember some things my Father told me about what he saw at The Buchenwald concentration camp. It was a very harrowing experience.

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Honorary Member

 

[buz]

I was based a few miles away from Bergen-Belsen in the mid 90s and visited a few times. The place is eerily quiet with no bird song and the sights in the museum are hideous.

The locals used to see prisoners being marched from the rail flats up to Belsen camp and they say they knew something was going on but not to what extend but I tend to agree they knew and just chose to turn a blind eye.

I’m now in a privileged position to have contact with the war generation (including one who had a Luger hidden in his wardrobe that his wife knew nothing of) but unfortunately they’re a dying breed and the face to face stories will end.

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2017 Nitrous Blue RS with every option except shell seats – no blue bolsters for me though.

[v8griff]

@bumble-b A very poignant and moving statement you’ve made there, thanks for taking the time to post.

Over time I see more and more of these stories being lost. Correct me if I’m wrong, is WWII curriculum now removed from secondary education syllabus?  Future generations must not forget these tragic events.

As a race, do we ever learn by past mistakes? Think we know the answer to that one. Look whats happening in Syria and Yemen, plus various countries in Africa.

Having an interest in WWII I always wanted to visit Auschwitz but I just couldn’t do that now. Having two young lads myself, and seeing the plight of the prisoners brutally treated there (the photos of the young Polish girl are remarkable) it would be too emotional.

[DaveRS3]

I think the recent article I believe by the Daily Mirror claiming 1 in 20 people in the UK is a Holocaust denier must be flawed. I just dont believe that 3 million or so people in the UK think it didn’t happen.

They must have done the research at a Nazi rally or something. Every child schooled in the UK will have been through this at some point. I had to watch the entire ‘World At War’ series at school and remember the videos of diggers lifting piles of body’s and dumping them into mass graves. Some of the body piles where taller than the houses built on the site as I remember a survivor saying.

There is so much evidence for the Holocaust its unbelievable including the videoed accounts of hundreds of Jews AND Nazi soldiers who explained what was going on.

I purchased the box set of ‘The World At War’ and will educate my kids with it when the times right. Absolutely horrific documentary that we should all watch and understand as horrid and depressing as it is.

[Author]

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