Holocaust Memorial Day

[chrisild]

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, in Germany and several other countries. On this day, 27 January, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp site was liberated in 1945. This is from today's Bundestag plenary session; Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a Holocaust survivor who later became one of the most influential German-language literature critics.

(Article in English) http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15699031,00.html
(Video, en) http://mediacenter.dw-world.de/english/video/#!/381839/Germany_marks_Holocaust_Day

Attached are two coins from Poland, issued in 2010, that commemorated the 65th anniversary of that day. One depicts Witold Pilecki who was probably the only person to voluntarily go to Auschwitz as a prisoner.

Christian

[Figleaf]

Now that right wing extremism is on the rise again, it is all the more fitting to remember its consequences and moving heroism like that of Pilecki. May we finally learn.

Peter

[chrisild]

It is this combination of right wing extremism and/or antisemitism (Mr Lammert talked about that in his speech) and the idea that in a few years no eyewitnesses will be left. I don't know if you have ever seen Marcel Reich-Ranicki in one of his literature discussions on TV (e.g. Literarisches Quartett), but if you saw him today ... Well, I am glad he could come and make this speech.

Sorry, forgot to attach the coins. Here they are.

Christian

[Figleaf]

Anti-semitism is a subset of racial and national hatred cum nationalism calling itself patriotism and other bleeping -isms. Plenty of that around. Plenty of muddled thinking also.

Peter

[paisepagal]

On a visit to the london office of my company last September, I had a chance to attend a seminar organised by the firm on diversity and tolerance of LGBTs ... They invited the Anne Frank foundation which works against institutional and social  discrimination in the Uk .. I was very honoured and moved to see and hear one mrs Eva schloss  talk about how she and her mother survived auschwitz ( though her father and brother didn't) ... And her memories of Anne Frank and her family .... what struck me was how neutrally she narrated it... But with a story like that, there is nothing that needs emphasis !


http://www.annefrank.org.uk/node/299