tagged w/ Holocaust
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I was struck by this story in the NYT today. Even 60 years after the Holocaust there remain injustices that governments acknowledge but cannot solve. Very sad to think of how much of a world was destroyed in that terrible time and how much it led our world to compromise what all people know is rightI was struck by this story in the NYT today. Even 60 years after the Holocaust there... more
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The last survivor of Treblinka, the Nazi death camp of WWII, tells his heart-breaking story.
These stories have been told and re-told by many Holocaust survivors over the years, but this particular rendering is visceral, raw and very real. It reminds us that genocide, torture and ethnic cleansing are horrible injustices regardless of when they happen, or who they happen to.
One common catch phrase I heard growing up immersed in Jewish culture is "Never Again"; referring of course to the Holocaust and that it should never happen again. Well, the reality is that it has, it does and it will. Maybe the Jews are not the victims this time around, but there are victims. Hundreds of thousands of them, and it still goes on.
The last survivor of Treblinka, the Nazi death camp of WWII, tells his heart-breaking... more
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Not since 'Springtime For Hitler' has the holocaust had so much PIZAZZ! Yeah, you read that right. 'The Diary of Anne Frank' is being turned into a musical.
Wow. Just...wow.
Not since 'Springtime For Hitler' has the holocaust had so much PIZAZZ!... more
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Daniel Radcliffe, who has captivated moviegoers as the bespectacled schoolboy wizard in the Harry Potter films, has donated the first pair of glasses he wore as a child to an exhibition marking the horrors of the Holocaust.Daniel Radcliffe, who has captivated moviegoers as the bespectacled schoolboy wizard... more
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First off, sorry I wasn?t at the protest. I was otherwise engaged, and when what I was doing had finished, I didn?t see much point of travelling down. To those who were there and acted with decorum, good work.
So, should this event have taken place? I don?t think so. Here are my reasons:
1) This had nothing to do with free speech. It was held in a private members club for starters; only 400 odd paying members could go and see the debate in the first place. The aim was apparently for those great minds at Orxford to generally demolish any arguments of the fascist and the holocaust denier until they were left hanging on to their pretty shabby beliefs. Well, from what I heard from some of the people who were in there, when Irving and Griffin were talking a number of ?educated? people were nodding along hmmming in at least partial agreement of understanding. So, that aim went out of the window then.
2) It seems to me that the debate about whether or not the Union debate should go ahead was purely academic. People were humming and harring about it, some arguing that it?s a restriction on free speech not to let them speak etc. Well, the way I see it people were blurring the lines between controversiality and danger. To be controversial, get TV time and publicity etc is one thing, but to actively endanger people by inviting the BNP, Combat 18 and whatnot in to Oxford at the same time as legitimising a fascist platform is another. Oxford University was actually advising black students not to leave their residences the night of the protest.
Let?s face it guys - the term ?freedom of expression? is vague however you look at it. And when you start to apply it as a literal blanket statement, people can get hurt. You can easily legitimise the protest on a utilitarian basis; the people protesting were firstly larger in number than those actively supporting the debate, and those protesting were also there in the name of the greater good. I can bet you now that not one of those protesters were feeling great that some people might label them as destroyers of free speech, but when the two people inside that building would not have breathed the same air, let alone listened to someone?s point of view simply because they are homosexual, non-white, Jewish etc is simply unacceptable. Why are we even having this debate in the first place?
And as for the Oxford Union, the less said the better. Luke Tyrl is not the accomplished politician he thinks he is. When your own university and even the Comission on Equality and Human Rights is telling you this debate shouln?t go ahead, what spurs you on to be so arrogant as to ignore any call of concern? Plenty of security was put on for the two fascists inside the building, from Union security to the lovely Combat 18, but what about the people outside in the streets, lost in the meleé of bodies and voices?
What would people have thought if Nick Griffin had stood up and said:
?The electors of Millwall did not back a post-modernist rightist party, but what they percieved to be a strong, disciplined organsation with the ability to back up it?s slogan ?defend rights for whites? with well directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes, power is the product of force and not rational debate.?
But of course Griffin is a very intelligent man. He caters for his audience very well. He can act as the oppressed minority in his own country when he wants to. And of course, the bastion of free speech, the Oxford Union, beat down its detractors, ignoring the protesters who broke in and those shouting outside and carried on because they were right. That?s the problem with blind belief - you don?t listen to any other point of view because you are right. End of story.First off, sorry I wasn?t at the protest. I was otherwise engaged, and when what I was... more
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Berlin is a cultural mecca for Europe. This pod looks at some of the architecture, art and history of the city as well as checking out the night life and music scene of Berlin, featuring interviews and live footage of:- Motorhead, Gallows, Robots in Disguise, Schwefelgelb, The Peacocks, The JailbirdsBerlin is a cultural mecca for Europe. This pod looks at some of the architecture, art... more
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Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Oxford Union to voice disapproval of the two controversial speakers invited there to speak: the BNP leader Nick Griffin who heads an organisation that wants to see millions of people deported from the UK because they do not regard them as truly British, and historian David Irving, who is a convicted Holocaust denier.
"Scuffles broke out as anti-fascist groups yelled "Shame on you" at members filing into the union building, and the police shut the gates with the chamber only half full. While a handful of students crushed against the main gate to create a diversion, 30 others scaled the wall and barged past the tight security, occupying the area around the debating table until they were persuaded to leave."
This brings to question freedom of speech. Who is entitled? Who should be allowed to voice their opinions? Is the Oxford Union wrong in inviting these controversial viewpoints? What do you think?Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Oxford Union to voice disapproval of the two... more
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The head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission has asked Oxford University's debating society to review its decision to invite holocaust denier David Irving to speak at a free speech forum.The head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission has asked Oxford... more
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In 1944, as a teenager in the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, my friend Werner Reich shared his bunk with a magician named, "Levine". By a remarkable coincidence, when "The Great Nivelli" (Levine spelled backwards), who was known as the "Magician of the Holocaust", died in 1972 in New York. Werner recognized his tattoo as being that of the man who taught him magic. This is a companion piece to our IFP/Current TV winning pod now on air, Telling Jokes In Auschwitz.In 1944, as a teenager in the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, my friend Werner... more
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This inspiring story about finding laughter in the last place you would think. In 1944, Werner Reich was a teenager in the Nazi death camp known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, when the infamous Josef Mengele, "The Angel of Death", randomly "selected" 96 boys out of 5,000, saving them from the gas chamber. Werner was one of the surviving "Birkenau Boys". spared, it seems, because of a bad joke. Thank you to my friend Mikal Reich for introducing me to his courageous father, who will do anything for a laugh. Today, Werner is a magician (which he learned in Auschwitz) and speaks to school children in hopes the Holocaust will never happen again.This inspiring story about finding laughter in the last place you would think. In... more
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Some schools avoid teaching the Holocaust and other controversial history subjects as they do not want to cause offence, research has claimed.
History, already is and can not be changed but learned from.
Political correctness has gone too far..Some schools avoid teaching the Holocaust and other controversial history subjects as... more
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LewA
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4 years ago
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The president of the university has come under fire for allowing Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak, but he defended the choice saying it's important to learn how your adversaries think, reason, and operate. I am loathe to give someone who denies the holocaust a microphone. But then again, no one is forcing anyone to go and listen to him. And it probably will be interesting, if only to hear exactly how mis-guided and totally nuts he is from his own mouth.The president of the university has come under fire for allowing Iran's President... more
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Tori
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4 years ago
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The State Department calls Iran a state sponsor of terror, and Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust "a myth" and urged for Israel to be destroyed. Yet he is traveling to New York to address the United Nations' General Assembly. He was scheduled to appear Monday at a question-and-answer session with Columbia faculty and students as part of the school's World Leaders Forum.The State Department calls Iran a state sponsor of terror, and Ahmadinejad has called... more
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The US Holocaust Memorial Museum unveils the private photo scrapbook from an officer at Auschwitz next week. Today, the NYT has a preview slideshow, narrated by a museum archivist.The US Holocaust Memorial Museum unveils the private photo scrapbook from an officer... more
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This inspiring story is about finding laughter in the last place you would think. In 1944, Werner Reich was a teenager in the Nazi death camp known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, when the infamous Josef Mengele, "The Angel of Death," randomly "selected" 96 boys out of 5,000, saving them from the gas chamber. Werner was one of the surviving "Birkenau Boys" spared, it seems, because of a bad joke. Thank you to my friend Mikal Reich for introducing me to his courageous father who will do anything for a laugh. Today, Werner is a magician (a profession he learned in Auschwitz) and speaks to schoolchildren in hopes the Holocaust will never happen again.This inspiring story is about finding laughter in the last place you would think. In... more
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For a survivor, it could be discovering one's name on a list of deportees crammed into a cattle car; a record of a fiendish medical experiment from which physical or mental scars remain; an innocuous-looking "behavior report" condemning the inmate to further tortures; or an order from the Gestapo, the secret police, to liquidate a camp, signaling the start of a "death march" in the closing days of World War II.For a survivor, it could be discovering one's name on a list of deportees crammed... more
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Kazaam
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added this
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4 years ago
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