Sky News - dumb & dumber

Tones - you're right - mincing words again re Catholicisim.

In my view, the Catholic faith is the worst there is - FAR more intolerant than Islam in many respects. My mum would have a fit if she knew my TRUE views on that religion, since I'm confirmed and supposedly "a believer".

I stand corrected re Northern Ireland then - d'oh. WHY did the British move back in though - that's what I'd like to know...

 

You mean why did they send in the Army and impose direct rule? Because a civil war was brewing. The Protestants were attacking Catholic areas and burning people out. Much of the Ardoyne area where I used to live ceased to exist. The Army was sent in because the police couldn't cope, and civil war in what is, after all, part of the UK was unacceptable. In addition, it could have pulled in the Republic of Ireland, and the mess would have been colossal. The British had really no choice.

 

Eeek! No-one's ever satisfactorily explained the NI thing to me - that puts the whole thing in perspective!

 

P.S. Sid, I was wrong about the crematorium but right about the gas chamber, which was never used:

http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/englisch/frame/vr.htm

 

Of course, the story why the British stayed in that particular little bit of Ireland instead of leaving the whole lot (which they really wanted to do), which led to the whole present mess, is another story...

 

Dom,

Concentration camps are so-called because high concentrations of prisoners are held in a relatively confined space. The conditions in concentration camps have often been atrocious, resulting in the deaths of many, many inmates.

The death camps that we're remembering, Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc., were camps specifically designed for the highly efficient murder of millions of people (mostly but not exclusively Jews) and the disposal of their bodies in a rapid and hygenic manner - after the removal of any valuables such as clothes, shoes, watches, jewellery and gold teeth.

 

We'll have less of the royal 'we' please Dom, I was born in 1966, concentration camps are nothing to do do with me, mate....

I'll agree that places such as Dachau where not set up specifically as extermination 'cetres of excellence' , in the same way that Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc where, the net result was the same. They also tried out many of their medical experiments there (Dacuau) too.

My wife is a Registered Midwife and at the very, very start of her training it was pointed out to the students that much of the knowledge that they where about to be taught was as a direct result of experiments carried out by the Nazi/Germans at these concentration camps. I'll have to ask her but i'm sure this was stated in case any of the students had any specific reasons why they wouldn't wish to continue in their training with this knowledge.

I am also quite sure that during my time in the RAF i was told that much of the knowledeg regarding pilots survival, particularly from crashing into cold water such as the North Sea, was as a result of Nazi/German medical experiments on prisoners.

For me i think that the most significant thing is the way in which so many thousands of people didn't recognise that what they where doing was wrong, the fact that they could hate people so much, especially when they where defenceless women and children.

 

That's true. Much of the existing data on how long people can survive in cold water comes from Nazi medical experiments on prisoners where naked subjects were dunked into tanks of water at different (very cold) temperatures to basically see how long they survived. AFAIK the experiments were done with a rather chilling (no pun intended) adherence to proper scientific procedure, which makes the data valid.

Wetsuit manufacturers etc. all use it. I believe there's some controversy over whether it should be used but IMO it exists now so you may as well honour the lives of those who suffered and died in the experiments by using the data for helping save other people's lives.

Michael.

 

The Japanese also practised medical experiments (particularly relating to biological warfare) on prisoners in Harbin in China. I believe that the US authorities gave the perpetrators exemption from prosecution on condition that they turned over all their data.

http://www.imadr.org/attention/tokyo_court.ruling.chinese.germ.warfere.victimes.html

 

I must admit I can't actually remember what the guide said last year. I thought thet the Gas chambers had actually been 'operationally tested' , whether this was on a large or small scale i don't know. I thought that the two windows at ground level , with large steel grills on them was a nice touch, allowing any victims to see fresh air as they fell but not be able to breathe it.
On one of the photos of your link you can see the roof beams above the crematoria ovens. One the one in front of the Ovens there are a series of large metal hooks/loops that are fixed to the beams, these where used to hang people directly before burning them.
I also rememeber touching the the bullet holes on the wall where folk where shot by firing squad, if walls could talk.....

Just remebered another thing i saw on one of the info boards. The Nazi/German guards would terrorise the prisoners with games of certain death. One favorite was the guards removed the hat of a prisoner and threw it over 'the line' that marked no mans land, in front of the perimeter fence. The prisoner then had a choice; step over the line to retrieve his hat ( as ordered) and get shot, or disobay a direct order from the guard ( by refusing to step over the line) and get shot...

They may not have gassed people at Dachau, but they certainly found other methods just as effective...

 

At the risk of sounding completely Un-PC and Anti-Semetic (which i am totally not) this isnt actually true. I am a history student and their are GAPING holes in the version of the Holocaust which we are told today. For example, why did the International Red Cross visit 'death camps' randomly to inspect them and find absolutely nothing?

Now of course Jews were treated badly, of course many of them died, but in respect of evidence of mass gassings, well there simply isnt any. All we can rely on is eye witness reports. In a court of law the evidence would be dismissed.

But perhaps the biggest issue that got me doubting the story is that i wanted to do my disertation on investigating the holes which i think appear in the Holocaust story. I was told in no uncertain terms that i would be arrested under 'hate laws' and could even be extraditied to Israel to face charges!!

As a historian, the whole point of history is to revisit what we know and to try and gain as many facts as possible. The Holocaust struck me as a subject clouded in history, a sort of untouchable mystical event which i thought warrented further investigation. To be told that I would be arrested for doing so is frankly absurd.

Just as a side note, many many historians think like myself about the Holocaust too. My lecturers have privately stated that there is simply no worthwhile evidence of its existance, but they cannot say so because of fear of inprisonment! Crazy World

 

There was a documentary on BBC2 recently about this subject and I'm afraid all the "evidence" shown in it contradicted your views. To me it was fairly obvioius that Auschwitz was a "factory" for experimentation, torture and mass murder (I'll stop short of genecide).

 

Well i am open minded. I do not believe what i say to be absolute fact and i do try to read both sides of the story, which i have done extensivly. I have spent just under a year studying books by authors of various political persuasions in order to grasp an overall view of what happened. I think the problem with a lot of people when they quote this 'evidence' is that they only get one view. There is so much more literature out there, and i guess my main point was how ridiculous the PC-ness of society is today.

 

Saddam
In Germany your first post would be a criminal offence.
Quite rightly.

Bob

 

So much for free speech huh?

 

holocaust denial is not free speech, it is incomprehensible stupidity.

Bob

 

I wasnt denying it i just said that it warrents further study and the fact it is illegal is ridiculous. If you had read the evidence then i am sure that you would agree. I am in no way denying it did not happen i am merly stating that the evidence is flimsy and requires further academic study.

 

Flimsy?, and you are being open-minded? The buildings along with instruments exist, there are mass graves that points to the scale of the killings. You are not denying it took place, so, what's there left to study? the exact numbers?

The only people I've heard deny holocaust (which you aren't) are normally with extreme right views.

In my view even if one human was experimented on/tortured/killed for their race it's too many.

 

What about 6 million dead Jews? You don't kill 6 million people in a relatively short period of time without some fairly intensive mass killiing.

On the point of free speech though I have to agree with saddam. I think it's wrong that neo-Nazi parties/groups are illegal in Germany along with doing things like making the Nazi salute and being a holocaust denialist. I can understand why it's so but it is fundamentally un-democratic to decide apriori that certain views are "illegal". That way lies dictatorship and totalitarianism: you're all entitled to your own views but any view that doesn't agree with the government is illegal...

Michael.

 

Michael, I also agree on the point of free speech. Unfortunately, it's used by too many people for political gains.