How some people took advantage of others, who were in an unfortunate situation, claiming they were saving them."
Sounds like the United Nations, our politicians etc, not just the Nazis..
Treblinka
Moderator: dromia
Forum rules
Please remember to respect the copyright of the author. Please do not post content from this section elsewhere without the specific permission of the author.
Please remember to respect the copyright of the author. Please do not post content from this section elsewhere without the specific permission of the author.
Re: Treblinka
Sounds like the United Nations, our politicians etc, not just the Nazis..
Political Correctness is the language of lies, written by the corrupt , spoken by the inept!
Re: Treblinka
It was during our first visit back to the UK since emigrating that we made time to go visit an old Army mate who stationed in Berlin attached to the Royal Regiment of Wales, this was about a month after the wall opened up to free travel. It was on that visit we decided to have a look beyond East Berlin. It was during this excursion that we discovered Sachshausen concentration camp. The thing that struck me about the place was it was built smack bang in the middle of the town, no way the local Germans could say they had no idea what was going on there, the smell alone must have been horrendous.
The Soviets who probably never missed a chance to rub German noses in it had left the place pretty much how they found it. While very interesting in a ghoulish sort of way the thing that struck me most, was the air of depression or maybe hopelessness about the place. It just seemed to hang everywhere and it took a while to shake the feeling even after leaving the place. It was a truly horrifying place, some of the things we saw courtesy of the Russians leaving it the way they found it almost defy description. I see from photos today however that the Germans have made it a little more palatable for want of a better word and cleaned it up a great deal. Everything was grey went we visited the place, grey and depressing. A visit to Bergen Belsen when I was stationed in Germany didn't weigh on me so much as that place did.
Some photos and a bit of history here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachsenhau ... ation_camp
As I said already they have spruced it up some, the front gate was grey coloured when we went there.
Blu
The Soviets who probably never missed a chance to rub German noses in it had left the place pretty much how they found it. While very interesting in a ghoulish sort of way the thing that struck me most, was the air of depression or maybe hopelessness about the place. It just seemed to hang everywhere and it took a while to shake the feeling even after leaving the place. It was a truly horrifying place, some of the things we saw courtesy of the Russians leaving it the way they found it almost defy description. I see from photos today however that the Germans have made it a little more palatable for want of a better word and cleaned it up a great deal. Everything was grey went we visited the place, grey and depressing. A visit to Bergen Belsen when I was stationed in Germany didn't weigh on me so much as that place did.
Some photos and a bit of history here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachsenhau ... ation_camp
As I said already they have spruced it up some, the front gate was grey coloured when we went there.
Blu
Last edited by Blu on Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Treblinka
Christel,
Blu
Yet on entering Officer Cadet school at Bad Tolz, SS officer cadets were each given a German Shepard pup to name, raise and train. No doubt bonds were formed between master and dog, but the final test of every SS officer candidate before being commissioned was to see if they would obey orders without question or feeling. They were taken into a hut one at a time with their dogs, and ordered to strangle or break their dogs neck. I have no idea how many if any refused to do it. Given the SS indoctrinate at the time I'd say not many.Oddly enough, while the Nazis did their utmost to be as inhuman as possible, they made a great effort to be very animal friendly.
Blu
-
Christel
- Site Admin
- Posts: 17414
- Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 7:52 pm
- Location: Wind Swept Denmark
- Contact:
Re: Treblinka
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17414127
To me this story has always had a bit of a "we are running out of people to accuse so we are grasping at straws" approach.
RIP Demjanjuk.
To me this story has always had a bit of a "we are running out of people to accuse so we are grasping at straws" approach.
RIP Demjanjuk.
-
froggy
- Posts: 4968
- Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:38 pm
- Home club or Range: HPRP (UK) + Corsaires Malouins (France) + Czech Rep
- Location: London
- Contact:
Re: Treblinka
Yet on entering Officer Cadet school at Bad Tolz, SS officer cadets were each given a German Shepard pup to name .... They were taken into a hut one at a time with their dogs, and ordered to strangle or break their dogs neck. I have no idea how many if any refused to do it. Given the SS indoctrinate at the time I'd say not many.
This is a complete non-sense, I am sorry but this is one of the countless ridiculous "urban-myth" about the W-SS
Sachshausen concentration camp ... no way the local Germans could say they had no idea what was going on there, the smell alone must have been horrendous.
You are getting seriously confused between concentration camps and extermination camps. KZ were very much in the open and when they started they were nothing much worst than an "open air" prison. Democratic nations had their own versions . Kz were similar the French penal camps "bagne" except that only criminals were held in the "bagne" as you could end up in the German ones for criminal activities but also because of your birth , sexual or political nature.
The Soviets who probably never missed a chance to rub German noses in it had left the place pretty much how they found it.
Sachshausen actually never closed at the end of the war and was immediatly put to use by the NKVD.
This is a complete non-sense, I am sorry but this is one of the countless ridiculous "urban-myth" about the W-SS
Sachshausen concentration camp ... no way the local Germans could say they had no idea what was going on there, the smell alone must have been horrendous.
You are getting seriously confused between concentration camps and extermination camps. KZ were very much in the open and when they started they were nothing much worst than an "open air" prison. Democratic nations had their own versions . Kz were similar the French penal camps "bagne" except that only criminals were held in the "bagne" as you could end up in the German ones for criminal activities but also because of your birth , sexual or political nature.
The Soviets who probably never missed a chance to rub German noses in it had left the place pretty much how they found it.
Sachshausen actually never closed at the end of the war and was immediatly put to use by the NKVD.
Re: Treblinka
Froggy, Yeah I'll admit it did seem far fetched at the time of reading about SS officer cadets being ordered to kill pups and i will concede that point
- Public Prosecutor: What kind of exterminations were committed in your camp?
- Kaindl: Until mid of 1943, prisoners were killed by shooting or hanging. For the mass exterminations, we used a special room in the infirmary. There was a height gauge and a table with an eye scope. There were also some SS wearing doctor uniforms. There was a hole at the back of the height gauge. While a SS was measuring the height of a prisoner, another one placed his gun in the hole and killed him by shooting in his neck. Behind the height gauge there was another room where we played music in order to cover the noise of the shooting.
- Public Prosecutor: Do you know if there was already an extermination procedure in Sachsenhausen when you became commandant of the camp?
- Kaindl: Yes, there were several procedures. With the special room in the infirmary, there was also an execution place where prisoners were killed by shooting, a mobile gallows and a mechanical gallows which was used for hanging three or four prisoners at the same time.
- Public Prosecutor: Did you change anything in these extermination procedures?
- Kaindl: In march 1943, I introduced gas chambers for the mass exterminations.
- Public Prosecutor: Was it your own decision?
- Kaindl: Partially yes. Because the existing installations were too small and not sufficient for the exterminations, I decided to have a meeting with some SS officers, including the SS Chief Doctor Baumkotter. During this meeting, he told me that poisoning of prisoners by prussic acid in special chambers would cause an immediate death. After this meeting, I decided to install gas chambers in the camp for mass extermination because it was a more efficient and more humane way to exterminate prisoners.
- Public Prosecutor: Who was responsible for the extermination?
- Kaindl: The commandant of the camp.
- Public Prosecutor: So, it was you?
- Kaindl: Yes.
- Public Prosecutor: How many prisoners were exterminated in Sachsenhausen while you were commandant of the camp?
- Kaindl: More than 42,000 prisoners were exterminated under my command, this number include 18.000 killed in the camp itself.
- Public Prosecutor: And how many prisoners died by starvation during this same period?
- Kaindl: I think 8,000 prisoners died by starvation during this period.
- Public Prosecutor: Accused Kaindl, did you receive the order to destroy any evidence of the murders committed in the camp?
- Kaindl: Yes. On February 1st, 1945, I had a conversation with the chief of the Gestapo, Muller. He ordered me to destroy the camp with artillery bombing, aerial bombing or by spraying gas. But due to technical problems, this order coming directly from Himmler was impossible to fulfill.
- Public Prosecutor: Suppose that there was no technical problem, would you have carried out this order?
- Kaindl: Of course. But it was impossible. An artillery or an aerial bombing was impossible to hide from the local population. And spraying gas was too dangerous for the local population and the SS.
- Public Prosecutor: What did you do then?
- Kaindl: I had a meeting with Hohn and some others SS and I ordered to exterminate all the ill prisoners, those who were unable to work and, the most important, all the political prisoners.
- Public Prosecutor: Was this order fulfilled?
- Kaindl: Yes, partially. During the night of February 2th, the first prisoners were killed. There were plus or minus 150 prisoners. Until end of March 1945, we succeed in killing more than 5,000 prisoners.
- Public Prosecutor: Who was in charge of this operation?
- Kaindl: Accused Hohn was in charge of this operation.
- Public Prosecutor: How many prisoners were in the camp at this time?
- Kaindl: Approximately 45,000. On April 18th I was ordered to embark all the prisoners on barges and to conduct the barge on the Baltic sea where I had to sink it. But we had not enough time to find enough barges for so many prisoners because the Red Army was advancing too fast.
- Public Prosecutor: What happened then?
- Kaindl: I ordered the evacuation of all the prisoners able to walk, first in direction of Wittstock, then to Lubeck where they had to embark on ships and sunk.
- Public Prosecutor: Did the prisoners received any care during this evacuation?
- Kaindl: No. 7,000 prisoners received nothing because we had nothing to give them.
- Public Prosecutor: Did these prisoners died by starvation during this Death March?
- Kaindl: Yes.
So as I said earlier, there is no way the locals didn't know what was going on or at the very least guess what was going on.
[quoteS]Sachshausen actually never closed at the end of the war and was immediatly put to use by the NKVD.[/quote]
Agreed it was used by the NKVD up until 1950. It was then taken over by the then new East German government, closed for a while, and re-opened up as a anti facist historical site. I see what you are saying Froggy, but like Dachau whose beginnings were for political prisoners, Sachsenhausen did become a part of the "Final Solution". Indeed the very first mass killings that took place at Sachsenhausen was the killing of between 11,000 and 18,000 Russian POW's in 1941 by mostly shooting, From there on the techniques for extermination improved.
The fact that the majority of people killed in Sachsenhausen were non Jewish is neither here nor there, the fact remains that Sachsenhausen though originally an interment camp later became a death camp. The numbers speak for itself.
Blu
No I am not becoming confused between KZ's and the death camps, Yes when they started out they were not death camps, I am aware that like Dachau, Sachsenhausen was originally built as a camp for political prisoners, however as the WWII progressed things got a little different. Here is an extract from the trial of Anton Kaindl,former commandant of Sachsenhausen Death Camp.You are getting seriously confused between concentration camps and extermination camps. KZ were very much in the open and when they started they were nothing much worst than an "open air" prison.
- Public Prosecutor: What kind of exterminations were committed in your camp?
- Kaindl: Until mid of 1943, prisoners were killed by shooting or hanging. For the mass exterminations, we used a special room in the infirmary. There was a height gauge and a table with an eye scope. There were also some SS wearing doctor uniforms. There was a hole at the back of the height gauge. While a SS was measuring the height of a prisoner, another one placed his gun in the hole and killed him by shooting in his neck. Behind the height gauge there was another room where we played music in order to cover the noise of the shooting.
- Public Prosecutor: Do you know if there was already an extermination procedure in Sachsenhausen when you became commandant of the camp?
- Kaindl: Yes, there were several procedures. With the special room in the infirmary, there was also an execution place where prisoners were killed by shooting, a mobile gallows and a mechanical gallows which was used for hanging three or four prisoners at the same time.
- Public Prosecutor: Did you change anything in these extermination procedures?
- Kaindl: In march 1943, I introduced gas chambers for the mass exterminations.
- Public Prosecutor: Was it your own decision?
- Kaindl: Partially yes. Because the existing installations were too small and not sufficient for the exterminations, I decided to have a meeting with some SS officers, including the SS Chief Doctor Baumkotter. During this meeting, he told me that poisoning of prisoners by prussic acid in special chambers would cause an immediate death. After this meeting, I decided to install gas chambers in the camp for mass extermination because it was a more efficient and more humane way to exterminate prisoners.
- Public Prosecutor: Who was responsible for the extermination?
- Kaindl: The commandant of the camp.
- Public Prosecutor: So, it was you?
- Kaindl: Yes.
- Public Prosecutor: How many prisoners were exterminated in Sachsenhausen while you were commandant of the camp?
- Kaindl: More than 42,000 prisoners were exterminated under my command, this number include 18.000 killed in the camp itself.
- Public Prosecutor: And how many prisoners died by starvation during this same period?
- Kaindl: I think 8,000 prisoners died by starvation during this period.
- Public Prosecutor: Accused Kaindl, did you receive the order to destroy any evidence of the murders committed in the camp?
- Kaindl: Yes. On February 1st, 1945, I had a conversation with the chief of the Gestapo, Muller. He ordered me to destroy the camp with artillery bombing, aerial bombing or by spraying gas. But due to technical problems, this order coming directly from Himmler was impossible to fulfill.
- Public Prosecutor: Suppose that there was no technical problem, would you have carried out this order?
- Kaindl: Of course. But it was impossible. An artillery or an aerial bombing was impossible to hide from the local population. And spraying gas was too dangerous for the local population and the SS.
- Public Prosecutor: What did you do then?
- Kaindl: I had a meeting with Hohn and some others SS and I ordered to exterminate all the ill prisoners, those who were unable to work and, the most important, all the political prisoners.
- Public Prosecutor: Was this order fulfilled?
- Kaindl: Yes, partially. During the night of February 2th, the first prisoners were killed. There were plus or minus 150 prisoners. Until end of March 1945, we succeed in killing more than 5,000 prisoners.
- Public Prosecutor: Who was in charge of this operation?
- Kaindl: Accused Hohn was in charge of this operation.
- Public Prosecutor: How many prisoners were in the camp at this time?
- Kaindl: Approximately 45,000. On April 18th I was ordered to embark all the prisoners on barges and to conduct the barge on the Baltic sea where I had to sink it. But we had not enough time to find enough barges for so many prisoners because the Red Army was advancing too fast.
- Public Prosecutor: What happened then?
- Kaindl: I ordered the evacuation of all the prisoners able to walk, first in direction of Wittstock, then to Lubeck where they had to embark on ships and sunk.
- Public Prosecutor: Did the prisoners received any care during this evacuation?
- Kaindl: No. 7,000 prisoners received nothing because we had nothing to give them.
- Public Prosecutor: Did these prisoners died by starvation during this Death March?
- Kaindl: Yes.
So as I said earlier, there is no way the locals didn't know what was going on or at the very least guess what was going on.
[quoteS]Sachshausen actually never closed at the end of the war and was immediatly put to use by the NKVD.[/quote]
Agreed it was used by the NKVD up until 1950. It was then taken over by the then new East German government, closed for a while, and re-opened up as a anti facist historical site. I see what you are saying Froggy, but like Dachau whose beginnings were for political prisoners, Sachsenhausen did become a part of the "Final Solution". Indeed the very first mass killings that took place at Sachsenhausen was the killing of between 11,000 and 18,000 Russian POW's in 1941 by mostly shooting, From there on the techniques for extermination improved.
The fact that the majority of people killed in Sachsenhausen were non Jewish is neither here nor there, the fact remains that Sachsenhausen though originally an interment camp later became a death camp. The numbers speak for itself.
Blu
Re: Treblinka
Christel,
Blu
There always will be Christel and the way the world is heading there will be more of this kind of thing. All it takes is the right set of circumstances and someone who offers some kind of hope, or a way out of a mess they happen to be in. Germany in the 1920's and 1930's is evidence of that, history itself is evidence of that. Alas we as a species never seem to learn, the human race seems doomed to repeat the same stuff over and over. I guess the only time we will truly learn of the folly of our ways is when there is nothing or very little left to fight over, even then I believe killing will still go on for what is left.Still some fossils around it seems
Blu
Re: Treblinka
???????????????????????????To me this story has always had a bit of a "we are running out of people to accuse so we are grasping at straws" approach.
RIP Demjanjuk.
Would have thiought that the victims and their relatives would think otherwise. Sod him!
RIP: Rot in Purgatory.
Political Correctness is the language of lies, written by the corrupt , spoken by the inept!
-
froggy
- Posts: 4968
- Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:38 pm
- Home club or Range: HPRP (UK) + Corsaires Malouins (France) + Czech Rep
- Location: London
- Contact:
Re: Treblinka
Re- Blu,
Many thanks for those dets
I knew large numbers of "Untermenschen" POW were put to death but I thought it was done in a more "artisanal" fashion and did not realise it was little be more industrial... The museum sadly keeps on displaying a fake Russian POW mess tin which I find quite insulting to the memory of those poor chaps
Many thanks for those dets
I knew large numbers of "Untermenschen" POW were put to death but I thought it was done in a more "artisanal" fashion and did not realise it was little be more industrial... The museum sadly keeps on displaying a fake Russian POW mess tin which I find quite insulting to the memory of those poor chaps
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests