General Chat

You can download it in standard or high def in iPlayer.

As Rose sense the full horror of this tragedy was the very ordinariness of the setting and the bureaucratic way the holocaust was carried out just as if it was normal business.

And that is the warning passed down to all of us and why the history remains very relevant.

I saw a small part of it Rose, the part about the children and the four survivors of a group photo.

http://hmd.org.uk/page/why-mark-27-january-holocaust-memorial-day

I Kept on Walking - Mark Hayward

I kept on walking as she threw a stone
For it was not thrown at me

I kept on walking past the man who groaned
As he was hit behind the knee

I kept on walking past the run-down homes
I had somewhere else to be

I kept on walking as I clutched my phone
And pretended not to see

I kept on walking as the words were thrown
Every insult, every plea

The wounds they inflicted were not my own
And nothing to do with me

I kept on walking when the rage had grown
’Til the bodies filled the streets

I kept on walking over skulls and bones
Ash and blood beneath my feet

I’ll keep on walking from the things I’ve known
But refused to really see

I’ll keep on walking but I’m not alone
You’re keeping step with me

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Martin Niemöller

last night?

"Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors. Lanzmann shows us what happened - how it was that close to six million Jews were murdered after being sent by rail to specially constructed death camps. He spent ten years making the film, criss-crossing the world in search of interviewees and the film has become a commemorative act."

I couldn't watch it all, but it was hard to turn it off, it was not dramatic in one sense , it did not include ( as far as I saw) footage of the camps as they were, it was not 'just' the survivors stories.It was just a relentless tale of horror basically, told in such a matter of fact way.

What struck me most, when they interviewed, for example the driver of the train taking Jews to Treblinka or the farmers that saw them pass, was the sheer 'ordinariness' of them...the train driver was 'paid' in alchohol...the only way he did it day after day month after month ( and I thought would you? could you?) and I wondered, if there was a group of people HERE now, that became the hated ( and feared) 'people to blame'..... how many of us would stand up against it?

Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow.