[ 11 April 2006: Message edited by: John_D ]

Here is the article

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Auschwitz unfamiliar to many Britons: Poll
Holocaust symbol unknown by 45%

BBC researchers amazed by result

LONDON—Nearly half of Britons in a poll said they had never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in southern Poland that became a symbol of the Holocaust and the attempted extermination of the Jews.

The results of the survey conducted by the BBC were released yesterday as Britain's public broadcaster announced it will show a new series in January to mark the 60th anniversary of the concentration camp's liberation.

"We were amazed by the results of our audience research," said Laurence Rees, a producer on the series, Auschwitz: The Nazis & the Final Solution."

"It's easy to presume that the horrors of Auschwitz are engrained in the nation's collective memory, but obviously this is not the case," Rees said.

The survey found that 45 per cent of those surveyed had not heard of Auschwitz. Historians estimate that anywhere from one million to three million people, about 90 per cent of them Jews, were killed there.

Among women and people younger than 35, 60 per cent had never heard of Auschwitz, despite the recent popularity of films such as Schindler's List, Life is Beautiful and The Pianist, which depict the atrocities of the Holocaust.

"The name Auschwitz is quite rightly a byword for horror, but the problem with thinking about horror is that we naturally turn away from it," Rees said.

The BBC said the research was based on a nationally representative postal survey of 4,000 adults 16 and older.

The broadcaster is marking Holocaust Memorial Day, Jan. 27, with a variety of television and radio programs.

The Auschwitz series for BBC2 is based on nearly 100 interviews with survivors and perpetrators. It is the result of three years of research with the assistance of professors Sir Ian Kershaw of the University of Sheffield and David Cesarani of the University of Southampton.

REUTERS

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On a related note, there was a poignant article in the Guardian recently by a Roma Holocaust survivor still living in Germany (the gentleman is 82; his wife, a bit younger, is half-Roma and half-Jewish by ancestry...), about the reasons for the relative obscurity of the Roma and Sinti Holocaust. No finger-pointing but a good sociological explanation and a call to remedy that sad state of affairs.

Since this topic bears not only on the UK but also on here and elsewhere, shouldn't it be in anti-racism?

[ 03 December 2004: Message edited by: lagatta ]

[ 11 April 2006: Message edited by: John_D ]

Are you a history grad student?

Aushwitz has been extensively covered in North America I would be very suprised if the phrase New Belsen meant anything to most Canadians or Americans. I believe the story of the British discovery of Bergen-Belsen, as that was original source of British knowledge about the Holocuast, in the media, and in the personal stories of the British soldiers.

For instance, Sex Pistols Lyrics for Holiday in the Sun are:

"I want a holiday in the sun,
I wanna go to New Belsen"

Not Aushwitz, as the focus on Aushwitz is more of a North American thing.

[ 03 December 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

It amazed me when I went to see Pearl Harbour and Saving Private Ryan in the theatre the number of "youth" who had no knowledge about either Pearl Harbour or D-Day.

As well, Lagatta in Ontario their is a lack of knowledge or teaching of "heros" to help understand our history -- good and bad, Let me give you one specific example.

At the Ontairo legislature in Toronto the names of every MPP are carved into the marble walls. It is by parliament so some names appear literally dozens of times.

Outside of one of the main committee rooms from the listings of the '50s there is a name that is not talked about much. But a name that should be.

In the '50s there was an mpp who was a cabinet minister whose name looks different from the rest.

His is carved in as follows:
Hon. John W. Foote, VC

Yes the VC is for Victoria Cross. He was the padre with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and won the VC at Dieppe and was presented his medal upon his release from a POW camp where he spent the remainder of the war after that dreadful day in August 1942.

Do you know that most if not all tours do not even mention that a VC winner was a member of the legislature. To me that fact should be told to every student who visits the legislature.

[ 03 December 2004: Message edited by: miles ]

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The images also roused further the clamour for justice that culminated in the Nuremberg War Crimes process. Indeed, the impact of the film footage taken at Belsen concentration camp became so ingrained in British popular culture that its name became a synonym for the worst examples of Nazi inhumanity - a connotation that remains just as strong to this day.

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edited to add

Anyone who wants to be disgusted with all the nations involved in WWII should read Blind Eye to Murder by Tom Bower or The Paperclip Conspiracy by Tom Bower

I have a copy if anyone wants to borrow it

[ 03 December 2004: Message edited by: Bacchus ]

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Negotiations for the transfer of the Bergen-Belsen camp to the control of the British Army took several days. On the night of April 12, 1945, a cease-fire was signed between the local Germany Military Commander and the British Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Taylor-Balfour, according to Eberhard Kolb in his book, "Bergen-Belsen from 1943 to 1945." An area of 48 square kilometers around Bergen-Belsen was declared a neutral zone. The neutral zone was 8 kilometers long and 6 kilometers wide. Until British troops could take over, the agreement specified that the camp would be guarded by a unit of Hungarian soldiers and soldiers from the German Wehrmacht (the regular army as opposed to the SS). They were assured that they would be allowed free return passage to the German lines within six days after the British arrived. The SS soldiers who made up the staff of the camp were to remain at their posts and carry on their duties until the British arrived to take over. There was no specific stipulation in the agreement about what their fate would be, according to Eberhard Kolb.

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Originally posted by Mike Keenan:
I never heard that one attributed to Che. I believe Henry Ford said it first, in any case.

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After reading Henry Ford's book about Jews, Adolf was inspired to write, mein kamf, a book of lies. Che was twice the man either of them were. Henry's portrait hung on Adolf's wall whereas Che's silhouette-portrait is immortal by now.

A Detroit resident I know says that according to the points system in force in Grosse Pointe, Jesus Christ himself would not have been allowed in.

By the way, it is "Mein Kampf" - and all German nouns take capital letters. Kampf can refer to much more pleasant concepts from our standpoint - Klassenkampf means class struggle. Hitler's title was yet another example of how fascists appropriated seemingly "leftist" rhethoric.

[ 04 December 2004: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

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By the way, it is "Mein Kampf" - and all German nouns take capital letters. Kampf can refer to much more pleasant concepts from our standpoint - Klassenkampf means class struggle. Hitler's title was yet another example of how fascists appropriated seemingly "leftist" rhethoric.

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Do you really think it was an appropriation? Do you think that it might have been that both movements, which arose in a similar time period adopted phraselogy that was common in the vernacular, and applied them to their cuases? I mean, for instance, in Spanish Companero/Companera is still very commonly used, outside of the Marxist/communist ethos. It seems to me that comrade only really became associated with the 'left' movements after the 30's from what I can tell, the terms root comes from it military usage and I can see Conrad (no particualar 'leftist') using the phrase comrade descriptively, without the baggage that we attach to the phrase today.

Perhaps it would be 'more righter' to associate phrase such as 'my struggle' with developement of modernist ideas, as opposed to specific movements.

From the vantage point of today, it does seem that the NSDAP 'approriated' leftist ideas, but in a sense those ideas are part of the modernist world, and things that most 'forward thinking' people would have taken for granted as being esential to human "progress.' The notion of 'progress' itself is essentially modernist, but it is also the root from which we take the phrase "progressive," meaning leftist.

[ 04 December 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

But at least in formerly fascist Italy and Germany, NEVER call a leftist or trade-unionist "camerata" or "Kamerad" - the words are compagno/compagna and Genosse/Genossin. The former words imply one is on the far right.

In the CSN and CSQ anyway, trade unionists are "camarades" as everywhere else in the French-speaking world. Sometimes in the FTQ (a CLC/CTC affiliate) one still hears confrère/consoeur, a translation of the English-speaking North American "Brother" and "Sister". "Camarade" has the benefit of being identical for men and women.

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Hitler's title was yet another example of how fascists appropriated seemingly "leftist" rhethoric.

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But "Kampf" figures strongly in the writings of Nietszche, also. The most martial parts of Nietszche were distributed to all German soliders at the front during the First World War, and Hitler would have received his copy in that way, if he had no knowledge of Nietszche previously.

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Originally posted by lagatta:

By the way, it is "Mein Kampf" - and all German nouns take capital letters. Kampf can refer to much more pleasant concepts from our standpoint - Klassenkampf means class struggle. Hitler's title was yet another example of how fascists appropriated seemingly "leftist" rhethoric.

No Marxist, whether a revolutionary or a post-Stalin soviet hack, would ever say "history is bunk" (though the latter might well think it). It would be like the Pope declaring the non-existence of God.

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Yes, the de-industrialization of America has left wastelands of rot and decay accross the country. Detroit was once the most industrialized city in the world. Now, there are blocks and blocks of run down housing just a few miles from the Renaissance building. The cops there have been accused of racism in the past. What a shithole Detroit has become.

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Originally posted by Bacchus:
Ahh I love it when Im right (it happens so rarely )

A short history of the liberation of it! It was the name of the commandant that clinched it -Josef Kramer

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On April 18, 1945, the burial of the dead began. The staff members, who were now prisoners of the British, were ordered to do the work of burying the bodies. The British deliberately forced the SS staff to use only their bare hands to handle the corpses of prisoners who had died of contagious diseases. In the documentary film which was shown in the newsreels in theaters around the world, a British officer said that the Germans were being punished by not allowing them to use gloves to handle the bodies. According to Eberhard Kolb, 20 out of the 80 guards, who were forced to handle diseased bodies without wearing protective gear, died later and the majority of the deaths were from typhus.

But I also wonder if the same poll was done in Canada -- using whatever camp we want to -- how much better the results would be.

Lack of knowledge about Auschwitz in Britan does not necessarily indicate a lack of knowledge about the general details of the Holocaust, it indicates a lack of detailed knowledge about Auschwitz.

There are other things that make the European psyche about Nazi march through Europe different. For instance Russians are more likely to think about Stalingrad because they, like Jews, have a personal relationship to WW2, that includes a huge number of dead -- 20,000,000. The British remember the Blitz. Non-Jewish Germans had direct experience of the fire bombing of Dresden as well as the knowledge that they were the primary agents of the Holocaust. The Japanese have Hiroshima.

One thing that really makes the North American psyche different in regards to the memory of WW2 is that the war did not actually happen here, so there is more room in the national memory for the stories of other people.

My mother, who lived in England, tells the story of the Lancaster bomber that crashed near her house. Here, all of the stories are more indirect in that they come either from the media or from the stories of soldiers who fought it, there was no 900 day siege of New York City, the way there was a 900 day siege of Leningrad, for grannies to talk about.

I think it makes a difference. North Americans, don't have the same kinds of direct mental images of the horror of the war to competing with the sailent feature that has become so symbolic of WW2 and the Holocaust here, that being Auschwitz.

I think actually the Europeans probably have a much broader sense of the conflict than people here, where it has been boiled down to a few essential features; in Canada Dieppe, and the shooting of a mere 150 Canadians at D-Day by the SS, while in the US it is Pearl Harbour, D-Day and the bombing of Hiroshima.

For both Canadians and Americans Auschwitz has had the room within the cultural psyche to become the symbol of evil that justifies the war. On the other hand for Europeans it is the Wermacht coming into town, soon followed by the SS, and the summary execution of the mayor and the town council in front of the assembled villagers, and the local Jews marched off to who knows where, thing like that, that make up the psychological justification for fighting the Nazis.

Somtimes, I believe that it is this personal relationship to WW2 that Europeans have that makes them far less keen than Americans to send the boys of to places like Iraq.

[ 05 December 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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But "Kampf" figures strongly in the writings of Nietszche, also. The most martial parts of Nietszche were distributed to all German soliders at the front during the First World War, and Hitler would have received his copy in that way, if he had no knowledge of Nietszche previously.

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I dunno, but I think that sitting in a trench, being shelled day after day, would have given German soldiers a pretty good idea of what "Kampf" was all about.

Cueball's analysis of various countries' versions of the war seems reasonable to me. For example, the only thing my mother-in-law, who grew up in occupied France, says about the war is that the Germans took away everyone's bicycles.

[ 05 December 2004: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

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Lack of knowledge about Auschwitz in Britan does not necessarily indicate a lack of knowledge about the general details of the Holocaust, it indicates a lack of detailed knowledge about Auschwitz.

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Bingo. Most leftists I know(hell, most decent people I know) are aware of and appalled by the extermination of the American indians, even though they might not be able to tell you the names of any specific geogrpahical locations where that took place. And most right-wingers I know(again, you could probably extend this to most decent people) are aware of and appalled by Stailn's purges, even though they might not know the names of any specific concentration camps. In neither of these instances do I think that the moral opposition of these people is any less sincere as a result of being uninformed about specifics.

[ 05 December 2004: Message edited by: voice of the damned ]

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