Sunday, February 5, 2012

What happened the Jews can never be forgotten

This evening The Günther Jauch programme on German ARD television screend a round table discussion on German attitudes towards the Jews.

Included on the panel was Anita Lasker Wallfish, who as a child inmate in Auschwitz played the cello for Mengele. Another panelist was actor Christian Berkel, who played an SS doctor in 'Downfall'.

All the panelists were the children of victims of the Nazis.

The discussion highlighted attitudes today towards Jews and they all agreed that it must never be forgotten what was done. They also stressed that it is so dangerous to categorise Jews as if they were all in the 'one pot' (Bad English). They pointed out that we are all humans and how dangerous it is to talk about Jews, Christians, Germans.

Within the last few months an Irish priest speaking at Mass, referring to the child abuse scandal in Ireland, commented that a member of the Irish Government is an atheist and another member of the Cabinet is a non-practising Jew.

An appalling comment.

Fortunately, the priest's Order immediatlely appologised for his comments. And then some months later the priest is 'promoted' within his Order.

What to do?

It seems the institutional church is almost incapable of speaking in a clear and unambiguous way. That is of course if the subject matter is not sexual behaviour.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

One sometimes gets the impression, given how Israel treats the Palestinian people, that many Jews have themselves forgotten.

Michael Commane said...

But as Anita Lasker Wallfish pointed out it makes no sense at all to talk about Israel.

And also, so many of the Nazis, especially in the early stages, played that horrible game of anonymity.

It is sadly another of the many nasty tools of right wing Catholic priests.

Michael said...

I agree with anonymous. Visiting Israel I was appalled at how Arabs are treated.

Michael Commane said...

Whatever the Israeli Government has done or not done has nothing at all to do with the Holocaust and it is wrong and dangerous to confuse these issues.

Michael said...

That is mostly true. The Israeli government however frequently invokes the Holocaust itself. What happened in the Holocaust is a horror the world must never forget. What is happening to the Palestinians today is a horrror the world must address.

Michael Commane said...

The Holocaust has nothing at all to do with the Israeli government.
Can something be 'mostly true'?
This blogger is particularly disturbed with what the Irish priest said in a church about a member of the Irish cabinet. that man has now been 'promoted' after an earlier apology about his comments.
But in the scheme of things, much nonsense is 'preached' in churches. Check out a sermon in St Saviour's Dublin on the feast of St Thomas.

Michael Commane said...

Anyone who has read 'Fate and Time' by Vasily Grossman will have it etched on their minds what Jews sufferedn under German rule.

Grossman was a journalist, who wrote for the Red Star newspaper. He covered World War 11 for the Soviet Army newspaper at Leningrad and on the Volga.

He is a Ukranian Jew, a Communist, who later became disenchanted with the Soviet regime.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. Neo Nazis held a demonstration in the eastern German city.

Michael Commane said...
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Michael Commane said...
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Michael Commane said...
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Michael Commane said...
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Michael Commane said...

An eye-witness account of what Germans did to Ukrainian Jews: "She would never have thought that blood could be so strikingly red. When there was a momentary silence amid the shooting, screaming and groaning, she heard the murmur of flowing blood; it was like a stream, flowing over white bodies instead of white stones."

Those bodies were the bodies of Jews.

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