70 years ago, the liberation of Auschwitz!

[marylander1940]

70 years ago, the liberation of Auschwitz!

 

[video=youtube;egfRrStj-A0]

[bigvalboy]

Marylander, you have some excellent posts. This is exceptional. Wolf Blitzer is doing a CNN special, "Voices of Auschwitz." Link is below. Thanks again.....

 

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/01/08/cnns-wolf-blitzer-to-host-voices-of-auschwitz-jan-27-at-9pm-et/

[bobchitown]

Not Auschwitz, but after several trips to Munich I finally got the courage to go to Dachau last year. Still chilling. The whole thing sat right alongside a major road. Everyone had to know. I cried.

[Guy Fawkes]

I had the honor of sitting and speaking to one of the survivors. She wore the tattooed number on her arm as a badge of honor. It taught me that bigotry can strike anybody.

[bigvalboy]

As the survivors pass on, I hope the world never forgets.

[+ SimplyAdam]

Thank you for this thread, Marylander.

 

The spring and summer of 2012 I enjoyed the privilege of traveling from Israel and Palestine (including refugee camps) on through Europe, and landed in Krakow, where the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp is now integrated into the city as a place for teenagers to make out and friends to stroll. Walking around the Jewish ghetto in what is now a lovely city couldn't have prepared me for the visit to Auschwitz. Like Bob did in Dachau, I cried. It's surreal, and then overwhelming. And the horror is still energetically accessible. How could this have happened? And then you realize it has happened time and again since, and especially today - though to people who don't resemble "us," or what we think we seem like. People found a way of viewing Jews and queers and Palestinians and "others" as unlike them. Genocide is happening this very moment in various parts of the world. We are all capable of being caught up in it - as bystanders, perpetrators, or victims. It's all an ugly side of our nature. The tendency to see one another as separate from ourselves, then assign value accordingly. I know I struggle with this.

 

When I was in Kyiv a couple months prior, I had attempted to attend the first gay pride parade there. It was canceled last minute, and a handful of would-be attendees and I found ourselves observing a neo-Nazi/Orthodox/Nationalist rally. What is now happening in Ukraine is heartbreaking and alarming.

 

Fear is alive and well. And so is love. Every generation has the opportunity to cultivate love, and put that out there in the best way they can. So here we are.

[bigvalboy]

Thank you for this thread, Marylander.

 

The spring and summer of 2012 I enjoyed the privilege of traveling from Israel and Palestine (including refugee camps) on through Europe, and landed in Krakow, where the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp is now integrated into the city as a place for teenagers to make out and friends to stroll. Walking around the Jewish ghetto in what is now a lovely city couldn't have prepared me for the visit to Auschwitz. Like Bob did in Dachau, I cried. It's surreal, and then overwhelming. And the horror is still energetically accessible. How could this have happened? And then you realize it has happened time and again since, and especially today - though to people who don't resemble "us," or what we think we seem like. People found a way of viewing Jews and queers and Palestinians and "others" as unlike them. Genocide is happening this very moment in various parts of the world. We are all capable of being caught up in it - as bystanders, perpetrators, or victims. It's all an ugly side of our nature. The tendency to see one another as separate from ourselves, then assign value accordingly. I know I struggle with this.

 

When I was in Kyiv a couple months prior, I had attempted to attend the first gay pride parade there. It was canceled last minute, and a handful of would-be attendees and I found ourselves observing a neo-Nazi/Orthodox/Nationalist rally. What is now happening in Ukraine is heartbreaking and alarming.

 

Fear is alive and well. And so is love. Every generation has the opportunity to cultivate love, and put that out there in the best way they can. So here we are.

 

Well said.....

 

AND worth mentioning is your site and blog, both very impressive. Good luck to you.

[+ SimplyAdam]

Thanks, Bigvalboy!

 

I read this observation by Anne Lamott this morning, and believe it befits this thread: “The world is always going to be dangerous, and people get badly banged up, but how can there be more meaning than helping one another stand up in a wind and stay warm?”

 

Surely, it's in the remembering and dreaming and connecting that gives life so much meaning.

[marylander1940]

...When I was in Kyiv a couple months prior, I had attempted to attend the first gay pride parade there. It was canceled last minute, and a handful of would-be attendees and I found ourselves observing a neo-Nazi/Orthodox/Nationalist rally. What is now happening in Ukraine is heartbreaking and alarming....QUOTE]

 

They and us are the most powerful words in a dictionary.

 

is not for me to quote Ayn Rand, yet I'll do it for the 2nd time since joining this forum.

 

[video=youtube;MdeI9NfbfT8]

[bigvalboy]

They and us are the most powerful words in a dictionary.

 

is not for me to quote Ayn Rand, yet I'll do it for the 2nd time since joining this forum.

 

[video=youtube;MdeI9NfbfT8]

 

I find myself thanking you a lot lately Marylander, and this morning is no exception. While I have not always agreed with the philosophizing of Ayn Rand, there is no disputing that she has a brilliant mind. The video was positively enlightening, as was the related video with Phil Donahue. For myself at least, digesting her work is not always easy and it often takes several reads, but worth every minute of time. I saw several videos that I want to watch later on today.

 

So again I thank you...

[+ WilliamM]

 

When I was in Kyiv a couple months prior, I had attempted to attend the first gay pride parade there. It was canceled last minute, and a handful of would-be attendees and I found ourselves observing a neo-Nazi/Orthodox/Nationalist rally. What is now happening in Ukraine is heartbreaking and alarming.

 

 

As you know, there is a new government in Kyiv now, somewhat more pro-western, following the Maidan revolution of a year ago. I am not sure that what happened to you in 2012 would occur today. I am encouraged by the patriotism of the volunteer militias that are doing most of the fighting against the Russian-supported separatists in and around Donetsk (in the Donbas area of Ukraine).

 

But Kyik badly needs military supplies from the U.S. and the EU countries after the events of the last 20 days (loss of the Donetsk airport). Kyik has lost the support of my members of the militias because corruption is still a huge problem, and the Ukrainian army, which does not include the militias, is at best second-rate. To your point about 2012 gay pride parade, let's hope the people of Kyiv are more open minded today.

[marylander1940]

I find myself thanking you a lot lately Marylander, and this morning is no exception. While I have not always agreed with the philosophizing of Ayn Rand, there is no disputing that she has a brilliant mind. The video was positively enlightening, as was the related video with Phil Donahue. For myself at least, digesting her work is not always easy and it often takes several reads, but worth every minute of time. I saw several videos that I want to watch later on today.

 

So again I thank you...

 

 

Yes, she was very individualistic and too extreme in her credo but she did give us a new way to see the world.

 

[video=youtube;L4qtksKbWtc]