Faced with Human Darkness, I get Lost

[Loyal]

I felt this way in an undergrad research class, while studying what happened after Hitler died in Germany to end WW2 (pretty much). My paper was close to 30 pages of writing about the darkness I saw. Everyone knew about the holocaust, which was as evil as it gets. In Salweezal, a Jewish girl overheard some complaining about supposed Jewish holocaust survivors getting the best of everything (chocolates, premium housing) while they got nothing but a barn and straw to sleep on... She spoke up about them screwing German soldiers while her relatives were being gassed and burned in ovens. They killed her and a bespectacled professor that tried to protect her, throwing their bodies with others who had died under the Germans. Americans shot down Nazi guards at Dachau after capture. They probably deserved to die after what the Americans saw in the concentration camp, but even so,.it was a violation of who we were supposed to be as Americans. Displaced persons, by the millions in Germany exacted vengeance on German civilians, so much so that American soldiers forced the DP's into their former concentration camps, now under American guards, to stop the violence. FDR and by extension General Dwight D. Eisenhower told mostly white collar workers to grow their own food after the war, because the Allies would not feed them. They didn't know how to farm, and real farmers were getting strafed by American war planes as they tried to tend the fields. Plus, the British and American zones had most of the populations and the Russians had most of the farm land, which they would not share. In cities like Berlin, the ration levels for civilians was at the level of concentration camps (less than a 900 calories a day). Russians raped German women under their control until 1950...as many as 300,000, maybe more..MULTIPLE times. American GI's used their rations of cigarettes and chocolate to extract "favors" from German women, who were desperate for food. American GI's sent something like 3 times their base salary home, because of the black market, after the war.

I feel too much about the darkness I study. I was depressed for weeks after writing the paper, but I didn't tell my wife. I love what I do, but I am glad that I decided to change from post WW2 studies to late 19th century American transformation to the modern world. I don't know if I could survive the darkness again...

 

[Riverumbbq]

The entire history of mankind has always been full of long dark episodes, ... Evil has always been a big part of the human condition, it's no wonder half the population is either on anti-depressants or opioids, or that the suicide rate among young people is so high.

Edit: political opinion removed by mod.

 

[Loyal]

The entire history of mankind has always been full of long dark episodes, ... Evil has always been a big part of the human condition, it's no wonder half the population is either on anti-depressants or opioids, or that the suicide rate among young people is so high.

I wasn't trying to examine recent history. But we can't compare what is happening now with what happened in Nazi Germany, or in areas controlled by the Third Reich. Yes, they separated women and children at concentration camps, but one part went into hermetically sealed shower areas and were killed with Zyklon B gas. The other were more slowly killed as they worked to death without enough food.

 

[Memento]

Let's not do politics, please?

As for the darkness in humanity, I've seen it, been a part of it. We're a flawed species. The best we can do is to try to do the right thing for the right reasons.

 

[Riverumbbq]

I wasn't trying to examine recent history. But we can't compare what is happening now with what happened in Nazi Germany, or in areas controlled by the Third Reich. Yes, they separated women and children at concentration camps, but one part went into hermetically sealed shower areas and were killed with Zyklon B gas. The other were more slowly killed as they worked to death without enough food. Today's policy was set by the Obama administration, but I'd rather not get into that..

The history of WW2, brought up by you by the way, is fairly recent history. It may be easier for some to relate to abuses 70 - 80 years ago as opposed to biblical history. Even Nazi Germany had to start somewhere before the worst of the catastrophes occurred, and many have speculated similarities between early 1930 German politics to more recent incidents around the world.
Why you chose to invoke Obama's name into a much newer "zero tolerance" policy of mass incarceration of children which is only months old is beyond me, but after falsely affixing blame, then you go on to say you don't want to talk about it. While I didn't name names, you threw the rock thru the window and then apply the rules in a manner that allows you to walk away. My aim was to speak to human darkness, a subject you chose to lead with.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-border/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b3aaef2afd70

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-administration-policy-separating-children-border-cbp-dhs-2018-6

https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...p-separate-separating-children-policy/563027/

http://www.politifact.com/punditfac...ald-trumps-separation-immigrant-families-was/

 

[Farr Be It]

@LoyalRam Thanks for sharing your story. You really poured your heart out. I'm sorry some choose to want to attach false information about current events to distract from the point you were making. What you said is true.

Just seeing close renditions of WWII like Saving Private Ryan remind us of the inhumanity of war. We all need to love each other and pray for peace, thank God for this great and compassionate country, and hope that corrupt countries close to us choose paths of freedom and opportunity.

 

[Loyal]

The history of WW2, brought up by you by the way, is fairly recent history. It may be easier for some to relate to abuses 70 - 80 years ago as opposed to biblical history. Even Nazi Germany had to start somewhere before the worst of the catastrophes occurred, and many have speculated similarities between early 1930 German politics to more recent incidents around the world.
Why you chose to invoke Obama's name into a much newer "zero tolerance" policy of mass incarceration of children which is only months old is beyond me, but after falsely affixing blame, then you go on to say you don't want to talk about it. While I didn't name names, you threw the rock thru the window and then apply the rules in a manner that allows you to walk away. My aim was to speak to human darkness, a subject you chose to lead with.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-border/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b3aaef2afd70

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-administration-policy-separating-children-border-cbp-dhs-2018-6

https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...p-separate-separating-children-policy/563027/

http://www.politifact.com/punditfac...ald-trumps-separation-immigrant-families-was/

Those who lived through and participated in WW2 are mostly gone now. When I was young, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was front page news because the story was important to many still alive, and now you are lucky see anything about it in the first 7 pages of a newspaper on the anniversary. So although it is fairly recent as you say, the context is far enough away where ignorant people compare what's happening now to Nazi Germany. Many disagree with your point of view about what constitutes "darkness" in regard to the border situation, which I chose not to ignore. For that and only that, I apologize.

 

[Loyal]

THE OP wasn't meant to be political. I will not be responding anymore to present day events, myself.

 

[fearsomefour]

This is human nature sadly.
That does not change.
We live in a society where for the most part we are immune to daily life and death struggle.
That could all change quickly and whenever it does the self survival instinct is strong.
One should read some Jung....the facade and the shadow self. We all carry our shadow, the mark of Cain or whatever you choose to call it.
People that think they are above it are lying to themselves in a major way.
In the right circumstance driven by the right level of fear, pain, hunger, hatred....every single one of us is capable of being the perpetrator of terrible things.
To avoid justification of bad behavior I think one has to come to terms with their shadow self.....to acknowledge the terrible things they are capabale of.
Self awareness is key to many things. Self awareness is sorely lacking in our society now. In fact to not be self aware is what is being taught in the brainwashing halls of academia now.
Know thyself....the good and the dark, and you will find some level of peace.

 

[RamFan503]

Seriously @Riverumbbq ? You have to turn this sideways to shit out some political agenda?

Locked. But thanks for making me do that.

 

[RamFan503]

Update. I forgot I had a different route I could take. I banned that member from participating in this thread and then re-opened it.

I'd rather not have to do this again so take this as fair warning that anyone trying to take this thread down some political path will find themselves on the end of a "time out".

 

[IowaRam]

I felt this way in an undergrad research class, while studying what happened after Hitler died in Germany to end WW2 (pretty much). My paper was close to 30 pages of writing about the darkness I saw. Everyone knew about the holocaust, which was as evil as it gets. In Salweezal, a Jewish girl overheard some complaining about supposed Jewish holocaust survivors getting the best of everything (chocolates, premium housing) while they got nothing but a barn and straw to sleep on... She spoke up about them screwing German soldiers while her relatives were being gassed and burned in ovens. They killed her and a bespectacled professor that tried to protect her, throwing their bodies with others who had died under the Germans. Americans shot down Nazi guards at Dachau after capture. They probably deserved to die after what the Americans saw in the concentration camp, but even so,.it was a violation of who we were supposed to be as Americans. Displaced persons, by the millions in Germany exacted vengeance on German civilians, so much so that American soldiers forced the DP's into their former concentration camps, now under American guards, to stop the violence. FDR and by extension General Dwight D. Eisenhower told mostly white collar workers to grow their own food after the war, because the Allies would not feed them. They didn't know how to farm, and real farmers were getting strafed by American war planes as they tried to tend the fields. Plus, the British and American zones had most of the populations and the Russians had most of the farm land, which they would not share. In cities like Berlin, the ration levels for civilians was at the level of concentration camps (less than a 900 calories a day). Russians raped German women under their control until 1950...as many as 300,000, maybe more..MULTIPLE times. American GI's used their rations of cigarettes and chocolate to extract "favors" from German women, who were desperate for food. American GI's sent something like 3 times their base salary home, because of the black market, after the war.

I feel too much about the darkness I study. I was depressed for weeks after writing the paper, but I didn't tell my wife. I love what I do, but I am glad that I decided to change from post WW2 studies to late 19th century American transformation to the modern world. I don't know if I could survive the darkness again...

There has always been several historical era's that have fascinated me

The Dakota / Nebraska homesteaders of the 1860's -1880's , when a lot of people think of that era , think of cowboys and Indians , but it was the simple homesteaders that interested me the most , throw everything you own in the back of a wooden wagon and head out to the middle of the Dakota territory , where there is nothing , not a creek , not a tree , nothing , just to build a shelter out of dirk clumps you broke up with your one bottom plow , blazing hot summer , sub zero winters , no towns or medical facilities within a two day ride , what few neighbors you might of had probably even had less then you did , most never made it and packed it in with in two years , the few who did lead some pretty solitary lives

The other era that has always interested me was that Depression era / Gangsters / Prohibition / the Dust Bowl , The Waltons , basically that Bonnie and Clyde era , a lot of stuff was happening in the 1930's

 

[Loyal]

This document was found in the Eisenhower Presidential Library. I transcribed it because it affects me strongly, that no one knows about the incident when a christian democrat Bruno Sieg, faced German POW's who were being processed.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
MEMORANDUM

MII TEAM 440 – G

18 JUNE 1945

SUBJECT: Speech to German PWs by former BUCHENWALD inmate

TO: A.C. of S.,G-2, 5th Armored Division


This afternoon I organized a meeting in the Discharge Center in this town of as many Pws as would fill the hall to hear Mr. BRUNO SIEG, former Social-Democrat of DANZIG, who spent four years of hell in BUCHENWALD and other concentration camps.

In introducing the man, I said: “It seems to us that a great many of you do not believe the stories of concentration camps which were uncovered by our armies. I am therefore introducing to you your friend Bruno Sieg, who is from Danzig, and who spent four years in those camps. He was incredibly lucky to be here to-day and got a new chance to live. Many thousands of his - and our – comrades did not survive this ordeal, and they cannot be with you now.

“The whole German people existed during the past twelve years under this “New Order” of Hitlerism. Your lives for those years were based on murder and brutality of a kind never imagined before. You could not have lived the way you did without this murder and without those camps – that is the fact that makes you all equally guilty, though you may never have killed a man yourselves.”

Bruno Sieg then read his piece from notes that sounded most genuine because it was obviously the language of a simple workman. He illustrated the different tortures he described by gestures, and ended his half-hour speech by saying: “There are probably those among you, who still don’t believe what I said. Well, I’ll tell you ; You bastards are just as guilty for this war as Himmler himself.”

After he finished I just said: “I don’t think there is anything else to say. You can go.” And the audience, about 400 strong, left as silently as they had stood throughout the meeting. The moment the crowd was beginning to dissolve, there was an undertone of murmurs and discussions, and around 20 to 30 PWs crowded around Sieg to talk to him personally.

The PW’s “forman,” German Captain SCHMIDT, was forced by me to sit on the rostrum while Bruno Sieg was introduced. He obviously hated it, and squirmed like a worm on a hook…..



Peter J. Blake

2nd Lt. NIS

*Eisenhower Presidential Library Stamp

 

[Loyal]

Yeah, stay classy 1945 Mississippi..

 

[VegasRam]

There has always been several historical era's that have fascinated me

The other era that has always interested me was that Depression era / Gangsters / Prohibition / the Dust Bowl , The Waltons , basically that Bonnie and Clyde era , a lot of stuff was happening in the 1930's

Knew about it of course, but happened to watch a 3 hour presentation on PBS last year - absolutely unbelievable.

also,have taken dozens of motorcycle rides to Arizona, and a few miles south of the dam there's an overlook that we always stop at, where you can see this huge valley, for miles and miles in every direction, and every time I imagine pioneers crossing it in these tiny covered wagons. We have some amazing ancestors.

 

[IowaRam]

Knew about it of course, but happened to watch a 3 hour presentation on PBS last year - absolutely unbelievable.

also,have taken dozens of motorcycle rides to Arizona, and a few miles south of the dam there's an overlook that we always stop at, where you can see this huge valley, for miles and miles in every direction, and every time I imagine pioneers crossing it in these tiny covered wagons. We have some amazing ancestors.

Yeah , they said that kids would get caught out in the middle of no where walking home from school and would have to seek shelter in low lying ditches till it passed and these dust storms would create so much static electricity that if touched anyone or anything you would get a pretty good zap

 

[IowaRam]

I felt this way in an undergrad research class, while studying what happened after Hitler died in Germany to end WW2 (pretty much). My paper was close to 30 pages of writing about the darkness I saw. Everyone knew about the holocaust, which was as evil as it gets. In Salweezal, a Jewish girl overheard some complaining about supposed Jewish holocaust survivors getting the best of everything (chocolates, premium housing) while they got nothing but a barn and straw to sleep on... She spoke up about them screwing German soldiers while her relatives were being gassed and burned in ovens. They killed her and a bespectacled professor that tried to protect her, throwing their bodies with others who had died under the Germans. Americans shot down Nazi guards at Dachau after capture. They probably deserved to die after what the Americans saw in the concentration camp, but even so,.it was a violation of who we were supposed to be as Americans. Displaced persons, by the millions in Germany exacted vengeance on German civilians, so much so that American soldiers forced the DP's into their former concentration camps, now under American guards, to stop the violence. FDR and by extension General Dwight D. Eisenhower told mostly white collar workers to grow their own food after the war, because the Allies would not feed them. They didn't know how to farm, and real farmers were getting strafed by American war planes as they tried to tend the fields. Plus, the British and American zones had most of the populations and the Russians had most of the farm land, which they would not share. In cities like Berlin, the ration levels for civilians was at the level of concentration camps (less than a 900 calories a day). Russians raped German women under their control until 1950...as many as 300,000, maybe more..MULTIPLE times. American GI's used their rations of cigarettes and chocolate to extract "favors" from German women, who were desperate for food. American GI's sent something like 3 times their base salary home, because of the black market, after the war.

I feel too much about the darkness I study. I was depressed for weeks after writing the paper, but I didn't tell my wife. I love what I do, but I am glad that I decided to change from post WW2 studies to late 19th century American transformation to the modern world. I don't know if I could survive the darkness again...

Ever been to Germany ?

 

[Loyal]

Ever been to Germany ?

Yes and No...I flew into Frankfurt, but didn't leave the airport because of the pain in the @ss process of customs, and I was heading to the Republic of Georgia...

 

[Loyal]

Ever been to Germany ?

But I have taken German I & II in College a couple of years ago and the instructor was from Germany..