Sometimes as people die off, a new generation forgets the peril and plight that once existed. And in doing so, often allows history to repeat itself.
That is why a trial taking place right now deserves a lot more attention than it is getting.
Oskar Groening is being tried on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder, related to a period between May and July 1944 when around 425,000 Jews from Hungary were brought to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in Nazi-occupied Poland and most immediately gassed to death...
The UK DAILY MAIL describes a portion of testimony,
'The capacity of the gas chambers and the capacity of the crematoria were quite limited. Someone said that 5,000 people were processed in 24 hours but I didn't verify this. I didn't know,' he said. 'For the sake of order we waited until train 1 was entirely processed and finished.'
Auschwitz survivors describe their arrival as chaotic, with Nazi guards yelling orders, dogs barking and families being ripped apart.
But Groening, 93, maintained the opposite, saying 'it was very orderly and not as strenuous' on the ramp at Birkenau.
'The process was the same as Auschwitz I. The only difference was that there were no trucks,' he said during the second day of his trial. 'They all walked - some in one direction some, in another direction... to where the crematoria and gas chambers were.'
And more:
Eva Kor, 81, was one of the Jews who arrived at Auschwitz in 1944. Though she doesn't remember Groening personally, she said she can't forget the scene.
'Everything was going very fast. Yelling, crying, pushing; even dogs were barking. I had never experienced anything that fast or that crazy in my entire life,' she told The Associated Press before addressing the court.
Her two older sisters and parents were taken directly to the gas chambers, while she and her twin sister, both 10 at the time, were ripped away from their mother to be used as human guinea pigs for notorious Dr. Josef Mengele's experiments.
'All I remember is her arms stretched out in despair as she was pulled away,' Kor remembered. 'I never even got to say goodbye.'
There are a number of things going through my mind when I read these details--and perhaps you have the same thoughts. Thoughts about how horrid humans can be to one another.. I have thoughts about how both the greatest generation and the victims of the Holocaust are leaving this planet--and leaving before the newest generation has the ability to learn about the struggle against evil they were involved with.. and thoughts about how the same hate exists today, how Neo-Nazi groups are rising again, and how groups like ISIS are being permitted by the world to behead and trample on children as they make advances in various nations.
Can you picture being loaded into a train? Being torn away from your family.. the ultimate horror of men filled with disregard to humanity stealing your faith and family, trampling on your dignity, and spitting on your grave.. That is what the Nazis did. That is what Oskar Groening did. And that is what a despots and tyrranical dictators of today are continuing to do.
We have learned nothing from history.
We constantly claim we do, and swear to never repeat them.
But we will.
Sadly as these last vestiges walking the planet who saw the ultimate evil begin to find their new life as a soul beyond our realm, I fear their stories will be lost to history.. I pray they are not. But I fear they will be.
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