Auschwitz guard admits 'moral guilt'.

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From this mornings BBC news
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32392594

Regards
mark

[htk]

from source

He described his role of counting money confiscated from new arrivals and said he witnessed mass killings, but denied any direct role in the genocide.

so if this guy is guilty of this, then what of

european train drivers who drove their trains to the camps, and delivered their customers (as the victims paid for this journey) to the doorstep of the gaschambers ??

and so on as many persons where involved in this proces.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi htk,

This man, who certainly has moral courage in admitting his role and what he witnessed, was working on a daily basis inside the camp. Train drivers weren't.

Sid

[htk]

In a dutch documentary a former dutch railroad employe who worked as a young kid as a stoker, told that he did a couple of trips to a concentration camp in the east, although they were not allowed to leave the locomotive .. he said they knew nothing good was happening.
So he and his collegues brought the victims to the doorstep of their doom. As the railroad companies were not doing this for free
earnings of dutch railroad: 2.5Mio euro !

So were these railroad workers not also for a small measure to blame as this german guy was only doing bookkeeping ??

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi htk,

"Nothing good was happening" all over the place at the time, but there are various degrees of "nothing good" and various degrees of personal responsibility for it.

Being a front line guard pushing innocents towards gas chambers knowing they were imminently going to die is far more "hands on" than counting the money those guards have taken off the victims. In turn, counting this money on a daily basis in the full knowledge of its provenance is far more "hands on" than being a fireman on a train that made a couple of rail stops to drop passengers for something that could only be defined as "nothing good".

Cheers,

Sid.

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I have to agree sid, I have been following the case and it has emerged now through his own words that, he not only counted money but that he worked on a shift system with other guards and had to man the ramp as the rota required for arriving prisoners, and was aware of their impending faith..

Mark

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/aus ... ar-AAbAacG

[michael mills]

This man, who certainly has moral courage in admitting his role and what he witnessed, was working on a daily basis inside the camp. Train drivers weren't.

There were civilian employees who worked inside the Auschwitz camp on a daily basis, performing all the various logistical tasks required in a large population centre. They clocked on in the morning and clocked off at the end of the working day, returning to their homes for the night.

There was even an occasion when the civilian employees went on strike, in protest at not being allowed to leave the camp when a quarantine barrier was imposed during a typhus outbreak.

I do not know whether any of the former civilian employees are still living, or whether any have been prosecuted for assisting the Auschwitz camp to perform its functions, or whether any such prosecutions are planned.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32493010

Regards
mark

[michael mills]

There would appear to be only the most tenuous of connections between the life of this woman and Groening's activities at Auschwitz.

It seems that the German judicial authorities are really scraping the bottom of the barrel for "victims".

From this woman's statement:

His family came from the village of Vaja in north-eastern Hungary. They ran a large agricultural operation based primarily on the production of tobacco and the distilling of grain alcohol for export. My father and his two younger brothers, Ferenc and Pal, grew up to take over this family business.

One wonders how many deaths were caused by the products of this family business.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Michael,

She, herself, makes no exaggerated claims for her own victimhood:

"The loss of my parents' loved ones, in particular the six-year-old half-sister Eva Edit I never knew, left me with a burden of inherited survivor guilt that has been a defining feature of my life. It informed my choice of life partner and the trajectory of my professional endeavours.
Still, to address this court in the form of a victim impact statement, feels uncomfortably disproportionate.
If I am at all a victim, it is largely in a titular sense. The effects of the Holocaust on my life cannot be put on a par with how it changed my parents and all those who suffered its ravages. The loss to me of Eva Edit Weinberger is as nothing set against the devastation her death wrought on our father."

However, there is an entirely reasonable explanation as to why, in your delicate and sensitive phrase, "German judicial authorities are really scraping the bottom of the barrel for "victims"." Firstly, most of the direct victims would appear to have been killed at the time. Secondly, most of the survivors will have died of old age since.

So, all things considered, her self deprecating presence does not seem at all inappropriate.

Cheers,

Sid.

[michael mills]

If this woman is not really a victim, then why is she making a victim impact statement?

If all the surviving victims have died of old age, then logically there can be no victim impact statements.

Obviously the German judicial authorities want to have co-accusers making victim impact statements, since that makes the trial more sensational and looks good in the media.

That is why, as I wrote, in my opinion accurately, that those authorities are scraping the bottom of the barrel, both for persons to put on trial and persons to make victim impact statements.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Michael,

Firstly, as there may be scum at the bottom of any barrel, I can see no objection in principle to scraping it to find out.

Secondly, even if all the direct victims are dead, this does not necessarily invalidate evidence about the impact on them. Close relatives might not only have valid evidence in this respect to contribute, but might have suffered secondarily themselves.

That appears to be where this woman comes in. It is a mistake to concentrate on her self deprecation about her own victimhood, if such it be, when the real issue is what befell her family.

Indeed, the problem is knowing where the victimhood impact stops. Doubtless there were some Palestinians who have suffered recently at the hands of an Israeli Defence Force hardened by the inherited legacy of the so-called "Holocaust".

Who was it (Shakespeare?) who wrote that, "The evil that men do lives after them"? There will be victims of the "Holocaust" long after the last contributory perpetrator of it has passed.

Cheers,

Sid.

[michael mills]

Sid, I think you will find the scum at the top of the barrel, floating on the surface of the contents.

At the bottom of the barrel you will find the dregs.

On a more serious note, I think it would be entirely appropriate for this woman to write a book about the persecution of her family members during the Second World War by both Hungarian and German authorities, and how it has affected her own life..

But what is at issue here is a judicial proceeding concerning the wartime actions of a particular individual, not an academic exercise. That being so, a "victim" can only be a person who was directly affected by the actions of that individual, and a genuine victim impact statement can only relate to those actions.

In this case, there is no demonstrable connection between any known action by the accused and anything this woman may have suffered as a result of the fate of her family. It is that lack of connection that reveals the "show trial" nature of this particular proceeding.

An impartial and non-political prosecution of Groening would have to relate to an illegal act that he himself committed; in his case that could reasonably be the receipt of stolen goods.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Michael,

I think one will find the scum at the top of a full barrel, but the bottom of an empty one. In this analogy, I thought the barrel was presumed to be all but empty. But, as you rightly say, on to more serious stuff.....

The thing about a court is that it weights evidence according to its significance. The court is free to give no weight to her evidence whatsoever, if it so wishes.

It is rather difficult to contend that this is purely a "show trial", when the accused himself has said the following: "I ask for forgiveness. I share morally in the guilt but whether I am guilty under criminal law, you will have to decide."

As a matter of interest, in your opinion, would it still have been a "show trial" if he was found not guilty under criminal law? Is it the mere bringing of such a trial or the result that makes it a "show trial"?

Cheers,

Sid.