Nazi woman brought to justice

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Gorque
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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#16

Post by Gorque » 25 Mar 2016, 19:19

Mary Jane wrote:"I was just a telegraphist/just a secretary/just a nurse."... Well if it weren't for everybody who has just been something like this, the Holocaust would not be possible, and all I try to convey is this understanding. Here I don't think the case is "justice" now. It's long gone, too late, it doesn't matter for people who are long dead or in their 90s now. The understanding matters...
So how far down the line do we go? Were railway officials/workers complicit as well? Afterall, they knew of the contents of the trains, their destinations and the fate that awaited the occupants of the trains. How about the companies and their employees that supplied the camps with various sundries, wholesome or poisonous? Or does it only end at the camp's boundaries? It took a large number of people, within and without, to keep a camp functioning. Were they all complicit? Slippery slope.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#17

Post by Sejanus » 25 Mar 2016, 20:54

Mary Jane wrote:
Sejanus wrote:
Mary Jane wrote:It would not be possible without all the clerical staff, secretaries, and yes, telegraphists too. Especially them.
:welcome:

Especially telegraphists? I would think especially the leadership and those directly involved in the killings instead. But the pickings are getting slim. Not many of them are left so the criteria to prosecute has been expanded into this "complicity" or "accessory" legal theory, allowing for those very minor functionaries to be included in such criminal charging decisions. While I may be mistaken, it seems more politically driven now as opposed to a true quest for "justice." Otherwise why wait so long? Not even Simon Wiesenthal bothered with people like this woman.

On the other hand, my understanding is that SS-Helferinnen (as I believe this woman was) were all volunteers. We don't know what aggravating or mitigating circumstances there might have been in her life that led her to a place like Auschwitz, other than her (likely) volunteering to work there. Volunteering to work in a place like Auschwitz is reprehensible, based on what we know now (what did she know of the camp's function?). But whether this justifies such a prosecution in her case, I am unsure. I would like to know more about her case.
Thank you for your comment Sejanus.

In my original post, what "them" exactly refers to is clear.

I also made it clear (in my reply to @Gorque) that I don't believe in "prosecution" now. What I believe is a true understanding of what has happened, how and why. It's impossible to disagree that "the leadership and those directly involved in the killings" were responsible. We are in disagreement in that I don't think "complicity" or "accessory" is just a legal theory, carrying of no value other than "judging some poor people today due to some political agenda", but these words reflect the fact as to what has happened or the role these people played in it. Exactly what we discuss here then, is the "extent" of this role... It seems very unimportant and mundane, easily dismissable to most people (including the very people who has worked in Auschwitz), and I say, this understanding does not reflect the truth. Without all of these "ordinary workers", the Holocaust could not be implemented. If I am to promote anything, it is this understanding and nothing else.

Everybody involved in Auschwitz knew what they were in for.
I believe your purpose as stated is admirable.

An issue I have though is why now? In other words, why wait all of these decades to pursue such low level of staff with such zeal that had no direct personal involvement in killing?

As I pointed out, not even Simon Wiesenthal bothered with people such as the woman now charged. Why? For if such mere low level people were truly deserving of prosecution because without them the Holocaust could never have happened, then why were they not prosecuted for all this time?

And how does one prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that "Everybody in Auschwitz knew what they were in for?" Evidence is needed of what the woman (actually a very young girl back then) knew at the time and what her specific circumstances were. Just to assert her blanket and automatic guilt as an accessory to murder because she was there without considering anything else at all is a mistake because it judges her in hindsight. Based on what we know now and not whatever she knew or did back then. This is not necessarily a black and white issue in her case.

It would be interesting to see that language of the law(s) that the woman is being charged under. Does anyone here know?


Sejanus
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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#18

Post by Sejanus » 25 Mar 2016, 21:10

Gorque wrote:
Mary Jane wrote:"I was just a telegraphist/just a secretary/just a nurse."... Well if it weren't for everybody who has just been something like this, the Holocaust would not be possible, and all I try to convey is this understanding. Here I don't think the case is "justice" now. It's long gone, too late, it doesn't matter for people who are long dead or in their 90s now. The understanding matters...
So how far down the line do we go? Were railway officials/workers complicit as well? Afterall, they knew of the contents of the trains, their destinations and the fate that awaited the occupants of the trains. How about the companies and their employees that supplied the camps with various sundries, wholesome or poisonous? Or does it only end at the camp's boundaries? It took a large number of people, within and without, to keep a camp functioning. Were they all complicit? Slippery slope.
Good points. To take things a step further, would not every single member of the German armed forces (and their allies) be complicit in the Holocaust as accessories, and thus should be prosecuted for them? For without them and the territories conquered, maintained and defended by them, the persecution of European Jews and others considered undesirable by the Nazis could not have been carried out. And how about everyone that voted for Hitler? Facetious questions? Perhaps but they illustrate the point.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#19

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 25 Mar 2016, 21:42

Gorque wrote:So how far down the line do we go? .
It goes down to whatever deep pocket can be found to suck mpney out of , by such organizations of lawyers of the fraudulent Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against German, a.k.a. the Claims Conference.

It goes so far as to hold "America" responsible for the Holocaust by not doing enough and not fast enough. And that push to scam money out of America gains more traction all the time.

And also profiting off of the Holocaust such as the example a trainload of possessions of poor Hungarian Jews, was pilfered while is was moved and parked at various locations somewhere in 4-5 different countries and under the command of various military commands (Germany, Russia, France , USA) and then remaining clothing and furniture and such ended up being sold in PX's and given away to charities. 25 million stolen right out US citizens pockets , there.

ALSO As, it stand right now, the USA is obligated to rebuild/restore and maintain all Jewish synagogues and graveyards that are , can or will be found, in all Europe going all the way to Russia. Tell me why , because I do not know, nor can there be any legitimate reason.


As to the want of various German officials and agencies to push the prosecutions to such outrageous ends,that is prompted by the same left wing/liberal/communist type thinking that a majority of Germans fought so hard after WWI and into WWII, by forming the NSDAP is the first place :lol:

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#20

Post by Mary Jane » 26 Mar 2016, 16:59

Gorque wrote:
Mary Jane wrote:"I was just a telegraphist/just a secretary/just a nurse."... Well if it weren't for everybody who has just been something like this, the Holocaust would not be possible, and all I try to convey is this understanding. Here I don't think the case is "justice" now. It's long gone, too late, it doesn't matter for people who are long dead or in their 90s now. The understanding matters...
So how far down the line do we go? Were railway officials/workers complicit as well? Afterall, they knew of the contents of the trains, their destinations and the fate that awaited the occupants of the trains. How about the companies and their employees that supplied the camps with various sundries, wholesome or poisonous? Or does it only end at the camp's boundaries? It took a large number of people, within and without, to keep a camp functioning. Were they all complicit? Slippery slope.
They were all responsible. No slippery slope whatsoever.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#21

Post by wm » 26 Mar 2016, 17:40

ChristopherPerrien wrote:ALSO As, it stand right now, the USA is obligated to rebuild/restore and maintain all Jewish synagogues and graveyards that are , can or will be found, in all Europe going all the way to Russia. Tell me why , because I do not know, nor can there be any legitimate reason.
Is this really a fact? I don't see any rush to rebuild anything...

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#22

Post by wm » 26 Mar 2016, 17:51

A story of a young telegraphist, as told by the Polish prisoner and photographer in the Auschwitz photographic identification unit Wilhelm Brasse:
During the shooting sessions for the SS-men, young German girls from the Funkstelle would often also arrive. They worked in Auschwitz for the SS as support staff as telephone operators or as telegraph ‘sparks’ in the local head office. The girls would come after work because – as young girls do – they wanted their pictures taken for posterity.
They were barely twenty and they had uniforms in the same color as the SS uniforms. Their uniforms were made from the same material and they consisted of a jacket and a skirt. All the girls were always well groomed and I fancied them a lot.

One in particular I remember vividly. She came wearing the regulation uniform – jacket and skirt – and asked me to take a really good picture, she explicitly gave me to understand that I had to make a really special effort. She was about 23, blond, pretty and with an elaborate hairstyle. This girl talked to me a little. She wanted the picture sent to her mother and she wanted a shot called a half bust. She showed almost all her bust, she almost exposed her breasts for the photograph.

After a few days, she collected the photograph that she liked very much. And because I really fancied her as a girl, as a woman, so – even though I was a prisoner and she was in uniform – I exchanged a few words with her.

About a couple of weeks later I asked after her of some fellow prisoners who worked near the telephone operators’ room and near the telegraph center. Those offices were in a one-story building just next to the crematorium. On the ground floor there was a hospital for the SS, and upstairs, the telephone operating center. They knew who I meant as soon as I asked. ‘Ah, you mean that pretty one. She is dead.’

It turned out that she had committed suicide. She poisoned herself because she could not put up with the situation in the camp. Every day, from the upstairs window, she could see what was going on around the crematorium.
She saw crowds of people entering the crematorium, masses of Jews, and later nobody would come out again, all you could see was smoke. So she had worked out what was going on there, she couldn't take it and she killed herself. And she was so young and so pretty.
from Maria Anna Potocka Wilhelm Brasse. Fotograf. 3444. Auschwitz 1940 -1945

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Gorque
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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#23

Post by Gorque » 26 Mar 2016, 18:22

Mary Jane wrote:
Gorque wrote:
Mary Jane wrote:"I was just a telegraphist/just a secretary/just a nurse."... Well if it weren't for everybody who has just been something like this, the Holocaust would not be possible, and all I try to convey is this understanding. Here I don't think the case is "justice" now. It's long gone, too late, it doesn't matter for people who are long dead or in their 90s now. The understanding matters...
So how far down the line do we go? Were railway officials/workers complicit as well? Afterall, they knew of the contents of the trains, their destinations and the fate that awaited the occupants of the trains. How about the companies and their employees that supplied the camps with various sundries, wholesome or poisonous? Or does it only end at the camp's boundaries? It took a large number of people, within and without, to keep a camp functioning. Were they all complicit? Slippery slope.
They were all responsible.


Who was all responsible? Everybody listed that I listed above or just those employed/volunteering within the camps?
No slippery slope whatsoever.


I'm glad to read that your outlook on events can be so precisely delineated in black and white.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#24

Post by David Thompson » 27 Mar 2016, 07:35

A political opinion post from history1 was removed pursuant to forum rules. German laws and their enforcement are matters for German voters.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#25

Post by Sejanus » 28 Mar 2016, 03:09

David Thompson wrote:German laws and their enforcement are matters for German voters.
It now appears that the post-war prosecution of alleged or convicted WWII war criminals in Germany is off topic. Is my understanding correct? Please advise.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#26

Post by David Thompson » 28 Mar 2016, 06:31

Sejanus -- You asked:
It now appears that the post-war prosecution of alleged or convicted WWII war criminals in Germany is off topic. Is my understanding correct?
No.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#27

Post by Jason24 » 28 Mar 2016, 23:35

Gorque wrote:So would you also refer to any of the many non-German non-party natives that worked in a German camp outside of Germany proper a Nazi as well?
I think that it is similar , in the vernacular , to refer to them as Nazis , as it is to refer to their Soviet counterparts as "Communists" , even if they themselves were not actually party members. As to the original post , it is my understanding , based upon my paralegal training , that even those whom did not directly participate in a crime may be charged as an accomplice . For example , the get away driver at a bank robbery would be considered to be guilty of armed robbery , even though the driver did not personally threaten anyone with a gun. http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-la ... ility.html , https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/accomplice

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#28

Post by Sejanus » 29 Mar 2016, 02:19

David Thompson wrote:Sejanus -- You asked:
It now appears that the post-war prosecution of alleged or convicted WWII war criminals in Germany is off topic. Is my understanding correct?
No.
Thanks for the clarification.

It looks like these sorts of prosecutions will continue, as the "Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes [has been authorized] up to 10 more years to continue its investigative work, before it is turned into a documentation center."

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Germanys- ... ade-448152

While I am not always in agreement with the sorts of suspects being pursued (already addressed in prior posts), I am glad that the Central Office will eventually become a documentation center, becoming another source for research.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#29

Post by steve248 » 29 Mar 2016, 11:56

In response to Sejanus practically all files of the "Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes" i.e. the Zentrale Stelle at Ludwigsburg are available for examination by researchers in the same building. The files available are managed by the Bundesarchiv.
https://www.bundesarchiv.de/bundesarchi ... ex.html.en

The only files that are not available, are current investigation files.

If a file was closed last year it is available for examination subject to standard Bundesarchiv conditions at all their locations.

The USHMM in Washington DC have digital copies of all Ludwigsburg files up to the early (or mid?) 1970s. Only available by personal visit, not on-line.

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Re: Nazi woman brought to justice

#30

Post by wm » 29 Mar 2016, 20:38

Jason24 wrote:For example , the get away driver at a bank robbery would be considered to be guilty of armed robbery , even though the driver did not personally threaten anyone with a gun.
This is because the driver is an accessory to crime, a person aiding or abetting another to commit crime.
But this woman (a young girl at that time) didn't encourage others to commit crimes (the abetting part), or help others to commit crimes (the aiding part).
She was a telegraph operator in a concentration camp.
Being a telegraph operator is not a crime, and being a telegraph operator in a concentration camp is not a crime too. Actually a concentration camp is not a crime in itself, as it's a form of detention frequently employed during war.

If anything, she was like a waitress serving dinners in her restaurant to known local gangsters everyday, or to a cleaning lady in a gangster's house.

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