#accountant of auschwitz

[power-chords]

Abstaining from Instagram stories until people I know can stop doing either genocide denial or Holocaust inversion.

[kefnut-the-gweilologist]

there r a couple historical events where reading abt i have to either suppress the parts of me that feel or be awash infinite rage and grief and horror and disgust

[lorynna]

In World War II, Nazi Germany established brothels in the concentration camps (Lagerbordell, Sonderbauten or Freudenabteilungen "Joy Divisions") to increase productivity among male inmates.

In the end, the camp brothels did not produce any noticeable increase in the prisoners' productivity levels, but instead, created a market for coupons among the camp VIPs.

Here's a few of the locations where this happened:

Mauthausen/Gusen, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Neuengamme, Dachau, Dora-Mittelbau, Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg and others

The women forced into these brothels came mainly from the women-only Ravensbrück concentration camp, except for Auschwitz, which "employed" its own prisoners.

In combination with the German military brothels in World War II, it is estimated that at least 34,140 female inmates were forced into sexual slavery during the Third Reich.

The brothels form the subject of "Das KZ Bordell" (The Concentration Camp Brothel) by Robert Sommer, a book that has been hailed as the first comprehensive account of a little known chapter of Nazi oppression in World War Two.

It explores the origins, structure and impact of the "Sonderbauten" (special buildings) run by Heinrich Himmler's SS in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.

"In the collective memory and written history of World War Two, the camp brothels were for a long time taboo," the 35-year-old Berliner told Reuters. "The former prisoners didn't want to talk about it: it was a difficult subject to handle."

"It didn't fit so easily into the postwar image of the concentration camps as monuments to suffering."

According to concentration camp survivors the women in those brothels were replaced every 6 months and the women who got replaced were killed in gas chambers.

It is important to note that we distinctively speak of sexual slavery here and of rape.

I wanted to point this out especially because I have been seeing liberal feminists talking about this topic, calling it "forced sex-work", "forced sex-labour" etc.

It is beyond disrespectful to call these female victims "sex-workers" or "employees" when their sexuality was brutally exploited, their diginities taken, their health was sacrificed, they were raped repeatedly and then executed after 6 months, even though they were promised to be released after those months. But those promises of course were never honored.

Liberal feminism and radical feminism differ a lot when it comes to views on the topic of prostitution but this does NOT excuse labeling victims of abuse and rape as "sex-workers" or calling their suffering "forced sex-labour."

[perfectlyvalid49]

Today is January 27th, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I'd like to get some stuff off my chest.

First, I'd like to take a minute to point out that it is not Yom HaShoah, which is the day Israel (and by extension large portions of the Jewish diaspora population) uses as Holocaust Remembrance day. Yom HaShoah is on the 27th of Nisan, a date that was selected to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, centering Jewish resistance in our own story. That date was selected nearly five decades before the UN picked January 27th, which was selected to center our white saviors who came to liberate Auschwitz. This is utter bullshit. And no excuses for not being able to handle a moving date on the Gregorian calendar - April 19th would be the Gregorian equivalent, and it was not selected.

Having said that, given how many infographics I've seen over the last four months about how people are increasingly denying or doubting the Holocaust, I figure any day that acknowledges it is a good thing, so yeah, let's take two days to remember. I think it's worth it.

So given that this is the Holocaust Remembrance Day that centers our goyishe friends, let's talk about how our goyishe friends should observe the day.

1. It is likely that you never learned a lot of details about the Holocaust. Holocaust education usually boils down to, "and the Nazis put Jews in camps in order to kill them, and a lot of Jews were killed in gas chambers, and about 6 million died in all." Go learn some details. Read or watch an account from a survivor.  Learn about the medical experiments, or the death marches. Learn some details about what the gas chambers were actually like. Try to understand the horror. Learn about the SS St. Louis or the Evian conference in 1938 where almost every country on Earth decided it was better to let the Jews die in Germany than to allow them into their own countries.

2. On that note, take the time to understand that anti-semitism neither began nor ended with the Nazis, and that even the "good guys" were incredibly antisemitic.Try to recognize that the antisemitism that was present where you live right now in the 1930s didn't just disappear, it just went into hiding. Think about where it might be hiding now.

Basically, because this is the Holocaust Remembrance Day for the goyim, I want to focus our remembrance of what happened on the goyim. What did they do? What could they have done to help? Why didn't they? We can come back in May for more Jewish focused learning, but the Holocaust could not have happened without A LOT of willing goyim, and I think we should spend the day remembering them and their actions.

And as a side note: if you happen to read this and you've chosen to spend the day engaging in Holocaust denial or Holocaust inversion, then know that my hope for you is that something happens in your life to teach you empathy and basic human decency. And I hope it isn't pleasant for you.

[wateryrealm]

“Life? Or Theatre? is the name that Charlotte Salomon gave to a sequence of nearly 800 gouaches she produced between 1940 and 1942…The gouaches read like a series of story boards for a film, following the events of Salomon's life. The works have been likened to a diary, but her account is fictionalized, with the main characters in Solomon's life acting as the dramatis personnae…As Nazi aggression escalated, the Berlin-born Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon sensed the end was near. She wrapped over 800 of her paintings in brown paper and handed them to a friend with the words: “Take good care of it, it's my whole life.” Charlotte died in Auschwitz at 26.”

(the entire collection is now available for free online (in english/german/french with audio/music options) + once you encounter her work you’ll never be the same so go read it!!! 🤍)

[hussyknee]

(alt included in all images)

Another thread by Senator Ben Ray Luján here.

A book on the subject (haven't read it myself):

One of the sources in another one of Alisa's furiously impassioned twitter threads have been debunked, so I didn't include that. But she claims that her own family was caught in the fallout zone when her mother was a baby, which eventually led to her and large numbers of her community developing cancer. It's human for that kind of grief to be caught up in inaccuracies. People are already being ghastly and racist to Hispanos and Indigenous people criticizing the hype for the movie. They're not attacking Oppenheimer for being Jewish, they're criticising the erasure of the human cost of these bombs and the continued valorisation of the U.S military's actions in World War II as some kind of moral saviourism.

While Oppenheimer himself believed that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally justified (they had planned to drop them on Germany except they surrendered before they could), he also felt had blood on his hands and regretted his role as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb". He spent the rest of his career vehemently opposing further development of thermonuclear weapons and the hydrogen bomb accurately predicting the concept of mutually assured destruction. This eventually made him a victim of Senator McCarthy's Red Scare and his clearance was revoked. I haven't seen the movie (Christopher Nolan is the kind of casual white racist I avoid on principle) but people who have seen it say that it doesn't glorify nuclear weapons and depicts the man himself with the complex moral nuance that seems to be accurately reflective of his real life.

The backlash to Indigenous and Hispanos people's criticisms and to people pointing out that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were genocides is also frustrating because...both world wars were a clash of genocidal empires. The reason they were world wars is because the countries colonized by Japan, China, the European powers and the US were all dragged into it, whether they wanted to or not. Jews were one of the many colonized peoples that suffered in that time, who were left to die by everyone until they could be used to frame the Allied powers as moral saviours, establishing a revisionist nostalgia for heroism that powers the US military industrial complex to this day.

As early as May 1942, and again in June, the BBC reported the mass murder of Polish Jews by the Nazis. Although both US President, Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, warned the Germans that they would be held to account after the war, privately they agreed to prioritise and to turn their attention and efforts to winning the war. Therefore, all pleas to the Allies to destroy the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ignored. The Allies argued that not only would such an operation shift the focus away from winning the war, but it could provoke even worse treatment of the Jews. In June 1944 the Americans had aerial photographs of the Auschwitz complex. The Allies bombed a nearby factory in August, but the gas chambers, crematoria and train tracks used to transport Jewish civilians to their deaths were not targeted.

(Source)

Uncritical consumption of World War II media is the reinforcement of imperialist propaganda, more so when one group of colonized people is used to silence other colonized peoples. Pitting white Jewry against BIPOC is to do the work of white supremacy for imperialist colonizers, and victimizes Jews of colour twice over.

Edit: friends, there's been some doubt cast on the veracity of Alisa's claims. The human cost to the Hispanos population caught downwind of the nuclear tests is very real, as was land seizure without adequate compensation. However, there's no record I can yet find about Los Alamos killing livestock and Hispanos being forced to work for Los Alamos without PPE. There is a separate issue about human testing in the development of said PPE that's not covered here. I'm turning off reblogs until I can find out more. Meanwhile, here's another more legitimate article you can boost instead:

[matan4il]

I have a query and I'm sorry that this question is going to upset you in advance. I see a post circling on here about Holocaust survivors apparently saying that Palestinians are exactly like them during attacks on Gaza. I just scroll past it because I have poor attention span that cannot stay focused more than one sentence but I wanted to know your opinion on this post or if you have seen it. Again, deep apologies that this ask is upsetting. Thank you for still being here and sharing with us.

Hi Nonnie!

Thank you for the kind way you approached this.

I have seen a post that might be the one you're referring to... It's a screenshot of a tweet:

The original tweet shows an interview with one Holocaust survivor. The response falsely expands this to survivors, in the plural, as if this one tweet shows a whole movement of Holocaust survivors, that people simply refuse to listen to.

The original tweet comes from an account that calls itself a "media company," but has no website (something I would expect from an actual media company), and is at least 80% tweets that are anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. I'll give you an example. We all know Elon Musk has allowed antisemitism to thrive on Twitter, all kinds of it, including the white supremacist type, and others that have nothing to do with Israel. In an attempt to educate him, he was invited to a tour of Auschwitz. But apparently, according to this "media company," that was just meant to stop anti-genocide speech on his social media platform:

Of the up to 20% of tweets this "media company" posts or shares, many are anti-democratic or in support of dictatorial regimes.

This account also amplified the words of Julius Malema, leader of the South African EFF party, as he justified the Oct 7 massacre, and demanded support for the (genocidal) Hamas and its "resistance."

Malema himself has repeatedly sang, "Kill the Boer," a song which many understand as a genocidal chant against the Boers, the South Africans of Dutch descent. This guy is a controversial figure at best, doesn't seem to have an issue with an actual genocide, and this "media company" upholds his words as if he is a role model.

But if this account tweets Israel hate, then I guess the Tumblr user who passed the tweet along has no issue with how questionable of a source this is.

I recognized the face of the survivor. This is what it looks like in the cut off screenshot in the Tumblr post I saw:

So how did I recognize him? Because the number of anti-Zionist Holocaust survivors is SO small (around 5), and I have seen every single one of them repeatedly tokenized by antisemites so much, that I'm familiar with the name and face of each. The man in this vid is Hajo Meyer, who died in 2014. He couldn't possibly make any comments about Hamas' massacre on Oct 7, 2023 and the war in Gaza since, unless this "media company" has managed to somehow contact the afterlife. Here's a screenshot from Google, showing a recent re-upload of this vid to IG:

And here's a very brief bio, mentioning his date of death:

I'm guessing that "media company" didn't name him, or specify the date out of the vid, because it didn't want people to know the guy was dead, and the views he expressed were pre-Hamas' massacre.

Hajo Meyer was, without a doubt, an anti-Zionist. But would he still be using this rhetoric after Oct 7, after the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, after better understanding the kind of threat that Israel and Jews worldwide (since Hamas has tried to target Jews in European countries as well, including in the Netherlands, where Meyer lived) are facing from this genocidal terrorist organization ruling Gaza? IDK. I'd like to think he would be better than to continue distorting the Holocaust through this false comparison, but I can't say for sure, and I'm not about to claim that I do, putting words in his mouth just to exploit a dead Holocaust survivor. The fact that the anti-Israel crowd would continue to tokenize (meaning, exploit) a dead survivor like that, as if anyone could know for sure that Meyer would continue to toe the same line, just shows there really is no moral low they can't stoop to.

And here I wanna emphasize how wrong this antisemitic practice is, tokenizing Jews. Because no marginalized group is immune to the hatred spread against it, there will ALWAYS be some of its members, who will internalize and embrace poison aimed at it. There were gay Nazis (the notorious Ernest Roehm was the highest ranking one) and we also have contemporary gay neo-Nazis. So, should we use them in order to pretend that Nazi ideology is not homophobic? That it didn't harm hundreds of thousands of gay people? No, we know that the overwhelming majority of gay people suffered due to it, and would insist that Nazism IS homophobic. So, using those few exceptions to ignore (and embolden) the homophbia of this ideology, ends up being homophobic in itself. Embracing the unrepresentative few over the representative, mainstream majority of a marginalized group in "exonerating" what the group says is hateful and harmful towards it, ends up being hateful and harmful in itself.

And that's what people who only listen to the few anti-Zionist Holocaust survivors are doing. They're basically saying, "Listen to Holocaust survivors!" but they mean only the few who say what the anti-Israel movement does. All the other survivors they ignore, dismiss, silence or even erase.

They're ignoring the voices of the overwhelming majority of Holocaust survivors who WERE (and are) Zionist. Who do not agree with this distorted narrative. Yad Vashem estimates that two thirds of Holocaust survivors came to Israel at the end of WWII, and many more supported Israel even when they chose to settle elsewhere. Just recently, we had a group of 870 American survivors (along with their descendants, altogether 2,500 Jews) thank Biden for standing with Israel after the Hamas massacre. These anti-Israel haters are also erasing the survivors who were themselves targeted on Oct 7, whether threatened, kidnapped, injured or murdered (I've talked about several in my posts on this blog). This anti-Israel mob is exploiting Hajo Meyer even in ignoring that if he had been alive and present in Israel, even just to visit a friend or family member, he would have been targeted, too. These haters are ignoring survivors who said that what Hamas has done is similar to what the Nazis did (I've talked about several of them in my posts on this blog, too. All can be found in my Israel tag).

It is unconscionable, to treat most Holocaust survivors like they don't count, and only see a (literal) handful of anti-Zionist ones as if they do. And it certainly does NOT show the respect the anti-Israel haters imply survivors are owed, through the demand that we all defer to the opinion of the survivors, but ONLY the few anti-Zionist ones.

All that said, off the top of my head, here's a small number of HUGE differences between the Holocaust, and the Israeli-Arab conflict, and anyone ignoring them IS guilty of distorting the Holocaust.

-> The Holocaust did NOT start due to Jews repeatedly murdering Germans on German soil, in an attempt to keep Germans down and prevent them from establishing self rule in the German ancestral land. The Holocaust was completely unprovoked, unjustified and one-sided. Every oppressive measure taken by the Nazis against the Jews, was motivated by antisemitism, and was NOT a reaction to Jewish anti-German terrorism, that the Nazis had to protect their German citizens from. Speaking of unprovoked, unjustified and for a very long time one-sided, that describes the Arab anti-Jewish violence that preceded the establishment of the State of Israel by almost 100 years. But Jewish self-defense in this conflict, which only started about 50 years after said violence began, was provoked, was justified, was a response to what was done to the Jews first.

-> The Holocaust did NOT consist of Jews on German soil collaborating militarily with several Jewish countries surrounding Germany, with the goal of these combined Jewish armies invading and wiping it off the map, in order to prevent German self rule. Guess what the Arabs did to the Jews...

-> The Holocaust did NOT entail repeated German efforts to find a solution for how Jews and Germans could live together on the same land. In pre-state Israel, Jews did try repeatedly to reach an understanding that would allow Jews and Arabs to peacefully share (and co-exist in) the Jewish ancestral land.

-> When Jews finally started rebelling against the Nazis, they did NOT try to get as many Jewish civilians as possible killed. On the contrary, the outbreak of the most famous Jewish revolt, the one in the Warsaw Ghetto, was postponed until the Nazis entered, and the Jewish fighters believed this to be the final 'liquidation' of the ghetto (meaning, the deportation and extermination of the roughly 60,000 Jews still alive there). Only then did they fight back, because (in their own words), they did not want their decision to rebel to cost another Jew "even one hour of life." Compare that to how Hamas has been using Palestinian civilians as human shields. Or even to the Arab leadership back in 1948, which did not hesitate in risking or displacing the entire Arab population in the Land of Israel, in favor of fighting what they called "an extermination war" against the Jews.

-> The Holocaust did NOT see a single day where Germans worked en masse to try and alleviate the suffering of Jews, whether by providing them with humanitarian aid, or by moving them to areas where they would be safe from death. That's in direct contrast to Israel's efforts to make Palestinians' lives better, whether through humanitarian aid, work permits in Israel that guarantee a higher salary and better social rights, medical treatments, warnings when a terrorist target is about to be struck, etc.

-> The Holocaust was NOT supposed to end with even one Jew alive at the end of it. The Germans were going for total extermination of the Jewish people. All Jews who had German citizens were stripped of it in 1935, even before the most murderous parts of this genocide commenced. In contrast, Israel did NOT seek to kill all Arabs, there were many calls for Arabs not to flee Israel and the war which the Arab leadership had started, at the end of the war Israel gave citizenship to 150,000 Arabs who did not leave and did not take arms against Jews, and there was even an offer for tens of thousands of Arabs to return (Weitzmann presented it to the UN), if they do so peacefully. Just a few thousands accepted that offer, but those who did, got citizenship and land.

-> The Nazis were so eager to kill every Jew, that they came to the conclusion they HAD to industrialize their genocide of the Jewish people. That's why they built extermination camps with gas chambers at their core. Auschwitz alone could, on certain days, kill about 20,000 people. No Jew was meant to leave those camps alive. The crematoria were mass murder factories. ANY crime that you want to compare to the Holocaust specifically, you have to show that it includes this industrialization element. Currently, NO GENOCIDE, no matter how horrific, has. And God help us all, I hope it stays that way (this is one of the reasons why the Holocaust mustn't be distorted or minimized. We can't prevent something from happening, if we don't understand what HAS happened, and that we're trying to stop from being repeated). There is not a SINGLE thing in the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict that comes CLOSE to being an industrialized form of massacre. Even the brutality of Hamas on Oct 7, the single bloodiest day in the history of this conflict for either side, doesn't come close.

-> While there are still Jews around, meaning the Holocaust as conceptualized by the Nazis failed, it was so deadly, that it DID lead to the murder of around 70-80% of the Jews living under the Nazi occupation over a short number of years. Even more than 80 years after the end of the Holocaust, Jews have not recovered demographically. Meanwhile, the Palestinian population has increased by about 10 times since Israel's Independence War. But let's say people wanna claim that just this current war is comparable to the Holocaust. There are presently around 7 million Arabs in the territories of the Jewish ancestral land, of which about 2 million are Israeli citizens. I'm gonna go with the anti-Israel narrative for a second, which claims ALL of them are occupied and oppressed by Israel (even though they're not). In order for the ruin of Palestinians to be indeed on the same level, that would mean 70-80% of them would have to be murdered by Israel during the war. Let's go with the lower percent, so it's easier for the anti-Israel crowd to reach the number of deaths that would support their claim. To have killed 70% of 7 million, that would mean Israel would have to kill 4.9 million Arabs in this so-called "genocide." Even if we exclude Israeli Arabs, and only focus on the 5 million Palestinians living in areas where the Israeli army currently operates (imagine the German Nazis allowing Jews safety inside Germany, and only killing them outside it *eyeroll*), that would mean at least 3.5 million Palestinians killed. But after almost 5 months of this war, the number of Palestinian fatalities, as claimed by Hamas, is around 30,000 people (I'm putting aside the fact that at least 12,000 are Hamas terrorists). The gap between what is happening, and what people who make this false comparison are implying is happening, is incomprehensible.

Sorry for the length, but I hope this is helpful!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[kendrixtermina]

Palestine Information Masterpost

Collecting the most salient stuff in one place so I can find it & link to it when needed.

Hopefully this will empower anyone reading this to understand exactly what is happening and why.

Compilation of Prominent Israeli Politicians saying "Kill Them All": (1)

Debunking Atrocity Propaganda around October 7th: (1) (2) (3)

How Israel uses propaganda to keep western support

An excellent source detailing, among other things, how Israel has responded with lethal force to peaceful protest, and how Hamas isn't half as extreme as it's painted to be.

How the IDF's culture of deception originated in hiding the Nakba from its citizens: (1) - I think this is central to understand WHY they would do this.

A former Soldier describing Apartheid in the Westbank: (1)

If you have time, I also recommend that one 4 part documentary on the Nakba & the events leading up to it starting from the 1920s (Yes, you heard that right!) but here's a shorter rundown.

EDIT:

Some additions:

Here's something to help you appreciate the extreme unprecendented rate of casualties far beyond what is "normal" even in a war: (1)(2) - it exceeds all modern conflicts except the siege of Leningrad. According to one source I have seen, the overall rate of dead kids per day actually exceeds Auschwitz.

This is what politicians are thinking about it behind the scenes: (1)

Here is a brilliant series of tiktoks by a marketing expert explaining the how & why behind the messaging about the current situation very quickly: (1) (2) (3)(4) (5)(6)

This is the propaganda playbook mentioned in the movie - judge for yourself.

International Agencies say the tunnels under hospital thing is bullshit. And this isn't even the first claim that ended up being debunked! Why would a Norwegian Doctor lie for Hamas?

66% of Americans and even 62% of Israelis (!) want a ceasefire, there are record protests all over the world - we have a democracy problem, a free speech problem and a lobby problem.

The official Israel Twitter account has, so far, demonstrably: pushed 4 chan "crisis actor" conspiracy theories used, put fake subtitles on arabic videos and passed off random squiggly lines on a post-it as arabic, and passed off a calendar as a list of terrorist names

EDIT: Israeli official ADMITING the Hospital claim was fake

EDIT2: Israel's track record of breaking ceasefires

EDIT 3: Indoctrination in Israeli Schools

EDIT 4: Israeli Military ADMITTING to mass execution

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week 🐧

1. ‘Robin Hood’ energy strikers give free power to French schools, hospitals, low-income homes

Amid national strikes in the energy sector, some workers in France have found a novel way to protest. On Thursday, "Robin Hood" operations – unauthorised by the government – provided free gas and electricity to schools, universities, and low-income households throughout the country.

Among the facilities provided free energy were public sports facilities, daycare centers, public libraries, some small businesses and homes that had been cut off from power. 

2. UK scientists discover method to reduce steelmaking’s CO2 emissions by 90%

Researchers from the University of Birmingham have developed an innovative method for existing furnaces that could reduce steelmaking’s CO2 emission by nearly 90%.

The iron and steel industry is a major cause of greenhouse gasses, accounting for 9% of global emissions. That’s because of the inherent carbon-intensive nature of steel production in blast furnaces, which currently represent the most-widely used practice.

3. Watch this cargo ship fly a giant kite to save fuel and cut emissions

The 2,700-square-foot parafoil is helping to tow the cargo ship and lessen the workload of the massive diesel engines — reducing the ship’s use of dirty fuel.

4. Scientists discover emperor penguin colony in Antarctica using satellite images

A newly discovered emperor penguin colony has been seen, using satellite images of one the most remote and inaccessible regions of Antarctica.

The colony, home to about 500 birds, makes a total of 66 known emperor penguin colonies around the coastline of Antarctica, half of which were discovered by space satellites. Emperor penguins are the only penguins that breed on sea ice, rather than land, and are located in areas that are very difficult to study because they are remote, inaccessible and can experience temperatures as low as −60C

Kowalski, analysis!

5. Dungeons & Dragons Scraps Plans to Update Its Open Game License

Wizards of the Coast, publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, announced yesterday that it will no longer be pursuing deauthorization of the Open Gaming License 1.0a. The deauthorization of the OGL 1.0a was a huge sticking point for fans and third-party publishers who made a living using a license that was granted nearly two decades ago.

6. Turning problem sea algae into a replacement for plastic

Excessive outbreaks of seaweed and microalgae are clogging up waters from the Caribbean to the Baltic. Now both are being harvested alongside farmed crops to create ingredients for cosmetics and food products.

7. German parliament officially commemorates LGBTQ victims of Nazi regime for first time.

The German parliament for the first time on Friday focused its annual Holocaust memorial commemorations on people persecuted and killed over their sexual or gender identity during World War II. Campaigners in Germany have worked for decades to establish an official ceremony to commemorate the LGBTQ victims persecuted under the Nazi regime.

“Today’s hour of remembrances focuses on a group of victims which had to fight for a long time to achieve recognition: people who were persecuted by the National Socialists because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity,” Baerbel Bas, president of the Bundestag lower house, said while opening a ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation.

- - - 

That's it for this week. If you liked this post you can support this newsletter with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Have a great week ahead :)

[mydonkeyfeet]

"RESOLUTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUSCHWITZ COUNCIL ON THE TRAGIC EVENTS IN ISRAEL, APPROVED BY CIRCULATION ON 18 NOVEMBER 2023

The International Auschwitz Council by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland acknowledges with the deepest pain and sorrow the suffering of innocent Victims – tortured, raped, taken hostage, and murdered by Hamas terrorists.

We wish to express our unwavering solidarity with Israelis and Jews worldwide.

Threatened in its existence, the State of Israel has the right to self-defense in accordance with international law and the principles of humanitarianism. The existence of a free, sovereign, and democratic Jewish State is one of the pillars of world peace.

The unimaginable hatred and violence perpetrated by terrorists only results in extensive and more widespread suffering – affecting also the civilian population of Gaza, whom Hamas exploits as human shields.

An essential first step to halt the horrifying spiral of death and war is the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, a demand we make with all our might."

---------

Auschwitz coming out as pro-genocide is more than I can take. The world is upside down. It's also blocking accounts of Jewish people, even holocaust survivors and their families, who criticize its stance. People on twitter are reminding us that the museum is run by a right wing Polish group who deny any participation of Poland in the holocaust and refuse to allow research into it.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

[givemearmstopraywith]

you said suffering brings you a part of your faith…. Why?

suffering is inevitable. without faith what doe suffering mean? but i don't mean that we need to suffer for faith, or that faith and suffering are entwined. i think suffering requires faith in something, but i do not think that faith requires suffering to be refined into something worthwhile: otherwise what do we have left?

i think christianity goes about its understanding of suffering poorly, as if suffering will bring you closer to God and is thus necessary, to not be complained about, to be borne up under quietly. recently i have been reading many, many first-hand accounts of auschwitz. it is difficult to fathom that depth of suffering even if you experience it directly. and there is no reason for something like that to happen. there is nothing holy whatsoever in dehumanization. there is no such thing as a holy war. God did not create humanity to suffer: he created humanity because it was good. because he loved it. because he was lonely.

suffering is unnatural. it is not part of God's design for the world. it is not part of his effort to communicate with us. he did not design his creation to suffering. suffering is wholly the creation of man, man hands off suffering to man and claims he is a god because he has done this, and there is nothing holy there. but it is inevitable. God is also inevitable, and creative. God sees suffering and creates endurance. he sees suffering and creates the cross. many ask "why does God allow suffering if he is good?" and it is because a good lover, which God is, does not deny his beloved's freedom in his effort to protect them. to eradicate suffering is also to eradicate humanity's creative capacity to create things that are not suffering: to create love, beauty, knowledge, compassion. every day God asks us, will you stop this? and every day- every day- we are given the opportunity to stop. every day. alleviating suffering is in our hands. God is what makes me get up in the morning and persist in the hope that we will end suffering someday when i would rather succumb to the illusion of despair.

[world-of-wales]

Happy International Women’s Day! Celebrating the impact of amazing women today, and every day. Here are just a few of the brilliant women we’ve been inspired by over the past 12 months. #IWD2024

After her daughter Brodie's death by suicide in 2020, Emma Webb launched a suicide prevention campaign. Brodie was a talented equestrian, which is what inspired @thewebstermwebb’s challenge pulling a life-size resin horse 160 miles from Chepstow to London.

Sarah Goldson has directed the @Wimbledon Ball Boy and Girl training since the 2012 Championships. The training helps develop life skills among young people, with 280 BBGs selected from local schools.

Vaitea Cowan is a co-founder of @Enapter, a company aiming to account for 10% of the world's green hydrogen by 2050. Enapter won the Fix Our Climate category at the 2021 Earthshot Prize and continues to thrive.

Bianca Sakol is the founder and CEO of @Sebbys_Corner, a shop-style baby bank which believes no child should go without the basic essentials they need to thrive. They provide a warm, welcoming environment and gives families choice and dignity to choose the items they need.

Mother and daughter, Jennifer and Emilia Clarke, were awarded MBEs for their brain injury charity work. They are co-founders of @SameYouOrg, a charity which develops better mental health recovery treatment for survivors and raises awareness around rehabilitation.

Dr. Gubby Ayida has been the CEO of @EvelinaLondon since May 2023 and oversaw its opening of the new Children’s Day Surgery Unit last year.

Wendy Simm was born and raised in Moss Side, Manchester and founded ‘Keeping It Real 24/7.’ The food bank focuses on delivering culturally important foods to those in need, such as yams and sweet potatoes, which generally are not provided by other food banks.

Captain Preet Chandi is a British Army Captain who holds three world records for polar trekking, most recently in December 2023 for becoming the world's fastest woman to complete a solo South Pole ski expedition.

Barbara Smith is a psychotherapist who has served over 16 years with @BritishRedCross, offering psychosocial support in disaster and war zones, aiding those in trauma.

Sarina Weigman began her role as England Women’s Head Coach in September 2021, leading The @Lionesses to Euro 2022 victory. She was presented with an Honorary CBE in June last year.

Renee Salt is a Holocaust survivor who was born in Zdunska Wola, Poland in 1929. She survived both Auschwitz and Belsen, but her family did not. Renee has spoken to thousands of young people as part of @HolocaustUK's programmes.

Professor Uzo Iwobi founded @rcccymru to boost art, heritage, and culture for minority groups in Wales. She empowers African Caribbean elders through learning initiatives and mentors young people to fulfil their aspirations.

In 2024, @hmsoardacious will be represented by Team Valkyrie, the first all-serving women's military team to row across the Atlantic. The @toughestrow challenge raises money for military charities and organisations that support veterans and their families.

- The Prince and Princess of Wales

[1americanconservative]

Anne Frank's father, Otto, visits the attic where they hid from the Germans in World War II.

He stands alone as he is the only member of his family to have survived the Holocaust, 1960 .

This picture was taken in 1960 in the Netherlands, where the Frank Family hid from German troops.

The Frank family were Jews during a time when Jews were sent away to be killed in concentration camps.

The Franks are one of the most well-known Jewish families during the war due to Anne Frank (Otto's daughter) writing a diary about her experiences in hiding.

Her diary has been republished and has sold more than 30 million copies and has been translated into 70 languages.

In her diary, she talks about life in hiding, school, growing up and her fears about the German forces in the area.

At some point, the Franks were found. There are varying accounts as to how they were caught.

Some say they were betrayed, and some say there were just found by German troops when they inspected the house they were hiding in.

The door leading to the attic was hidden behind a bookcase, but it is not known for sure how the Germans knew it was a false door that led to the secret hiding spot. They were in hiding for 761 days.

Anne and her sister Margot were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They died there in March 1945 due to Typhus fever as the camp had a massive outbreak problem of Typhus at the time. They died two weeks before the camp was liberated.

Anne was only 16, and Margot was 19.

Their parents, Otto and Edith, were sent to Auschwitz Birkenau, the worst of the concentration camps.

Edith would die of starvation three weeks before the camp was liberated.

Otto survived and lived until he died in 1980.

Edith would be buried with him 18 years later.

Their daughter's bodies were never found. Photographer: Arnold Newman

[scotianostra]

When we talk about brave people, in my eyes few can surpass the bravery of Jane Haining, who was born on June 6th 1897 in Dunscore, Dumfries & Galloway.

It’s only in the past few years that Jane Haining has justifiably, been given her place in history, I’ve know of her story for a number of years, thanks mainly to the small plaque on The Vigil Monument on Calton hill.

Jane lost her mother at the age of five and grew up a determined, capable woman. She worked for ten years in a threadmaker’s in Paisley, but at a meeting in Glasgow about the Jewish Mission she turned to a friend and said, prophetically: ‘I have found my life-work.’ She got the call to work at a Church of Scotland mission to the Jews in Budapest in 1932.

Famous for her broad Scots accent, she was popular with the 400 children, a mix of Christians and Jews, attending the school. Many were orphans, from broken or poverty-stricken homes, while others were sent simply because they got an excellent education from the Scots.

She loved her little ones. In one letter, she wrote: 'We have one nice little mite who is an orphan and is coming to school for the first time. She seems to be a lonely wee soul and needs lots of love. We shall see what we can do to make life a little happier for her.’

Another letter read: 'We have one new little six-year-old, an orphan without a mother or a father. She is such a pathetic wee soul to look at and I fear, poor lamb, has not been in too good surroundings before she came to us .. she certainly does look as though she needs heaps and heaps of love.’

She was in Scotland on leave when World War 2 broke out, but immediately undertook the hazardous journey back to Budapest to help the Jewish children.

Later the missionaries were ordered back to Scotland to safety when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944. Jane Haining disobeyed and remained to take care of her children. 'If these children need me in the days of sunshine’, she said, 'how much more do they need me in the days of darkness?’ Her sister Nan O'Brien later recalled: 'It was no surprise that she refused to come back. She would never have had a moment’s happiness if she had come home and left the children.“

During the war the Nazi brutality accelerated with murder, violence and terror and the little Jewish children were increasingly under threat. Jane protected them to the best of her ability.

Jane Haining was denounced to the Nazi authorities and SS men raided the place early in May. They searched her office and her bedroom, gave her 15 minutes to get ready and took her away. She was thrown in jail on charges of British espionage and helping Jews. She was accused of working among Jews and of weeping! She wept as she had to sew the yellow stars of David onto the dresses of her children .

One of her former wards later recalled: 'I still feel the tears in my eyes and hear in my ears the siren of the Gestapo motor car. I see the smile on her face while she bade me farewell. I never saw Miss Haining again, and when I went to the Scottish Mission to ask the minister about her, I was told she had died. I did not want to believe it, nor to understand, but a long time later I realised that she had died for me, and for others. The body of Miss Haining is dead, but she is not alone, because her smile, voice and face are still in my heart.’

Jane Haining was deported along with some of her Jewish children to the death camp Auschwitz. In three months 1,300,000 were liquidated in Auschwitz, among them No. 79467, Jane Haining, who refused to reject her children and showed herself to be a saint. She died for her beliefs and was gassed along with a batch of Hungarian women on August 16th, 1944, at the age of 47.

Because Jane Haining was a British citizen and passport-holder, the Church of Scotland was sent her death certificate from Auschwitz: 'Miss Haining, who was arrested on account of justified suspicion of espionage against Germany, died in hospital, July 17, of cachexia brought on by intestinal catarrh.’

In 1997 Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Memorial in Jerusalem, awarded Jane Haining a medal and a place among the Righteous Among the Nations for her selfless dedication to the children. The award was presented to her sister, Nan O'Brien of Londonderry, Northern Ireland, by the Israeli Ambassador to Britain at a ceremony in Glasgow.

She is remembered in the stained-glass windows of Queen’s Park Church in Glasgow and at the Church in Dunscore, as well as a memorial there, as seen in the pics, in book form. A plaque remembers her aerected by the Budapest Jewish community, 1984.Vorosmarty utca 51, Budapest. Jaane is also remebered on Jerusalem Yad Vashem Memorial Hall of Names

In 2017 Jane Haining was honoured by the city of Budapest being the focus of a new exhibition in the Holocaust Memorial Centre. Zoltan Toth-Heinmann, the centre spokesman stated that he was determined to ensure that as many people as possible learn about Haining, who was posthumously honoured by the British Government for "preserving life in the face of persecution”

[starlightshadowsworld]

The houthis atacked israel Ships because they are antisemitisc plus they are starving yemenis

They might be for Palestine but they are not the Good guys

Israeli ships are being targeted because they are carrying and supplying weapons to Israel.

Which are being used to kill Palestinians.

But also because attacking the ships will encourage other countries to halt trade with Israel.

This actually was a key step in the eventual dismantle of the South African apartheid.

And lest we forget, Israel is an aphartied state.

Aphartied for those that don't know is a policy that is founded on the idea of separating people based on racial or ethnic criteria.

So, racism and thinking your race is more superior than another. Like thinking Israeli's are superior to Palestinians and Arabs in general.

The at the time, Jamaican Cheif Minister Norman Manley during the South African apartheid said:

"The ban on trade with South Africa is logical and proper. And done in respect of a country which denies its own people all the basic human rights. And denies coloured people all over the world every right to human rights intercourse.

Since we cannot send a coloured athlete to South Africa nor even a cricket team with any pretense of dignity. Why should we send our goods?"

I bring up Jamaica because they were one of the first nations to condemn South African apartheid.

They banned trade and travel with South Africa despite still being a British Colony.

Something that in a lot of ways mirrors how Yemen, is one of the first countries to act in direct resistance to Israel.

So no it's not antisemitic, just a tried and true method used to aid in the dismantle aphartied regimes.

But than Pro Israeli's much like the Israeli government see every form of resistance against them, no matter if it's peaceful or violent, as antisemitic and terrorism.

Israel can tell the world it wants to make Gaza into Auschwitz but than be afraid and mad when Palestinians want to be free from the river to the sea.

As for the second part of your ask... What are you 5?

Newsflash, there are no perfect heroes this isn't a movie or a cartoon.

Turkey stands with Palestine, they're sending a case to the International Criminal Court in regards to Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.

Which is great.

Doesn't negate the whole Armenian Genocide and the shit they're doing to Kurdish people.

Britain's over here talking about a ceasefire when they've still got colonies.

They're funding the civil war in Sudan, the atrocities against the Congolese and many many more.

Not to mention shipping weapons to Israel.

All of this doesn't mean they shouldn't be speaking out against Israel.

In fact I'd argue it's a more of a reason for them to speak up, because they have the power too.

Also on the topic of starving Yemen, let's not pretend that the UN didn't drop Yemen from their world food programme.

Seemingly in response to Yemen standing against Israel.

Which means the UN like Israel are inflicting collective punishment. Which is both a war crime and a violation of international law.

Yemen standing up for Palestine is a brave and amazing thing, because they have nothing and are doing everything.

Of course they have their own issues, but that doesn't suddenly make what they're doing to aid Palestinians have any less of an affect.

"They aren't the good guys"

Be fucking for real, every country has blood on its hands.

Some more so than others. And those continuing to cause bloodshed need to be held accountable.

That doesn't change that Palestine deserves to be free. As does Yemen as does every country and people facing oppression.

Isrsel has been actively committing a genocide for 75 years, they need to be stopped.

That's an indisputable fact.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Do you know of any memoirs and/or autobiographies from Romani writers? Asking because the only ones I've found so far are "Gypsy Boy" by Mikey Walsh and "The Girl from Nowhere" by Eliska Tanzer, and frankly neither of them really do much to dispel the negative stereotypes of and about Roma people.

I follow this really great instagram account called romanibooks, which posts about all kinds of, well, Romani books. So if you're ever looking for Romani authors, it's a great archive.

If you're looking for memoirs or autobiographies, you might like American Gypsy by Oksana Marafioti. A lot of the other books I'm coming up with, just off the top of my head, are mostly about WWII and the Holocaust, which is obviously really heavy stuff, and some of them are not available in English, but A Gypsy In Auschwitz by Otto Rosenberg should be accessible. I also gotta give it up for Träume ich, dass ich lebe?, by Ceija Stojka and Raymond Gureme's biography Interdit aux Nomades.

Additionally, I would absolutely recommend A Gypsy Dreaming in Jerusalem by Amoun Sleem, who is a Domari author from occupied Palestine.

And, since we're on the topic of books, I'm just gonna remind everyone to pre-order Secrets of Romani Fortunetelling, coming out this fall!! You can pre-order from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but I would also recommend checking to see if it's available from your local bookstore!