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I happen to subscribe to HBO and they have a really good documentary on the concentration camps called Night will Fall that they are showing tonight and it's also available on OnDemand.
I happen to subscribe to HBO and they have a really good documentary on the concentration camps called Night will Fall that they are showing tonight and it's also available on OnDemand.
Most of the large extermination centers (other than slave labor camps or concentration camps to dispose of political opponents both in the party or outside the party) were placed in what was left of Poland after parts of it were annexed into Germany. The remains of Poland were a private fife of the SS and it was a quiet place to do the Final Solution. Imagine the horror of Soviet forces when they came up[on Maidenek, Treblinka, Sobibor and finally Birkenau. The Russians are a tough people who have seen or thought they had seen it all. But this horrified even the Zampolits and NKVD who accompanied the troops.
Most of the large extermination centers (other than slave labor camps or concentration camps to dispose of political opponents both in the party or outside the party) were placed in what was left of Poland after parts of it were annexed into Germany. The remains of Poland were a private fife of the SS and it was a quiet place to do the Final Solution. Imagine the horror of Soviet forces when they came up[on Maidenek, Treblinka, Sobibor and finally Birkenau. The Russians are a tough people who have seen or thought they had seen it all. But this horrified even the Zampolits and NKVD who accompanied the troops.
The documentary has interviews with Russian soldiers taken in past decades. They say when they first saw the camps, it was their worst experience of the War. That is saying a great deal for veterans of the Eastern Front.
And hundreds of thousands of German civilians paid for it in the following months as the Russians fought their way to Berlin.
Well that and the complete and utter devastation the Germans levelled upon the Russians wherever they set foot on Russian/Soviet territory. I don't condone what the Soviets did to the German civilians and it was often just as brutal as anything the Germans did, but I do understand why the Russians did it.
It was pure revenge. The Germans got what they deserved. I'm sure many innocent Germans suffered, but its hard to say how many of them were actually innocents. As bad as the Germans got it, the Russians got it worse.
Well that and the complete and utter devastation the Germans levelled upon the Russians wherever they set foot on Russian/Soviet territory. I don't condone what the Soviets did to the German civilians and it was often just as brutal as anything the Germans did, but I do understand why the Russians did it.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn poem Prussian Nights comes to mind when I hear this topic. It should be mentioned Prussia paid the largest price in blood and territory not Bavaria, despite the Nazis coming from there.
Last edited by jobseeker2013; 01-27-2015 at 09:08 PM..
A little known battalion was involved in the rescue of many in Dachau and some of the other camps: the 442nd out of Hawaii made up of Japanese-Hawaiians who felt loyal to the US despite having relatives in Japan. Fascinating history as well http://www.encyclopedia.densho.org/4...l_Combat_Team/
what did "German citizens" do to deserve anything? They had no control over what their government did.
Yes, "liberated" by the red army. Stalin (with the help of Churchill) ended using Germans as slave labourers, and repatriated millions of Germans from homes they had for centuries, among whom millions died.
Nothing to celebrate.
Last edited by botticelli; 01-28-2015 at 01:06 PM..
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