The width, breadth, and depth of the trajedies that occurred at Auschwitz were so numerous and of such a vile nature, that no memorial park run by any country will ever begin to assist the victims in achieving any real measure or justice or closure. How can a murder victim receive justice? How can millions of victims receive justice?
Excecuting some high level war criminals in Nurnberg was proably better than nothing, but how do a few swinging nazis make up for all the damage done?
The sad and insidious truth about genocide is that when only a few class A war criminals can be ultimately excecuted, there is no real justice that can ever be achieved in any post genocide venue.
Genocides must be PREVENTED! Because, obviously there is no manner of redress after the fact that is even microscopicly equitable to its victims.
The goal of preserving an Auschwitz memorial should be to assist future generations with PREVENTING analagous trajedies from happening and to preserve the historical integrity of the physical premises so it will not be destroyed by time enabling it to educate and motivate our descendents to recognize potential genocide precursors and remember what such genocides look like in real life, or as close to real life as possible.
It is not correct for Poland to use its current custodial perogitives over the Auschwitz Trajedy Memorial to "sensor" or "frusterate" the Russian people's collective consciences from being expressed within the Russian exhibit of this international memoral park.
Nazi objectives were not only to murder Jews, but to expand the German state to include "slavic" or "Soviet Lands". (Libensraum=Living Room)
While it is undeniable that Jews were the main minority group targeted by Nazis, it is also true that robbing and murdering Jews was far from the only criminal goal of the Third Reich.
Any historian will acknowledge that while millions of Jews died in concentration camps, if were not for "soviet" soldiers, all slavs both eastern and western would have had a fate under Nazi control, that any citizen of today would term either "murder or slavery".
Nazi attrocities and crimes were partially enabled by an enviroment of political and artistic CENSORSHIP. (enforced by coersion, torture, and murder)
The Russians have paid with their blood for the right to dsiplay an Auschwitz exhibit without it being "edited" or "CENSORED" by Polish authorities.
If the Russians choose to remember the Auschwitz victims as "Soviet Citizens", then this is their perogitive, and it is unprofessional of the Polish authorities to attempt to obstruct the Russians in their choice of words.
The Auschwitz memorial should be visited and studied for time immortal so that future generations can learn about the results of unbridled human cruelty.
It is possible that many different countries, Russia and Poland included, may choose to alter the wording on their exibits at Auschwitz and other Genocide memorial sites. This should be accepted as a soverign right of any state that has shed blood winning WW2/The Patriotic War.
Polish censorship of Russian political opinions at Auschwitz is not going to help prevent a future genocide, and it will not add any justice or closure to the memory of Auschwitz victims.
Michael Miller
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2 comments:
What you fail to understand is that all countries who were subjugated and victimized by Russia under the "Soviet Union", now hate that moniker and Russia too, for that matter.
All former Soviet citizens will likely have somewhat different opinions about the Soviet Union.
However, the fact remains, that Russia paid in blood to stop the Third Reich. Therefore, she has the right to represent herself without a forced edit from the Poles.
You are correct that some former Soviet Citizens hate the Soviet Union, but your comments fail to recognize that some also loved the former Soviet Union.
Auschwitz is not the place to conduct post Soviet era political feuds.
Auschwitz is the place for each respective country to pay its respects as it sees fit.
It is improper to have a family squable in a cemetary, similarily, it is 4 million times more improper for former Soviet family members to play ideological power games at the site of 4 million murders, and atop 4 million essential graves.
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