# Lest we forget



## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day


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## Guest (Jan 28, 2013)

Interesting contrast - this entire forum dedicated to discussing the heights that mankind can reach, juxtaposed with the depths to which mankind can sink.

Never again.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

What do you mean "never again"? This kind of stuff is still happening everyday.


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## Guest (Jan 28, 2013)

I mean we should always be vigilant and work to prevent such a thing from ever again occurring. That it still happens everyday is a testimony to the fact that we still haven't learned our lessons.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

We never learned our lessons from all the pre-Holocaust genocides and I doubt we ever will.


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## Guest (Jan 28, 2013)

Cnote11 said:


> We never learned our lessons from all the pre-Holocaust genocides and I doubt we ever will.


While modern technology certainly makes killing easier and more efficient, thus raising casualties, to say that we have never learned over time I think is a bit much. While with war their will always be atrocities, when in the past have we ever had such rigid rules of engagement? Mankind is nowhere near perfection, but I think it is obtuse to claim we have never learned anything from the mistakes of our past.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

DrMike said:


> While modern technology certainly makes killing easier and more efficient, thus raising casualties, to say that we have never learned over time I think is a bit much. While with war their will always be atrocities, when in the past have we ever had such rigid rules of engagement? Mankind is nowhere near perfection, but I think it is obtuse to claim we have never learned anything from the mistakes of our past.


Rules which the US thinks don't apply to drone strikes. The UN is thankfully starting an inquiry.


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## Guest (Jan 28, 2013)

We are getting off topic here. This is a thread started to encourage people to remember that today is Holocaust Memorial Day. I made an innocent enough statement that was misunderstood - I meant to say that on this day, we should all recommit to do our part to make sure such a thing never happens again. I am not here to debate politics. If you want to criticize the U.S., you aren't going to bait me.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

DrMike said:


> Interesting contrast - this entire forum dedicated to discussing the heights that mankind can reach, juxtaposed with the depths to which mankind can sink.
> 
> ....


One Holocaust survivor said something like that there seemed to him to be only a shred of difference between genius and madness. Those two extremes. Another said that the Holocaust was a totally irrational event, and even those who survived it could never undersand it, never convey it to those who had not gone through it.

If anything, the 20th century was an age of these types of extremes. For me, the "never again" sentiment is not only a matter of rememberance (which I think is VERY important), but also of remembering how these emotional extremes can be so devastating if put in the wrong hands & used for these types of political agendas.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

DrMike said:


> We are getting off topic here. This is a thread started to encourage people to remember that today is Holocaust Memorial Day. I made an innocent enough statement that was misunderstood - I meant to say that on this day, we should all recommit to do our part to make sure such a thing never happens again. I am not here to debate politics. If you want to criticize the U.S., you aren't going to bait me.


Quoted, because the point merits repetition...

May I humbly appeal for suggested listening in remembrance of the atrocities?

For my part, I suggest Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony.


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## Guest (Jan 31, 2013)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Quoted, because the point merits repetition...
> 
> May I humbly appeal for suggested listening in remembrance of the atrocities?
> 
> For my part, I suggest Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony.


Babi Yar would definitely be an appropriate one.

I believe that Penderecki's Dies Irae was also specially commissioned for the unveiling of a monument at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Not quite the same, but Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time was written and first performed while he was in a German prison camp.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Thanks for all the comments
My point was just to bring home what happened
Yes it still happens, perhaps not quite on as an industrial scale.
Lets just take a moment to remember all who "fall" due to the nature of man
I find these 2 pieces very moving





Filmed at Auschwitz

and this






Based on words written by a "guest" of the camps

It's not meant as a political statement on my part (though I could take that route)
Just to remember


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

cwarchc said:


> Thanks for all the comments
> My point was just to bring home what happened
> Yes it still happens, perhaps not quite on as an industrial scale.
> Lets just take a moment to remember all who "fall" due to the nature of man
> ...


The picture of the small boy has haunted me for most of my life.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> We never learned our lessons from all the pre-Holocaust genocides and I doubt we ever will.


You don't think we are slowly learning?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> You don't think we are slowly learning?


Not really, no.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> Not really, no.


I don't buy it. Nor do I entirely buy that we've made significant progress. And I buy both and don't buy both. Meaning that I don't know enough, but have strong feelings about the topic anyway. And I am not high(on any external substance). So there.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

I must agree that "Never Again" is wishfull, utopian thinking. If anything, mass murder on the genocidal scale has become more common and even worse, more costly in terms of human lives. There is a dark, seemingly bottemless well of hatred of the "other" that can be tapped all too easily by demigogs and tryants who get societies to acquiesce or even willingly participate in the horror. We will either need the Second Comming or further human ethical evolution, depending on your belief, to finaly remove the dark heart of the species.


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

I'm curious to know when people say "we" havne't learned from the holocaust, are you referring to humanity as a whole or any particular society?


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

man will never "learn"
Ukraine
Rwanda
Cambodia
Serbia
The list goes on and on


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> You don't think we are slowly learning?


No,I am afraid there are no signs of it anywhere.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I don't buy it. Nor do I entirely buy that we've made significant progress. And I buy both and don't buy both. Meaning that I don't know enough, but have strong feelings about the topic anyway. And I am not high(on any external substance). So there.


Now come on what sort of an answer is that ?
Look it's your world now,people like me will very shortly be gone---what are you going to do about it ?


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

moody said:


> Now come on what sort of an answer is that ?
> Look it's your world now,people like me will very shortly be gone---what are you going to do about it ?


Man will carry on, until the planet calls "enough"
He will carry on with his petty struggles
People cannot help feeling "centric" it's human nature
It takes a brave person to: step outside and see themselves in perspective within the UNIVERSE
Unfortunately man persists within his nature


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Spend a couple of minutes for the "children"


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Missed the thread, but not the occasion (posted Gorecki's 3d in my blog). Another very fitting composition is Reich's Different trains.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Art Rock said:


> Missed the thread, but not the occasion (posted Gorecki's 3d in my blog). Another very fitting composition is Reich's Different trains.


If one prefers the defiant to the mournful, Schoenberg's "A Survivor From Warsaw" might be appropriate.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

This has a very personal message as my father was one of the millions of Poles displaced


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

cwarchc said:


> This has a very personal message as my father was one of the millions of Poles displaced


I think it's easy for some of us who were not directly affected to forget how recent this tragedy really was.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

cwarchc said:


> This has a very personal message as my father was one of the millions of Poles displaced


My relatives had a similar experience. I must emphasise that this is not only about what happened to the Jews during the Third Reich and the war, it was about the whole society. Everyone was a victim, unless you where the few where where in control. & it can be argued that even the perpetrators of these atrocities where themsevles victims, I mean murdering people will never make most normal people happy, it goes against basic reason.

But I am very happy to be here on the other side of the world, away from Europe, whre again the ghosts of the past, these skeletons in the closet, are coming out again. They didn't deal with their 'unfinished business,' did they? Something is very wrong there and I pray that we don't have another world war, and potentially another mechanised genocide, as proof of their so called 'superiority.' If anything, to me they disproved that, I see them as wolves in sheeps clothing.


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