OT: TRAVEL REPORT to Auschwitz/Plaszow!!!

[hellraiser]

nice link jjr ... the amount for USSR is unbelievable ... and think Stalin was better at killing his own people than Adolf ... add another 20M during Stalin's era and you come up with a neat 40M in just 2-3 decades or something ... seems that the true Holocaust was in Russia, the jewish one was just a sideshow ... well, at least this is what the figures would tell to an uninformed person ...

And we call ourselves educated and civilized beings ... can you believe that? For thousands and thousands of years ppl have been killing eachother but the last century was such a vulgar display of true evil!!! We developed the technology just to up the death toll? To be led by sick ****s who can't think anything else than how to kill more ppl? Check today's facts ... same situation albeit less organized than in the 40s. Everytime you turn on the tv, the same thing: murder, death, kill.

Seems these are the fundamental values of the mankind ...

[AZGungHo]

I checked out the link too - very good - but did you notice that Burma (now called Myanmar) isnt listed? I checked under both names and didn't see it. Very strange as the war in Burma was long and bloody.

I've been there twice and have some good friends there, so that's why I'm interested.

[Kuniworth]

TRAVEL REPORT DAY 2

This was one busy day starting out at 7.30 am and ending at 9 pm. Today we travelled with bus to the city's around Krakow and it took a lot of time.

First we went south to the by now infamous ski resort village of Rabka. Ever heard of it? No I did not think so as this is one more almost forgotten place of large events. Anyway Rabka is along with Trawniki(north of Lublin, Poland) to this date the known training facilities for the third reich murderers at the death camps, einsatz etc etc. This village was cleared of inhabitants as SS made it the center of their educational program. The 1500 jews living in Rabka was used as target practice and training objects. They hanged the jews up on hooks in the local school and shot them, when all 1500 had been killed SS used jews from the villages and cities nearby. In the village of Jordanov which is nearby they shot the men and transported the women and children of age 0-4 years to use in practice. Poor babies shot to death...sick. All in all 5000 jews died here for training purpose.

Next stop this day was the city of Nowy Sacz. This city is today completely empty of jews and we visited the big square where the jews where rounded up and sent to infamous death camp Belzec.

Then before we went back to Krakow we went to the village Zbylitowska Gora. If you know your holocaust-history you will know that this village is infamous for the killings that took place here in 1942-43. In a spot in the woods covering an area of maybe 50 times 50 meters 10,000 people are burried here. Shot in the neck including 800 jewish kids. All in all there are 6000 jews from the city of Tarnow(east of Krakow) which lies here and 4,000 chatolic poles. And I tell you what of those 50x50 meters maybe only 1/3 contained the actual massgraves, horrible stuff. This site is a popular for israeli groups as it is rather famous in history teachings. All 800 kids where shot in one single grave and it's marked with a blue fence. Israelis put a lot of flowers here and write notes. This summer a group of israelis tried to clean away some flowers growing wild on the spot and found knee-caps as they did. The bodies are so damn close packed, and lays resting just under the surface.

After this experience we went back to Krakow and the jewish art museum Galicia. Here we had the great oppurtunity to talk to two holocaus surviviors, one from Ravensbruck and one from Auschwitz. Terrible stuff...

Thats all for now, tomorrow its time for Auschwitz 1.

TRIVIA: did you know that in southern Poland until some months ago there was not a single functioning synagogue? Today there exist one in Krakow...but only one is left of the jewish culture. Hitler has succeeded in a way...

[jon_j_rambo]

@Kuni --- Thanks for sharing your firsthand experiences of the crazy history caused by Germany. Can't say I have too many friends that would want to roadtrip to a deathcamp, I'm more of a Vegas guy. Isn't it really hard to believe the Germans butchered people like animals? Well, it wasn't the first time that particular group was singled out for elimination & it's not the last. Yes, AH is a picture of the AC, but the next round will make WW-2 look like a picnic. Kind of incredible, all that evil, that's why we're fasinated by it. No surprise there's no synagoges, can you blame that group for moving to their current location? The woman in travail will wail again someday.

Rack 'em & send Kuni a Camp Rambo T-shirt,

-Legend

[JerseyJohn]

Kuni,

This is particularly interesting to me because written a novel that takes place in Poland during the Second World War. I've been rewriting it for the past two years and have done a lot of research on precisely the events you've been talking about in these entries.

The first thing that shocked me wasn't the nazis cruelty and murderous actions against the Jews, I'd already known about that in spades. It was the way they used so many Poles and other ethnic groups against their first target even while planning to do the same to the very people who were helping them round up and kill the Jewish part of the population. Not even all the nazis understood the mass murder part of it.

The surviving notes from the Wansee conference show that even top SS men and nazi leaders had different ideas of what was to be done with the Jewish population. Most of them saw them as a free labor force to be manipulated and were taken aback when Heydrich came right out and said all ten million (already in the Reich and in areas it expected to take over during the war) were to be killed. Taken aback not on humanitarian grounds, but because they were being deprived of the workers they needed -- slave labor, a sad and sorry degeneracy in it's own right.

Poles and Russians were to be dealt with in a similar manner. Used as slave labor till they could no longer produce, their numbers were to be steadily reduced by forced celibacy and, after the war, they were be fed into the Final Solution machinery that would have just finished destroying the Jews.

Those Slavs who had helped Germany, mainly in the Balkans, were to continue but what their ultimate fate would have been is unclear.

Regarding Polish Jews after the war. There was one year when only a single Jewish baby was born in all of Poland (or was it Warsaw? I'm not sure if it was in the entire country)-- and that was decades after the Holocaust.

-- After the war, with millions of displaced persons of all groups returning to the homes they'd fled from, many Jews attempting to reclaim property in Poland, Germany and the Balkans, were murdered outright (in family groups) by the locals who had taken over what they'd been evicted from. I've always thought that was a particularly sad fate, to have been murdered twice, once in the concentration camps and a second time, by their onetime neighbors, when they thought they'd be able to go back to a peaceful life.

[hellraiser]

Yeah, for several thousand years now, it ain't a bright ideea to be born jew ...

Living with a permanent fear that someday the good neighbours will gang up on your ass and kill you or drive you away from the place, sucks big time.

Anyway things are not so bad for them now, if you compare the situation with the past, because a lot of countries are protecting them, issuing laws against discrimination and stuff. But not this is the problem...the problem lies deep beneath the ribs...in the heart of the locals. There are still parts of the world (Europe is the best example) in which a lot of latent hatred is present. We just have to hope that this hatred will never surface again like it did back in the 40s ...

[jon_j_rambo]

Honestly, I can't relate to all that European history stuff. Dudes with Swastikas, Balkans, Communists, Socialists, old Empires, new Empires, ethnic boundaries, trade routes, political bases. I grew up with Detroit Tiger baseball, cable T.V., & finding out I was a Legend.

The amazing thing happened in 1948 when the nation of Israel (round #2) began. The question for immigration back was 'are you a Jew'? Question is, what is the definition? (well, not AH definition). Jews are defined by their mothers I believe. If the mother is Jewish, the kid is Jewish. Rather interesting, I always thought of it more of a religion than a birth right. It's really a combination of birth/beliefs...whole subject.

I watch those old videos on History Channel, watching AH getting the whole nation all wound up, incredible how fast it happened. I wonder what will happen in the next 50 years? Well, I'll be dead before that, but it should be interesting.

Back to topic:

@Sir Jersey --- You're right, the Germans during WW-2 killed just as many "regular gentiles" as Jews which doesn't get the press or attention. I guess why the Jews get the attention, because they were single out for a specific reason. What is not taught (even less than the regular dudes) is Stalin's Purges. American Schools never taught me that, about Stalin waxing people. Had to hear that from my parents & the History Channel.

@HR --- Dude, so you're just chillin' in Romanian? I wish I could have all you Euro dudes over for my favorite Holiday next weekend, Thanksgiving! The Legend's family & friends always have the traditional Turkey, Mashed Potatos (no, I don't spell with 'e'), Stuffing, Gravy, Corn, & Booze....then of course some scriptures, NFL Detroit Lion / Dallas Cowboy games, & my annual Rambo SC Turkey Shootout. Family get together starts week from tonight.

-Legend from the Northwest >>>>> OUT

[Kuniworth]

TRAVEL DAY 3 - AUSCHWITZ I

Went up quite early to take the bus to Oswiecem 70 kilometers south west of Krakow. Auschwitz lays right in the middle of the urban area in Oswiecem and people live around it, today it functions as a museum for the public. A LOT of people come here so you will face a lot of tourist groups as you go around taking pictures and reflecting on what happened here.

We started of by seeing the russian movie from the liberation of Auschwitz, january 27th 1945, followed by the british movie "silent witnessess" about the british experience when liberation Bergen-Belsen. It was not that fun to see slaughtered children over and over.

We then went with a guide around the camp. The camp is really small about 250 m broad and 200 meters wide. This was the administration camp originally and the real death factory we'll be seeing tomorrow: the 30 times larger Birkenau camp. Anyway Auschwitz I is the museum for both places and got all the gruesome stuff you'll probably know about this already.

You enter through the gate with the famous label "arbeit macht frei" over it and then you can chose what to do. We followed the guide and saw all the terible stuff: hair from 40,000 people(part of what the russians found in one of the 30 barracks that fortunately the SS could not burn down), shoes, pots, bags, childrens shoes, glasses that fills a room. And remember this is only a part of what the russians were able to save and the most part had already left for Germany. It's kinda sick watching this and have people photograph around you but I did not cry at least, you just can't imagine 1,1 million people killed at this spot.

After this we went to see the execution wall and yard of torture, the jail and gestapo interrogation house block 11 aka "house of death", the sick wards, the assembly area with the well used gallows, Dr Megele's office and the house of medical experiments on humans, the exhibitions of jews and nations and finally the preserved gas chamber with crematoria. And we also saw the gallow especially built to hang the camp's commendant Rudolf Hoss after the war in 1947.

Let me tell you this place is really disgusting. I did not cry but when writing this I guess I still have not reallt ley it all sunk in. Its just to sick and overwhelming, to go down the basement in block 11 and see the small cells is creepy. THey had small cells measuring 90 cm square where 4 people had to crawl into through a hatch at the bottom wall and stand for whole nights. THere were also cells for people to sufficate in and some were people were put to die of starvation.

Well after the guide's tour we had lunch and then went back to go through the camp of our own. I took a lot of pictures that I can post later but I took none from inside of the gas chamber and crematoria. Partly because I started to feel this to be an insult to the victims but also because it's scary. The horror really are stuck in the walls of the gaschamber and block 11.

After this we went to a restaurant nearby to talk to Auschwitz survivor the polish resistance fighter Kazimier Smolens. He survived the camp from 1940-45 ad told us about his memories. He is one of the first prisoners that arrived in AUschwitz and got a number tatooed that is like 1200 something. That is a really low number I'll tell ya considering the several hundred thousand slave labours that came and went through the years. He told us how comradeship was the most important thing for survivol and how they used all their power to resist in any way possible. I asked him alot of stuff. One particular thing he said about the SS was interesting. Smolens said the SS guards and officers and Auschwitz started to get anxious beginning in 1943. This continued and escalated in 1944 when Germany clearly had problems holding the ground on the different fronts. SS got more and more unwilling to do big executions and disciplin faded slowly but stadily.

I think that statement says so much. This aryan people, "the ubermensch", really could not stand the heat when russians were closing in. So much for fighting for ideals...nothing but cowards in a sense. On the other hand Smolens statement is important as it tells us that everyone is human and not robots. After all horror they still were humans.

[jon_j_rambo]

@Kuni --- If I was a Russian General & saw that stuff back in '44-'45 first hand...well, you'd see today a stack of German clothes, glasses, & blond hair right beside the furnance. The Buntas got off easy.

It's really amazing, now Germany has the #2 economy in the world! Just 1.5 generations later, what is Japan #3? Germany & Japan are like a best friends in the political sense...well, I guess they had to partner up with the USA or become a fence post to the Iron Curtin forever. We'll see how well they remain friends when things get tough. I wonder when Germany/Japan will get a military? Our tax money is really helps their economy in the form of defense, bases, etc.

Anybody got the numbers on what the Russians did to Germans? Anybody got the numbers what the USA/UK did? Didn't the Russians lose 1,000,000 men at the taking of Berlin? Were SS units really better fighters in real combat or is it just myth?

"Here's our chance. We should blow up every bridge, every road, & every building. Then send over a couple of buffalo & let them start like we did" --- Charles Bronson in the movie classic, Battle of the Bulge.

"You wannabee a Legend, kid? They you gotta step up when it's big" --- Jon J. Rambo

[ November 16, 2005, 11:08 PM: Message edited by: jon_j_rambo ]

[hellraiser]

It is no wonder that Germany and Japan have these strong economies. Massively aided by US cash after the war, the industrious peoples of G and J worked their ass off to achieve this status. We don't have to overlook G and J ppl potential and virtues. Hard workers, disciplined, organized. These are their traits no matter what they did 50 years ago, and we have to admit it.

Regarding germany's armed forces - it is not a force to be mocked at ... it can raise an army 1.5 times larger than France's and their tech level is quite high as well (in respect to conventional weaponry, OFC). Being used for so many years as a main buffer in the east, one can imagine that G's army was buffed quite a lot.

Ref what the russians did to the germans - i donno exactly but i can tell you stories about what the russians did to the romanians - rapings, thefts, killings, all the assortment - and think that romanians are kind and warm people and they did little damage to Russian civilians when they fought in the east. The romanians hated the communism not the russian people.

Ref SS being better fighters - some of the SS units were clearly one of the best (if not THE best) units to fight in WW2. I am talking mainly about the 3 famous divisions: LSSAH, Das Reich, Totenkopf. 5 stars crack troops, benefitting of top notch weaponry and intensive training. La creme de la creme of SS fighting force. Unfortunately their incredible achievement on the field of battle is tainted by occasional unhonourably behaviour towards civilians (Oradour village, 600 + ppl massacred by elements of Das Reich, and i am sure we can find some other examples). But these were things outside normality, the a/m divisions were fighting on the front most of the time and did not spend most of their time to chase partisans or kill civilians. Rollkommandos, Einsatzgruppen were taking care of this business ...

One should not mix the Waffen SS units (SS' fighting force, aka soldiers) with SS units assigned to deathcamps, hunting down jews and civilians in the occupied territories and stuff. Waffen SS were one of the Germany's best soldiers and they deserve respect for that matter. Of course they had whackos among them (a lot probably) but so did the Wehrmacht, so did the reds, so did the Wallies - shooting to death german POWs in the west was not such an uncommon occurence ...

[Kuniworth]

TRAVELREPORT - DAY 4, BIRKENAU

Short report today. Birkenau is huge and its cold when winds blow hard. We saw the gaschambers and crematorias and all the other vital stuff. You'll notice that the SS put a lot of thought into details. For instance crematoria and gaschambers II and III are located at the end of the railroad running through the camp. These two got the entrance to the dressingrooms facing away from the railroad so no one should suspect anything before it was to late.

Almost all of the old wooden barracks are gone and so are also the gaschambers and crematorias which the blew up. Most is left of II and III including some walls and the dressingrooms. Chamber V got some metal from the furnace left so you can see where it was located.

One reflection from this is how the prisoners could survive at all in those ice-freezing barracks with no heating.

Ok tomorrow final report from the ghetto and the Plaszow camp.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

The Buntas got off easy.

sure did. Of 7000 ss guards at the Auschwitz facilities only 700 were brought to justice. That means that there are probably murderers roaming free right now. Who knows maybe in Idaho or in my hometown in Sweden?

[JerseyJohn]

During the second half of the war, the SS was drafting anyone in sight, including non-Germans from 1943 onwards. As the camps fell, many of the criminal guards fled and it was the local drafted SS that was brought in to guard the places. In many instances, after surrendering, they were disarmed and turned over to the prisoners, who beat them to death. No travesty if they had been the actual guards, but usually they weren't. As Kuni said, the real culprits, for the main part, got away.

Many of them to the United States because, in the Cold War, the United States government had an unofficial policy of harboring them because they were believed to be useful against the Soviets.

Most of them had no value at all and were only sadistic murderers who'd been allowed to start over again. That didn't start coming out till the 1970s.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

The Buntas got off easy.

sure did. Of 7000 ss guards at the Auschwitz facilities only 700 were brought to justice. That means that there are probably murderers roaming free right now. Who knows maybe in Idaho or in my hometown in Sweden? </font>

[JerseyJohn]

Double Post -- pushing to 7,000 any way I can.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by Lars:

They'd all be in their 80's. Not much to fear in this world, but I'd bet quaking about their reception in the next.

In many instances their legacy was to encourage and spawn suceeding generations of nazis. As Hellraiser said earlier, there will always be a given % of sociopathic freaks waiting to step in and become the new SS, NKVD or whatever name they're going to use. But it's worse when they've got a past generation, living in sympathetic surroundings, to give them pointers and encouragement.

[Liam]

I hear so many stories about the Jews, one of the major races targeted.

Many of the Gypsies, second major race targeted.

Although the Slavs hit the hardest they are partially ignored, they're looked upon more as combatant deaths I think. As the Germans had to shoot them in the field and didn't have the time or facilities to deport them...

The SS and other organizations responsible for round them up did some atrocious acts. They were taught as such. Personally had I been a jewish boy in that era I would've picked up a rifle or clobbered a Nazi on the back of the head and fought to the death...

Something I appreciate about Americans, you see the World Trade Center Bombings the minute Americans knew our fate, the case of our plane that crashed near PA, we took up in arms against our assailants and killed them... It's much better to die fighting than to die a martyr IMO that is a large difference between Slavs/Russians and Jews who with no nation, no real arms and no real indentity to unify them were easily carted off and tricked

Isreal is a good sign of Jewish strength. They are by far more now than ever before showing gut and determination. You must fight and die if someone wishes to exterminate you. Right now the Nation of Isreal has near 200 Nukes, when the Arabs do strike, I would like to see 200 million Dead Arabs even if they claim 6 or 7 million Jews...

It will be an interesting site for hatred of one another however never a solution. The Jews were never going to be exterminated, a Nazi Pipe Dream. Most Germans were following orders

<kinda like what would happen if one of America's Nuke Subs got an Order to obliterate North Korea, you think they'd second guess it?>

I can't blame just Germans, I blame everyone, most westerners have issues with slavs, gyspsies, and jews... the slayer of Christ, the Undesirable Race of the East, the Mongoloids... "Gyspies tramps and thieves..." You know how it goes

Noone really cries all that much for these people, IMO noone really cares all that much and many of the persecutors of the Holocaust were by the way in fact Slavs. Odd, they were next on the chopping block, ignorant or no better?

I have to say the next worldwide extermination will likely be in the USA.. Growing seething hatred now looms between the ethnic whites and minorities.. Growing gaps between the two.. Who is to say what shall come of this in our own nation. Many on both sides want to kill the other, deport, seperate... Whenever one race wishes itself seperate, individual, etc.. from another it causes a gap in which will be issues... Communism and Russia was to the ideal, conform.. erase religion, differences, race, etc... 1 Man, 1 Ambition, Domination

Interesting Humanbeings, is Democracy any different, buy a T.V. a DVD and join the West with a polyester suite

[jon_j_rambo]

Personally, I never wear polyester & use my Sonyplaystation as a DVD. But I do have a 52" High Definition television. Far as Liam's comments, well, I agree with parts of it. I've never understood why they Jews in Europe just sat there while Hitler gave those anti-Semetic speaches before the war...and do nothing. I'd go out swinging at least, no way I'm voluteering to get stuffed into a cargo train. But if you're young/old, what chance do you have? In reality, they were doomed. Nowhere to hide once the war broke out. Israel today is a major force, but they will be hard pressed come AC time.

[ November 18, 2005, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: jon_j_rambo ]

[xwormwood]

After all the jews did fight back in WW2:

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was a fine statement to the free world, and in the concentration camps Treblinka and Sobibor were uprisings as well.

But even when the jews started to fight, the rest of the world did pretty nothing to help them.

Or to stop the holocaust (which was known to all the allied / soviet leaders by the time).

Warsaw Uprising

Ghetto Uprising

[ November 18, 2005, 03:34 AM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]

[JerseyJohn]

Liam

-- Rambo pretty much made the comments I had in mind. It was never as simple as just fighting back. Anyone who was able to, and did, knew he was condemning the rest of his family. Later, when there weren't any intact Jewish families, most of the able bodied were either locked up or dead. That some of them managed to fight at all is pretty amazing and, in any case, there were thousands of Jews who hid in hills and forests and became partisans. Few of the ones who got on those cattle cars understood the horror that lay ahead for them. Aside from which, nobody starts fighting when they're already starving and jammed together with old people and children, all of whom are covered by hundreds of troops armed to the teeth. It just doesn't happen. If one person does start resisting a quick bullet to the head ends it in a hurry.

Leading up the roundups, the Gestapo made it a buerocratic process. Get the paper work done. Push them a little, then a little more and so on,

and with each push the victim is in an ever worsening position till the only fight is for basic survival -- resistance by then is impossible other than to make a statement through suicide.

MrX.

General Jodl repremanded the SS general who wiped out the Warsaw Ghetto. He held up his bound report, neatly typed and practically a book, and said it was three times longer than the full reports for major battles. "Next time be brief. I have no time to spend on this sort of thing."

In 1942, the consensus of American Rabbis meeting in D. C., was that reports of European Jews being slaughtered by the nazis, were grossly exaggerated. Most Allied officials insisted the Final Solution was only a rumor till mid-1943, when direct photographic evidence from aerial recon confirmed the existence of the death camps.

Even after that time it was felt that the reports had still had to be exaggerations because the amount of transport involved would have been ruinous to the German war effort. And it was.

[Lars]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

In 1942, the consensus of American Rabbis meeting in D. C., was that reports of European Jews being slaughtered by the nazis, were grossly exaggerated. Most Allied officials insisted the Final Solution was only a rumor till mid-1943, when direct photographic evidence from aerial recon confirmed the existence of the death camps.

Even after that time it was felt that the reports had still had to be exaggerations because the amount of transport involved would have been ruinous to the German war effort. And it was.

Plus, it would have made it a bit tough to get the Japs on the train.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

I've never understood why they Jews in Europe just sat there while Hitler gave those anti-Semetic speaches before the war...and do nothing. I'd go out swinging at least, no way I'm voluteering to get stuffed into a cargo train. But if you're young/old, what chance do you have? In reality, they were doomed. Nowhere to hide once the war broke.

Yes I asked a lot the survivors I met on this journey about resistance. And as JJ stated there was a lot of resistance in different shapes. But the whole process over the years broke down people so when they walked to the gaschambers the nazi systems had for years step by step reduced their will to fight. I think it's vital to remember that the holocaust was a process not just killing people.

[Kuniworth]

TRAVEL REORT 5 - Ghetto and Plaszow camp

This day we went and so the Ghetto. We saw the wall that surrounded the area and the factory of Oscar Schindler. It is still here, and you'll recognise some of the scenes from schindler's list. I think they are turning the empty factory houses into a museum because there were a lot of work going on as we came there.

After this we went to Plaszow camp, not much remains as all buildings were dismounted and shipped to Germany during the war. What is left is kommendant Amon Goth's house and the SS qjarters. On the slope of the camp where the barracks stood polish students have dug out the old jewish graveyard which the camp was founded on(as a way to humiliate the prisoners), and you can still see some of the old tombstones.

When Spielberg made his movie "Schindler's list" he used the valley behind the camp so its not at the same location. In the movie Goth's house was on a hill but that was not the case in reality. True is however that he shot prisoners with a rifle from is balcony.

Ok that's my last travel report. I'll be doing Krakow tomorrow and then fly home. Thanks for the discussion in this thread, pics will be posted later.

TRIVIA: Spielberg wanted the scenes from Auschwitz to be filmed at the real location but was repeatedly denied by polish authorities. The AUschwitz memorial grounds are not allowed to use for commerical purposes nor is advertising or shops allowed in our close to the camp. Only exceptions are a few bookstores containing litterature about Auschwitz/Birkenau.

[Tancred]

There is no reason to suppose that the Nazi government would have killed so many people. This is pure conjecture, based on captured documents that discussed these ideas. This is no proof.

Infact I think this idea of a huge massacre highly unlikely. Hitler wanted living space for the German people, and this was the main motivation for the war against Poland and the USSR.

Obviously, this plan entailed the Germanization of a suitable (and willing) minority of the Slav inhabitants and the resettlement of many others across the Urals. A third group would remain as servants/slaves of the German masters. Hitler got his idea from the way the British ruled India. Quite apart from any moral considerations, which admittedly the Nazis did not have, a huge massacre would have served no purpose - they needed manpower for tilling the fields etc. It is certainly likely that a few million individuals would have died during the Slav resettlement across the Urals - just as 2 million Germans died when 16 million of them were forcibly expelled from the eastern territories in 1945-46 - but I think it very unlikely that there was ever a master plan for Slav genocide.

This exaggerated hypothesis of Nazi genocide plans against Slavs seems to have emanated from the KGB after the war, mostly for propaganda reasons and scaremongering against the idea of a united Germany.

The main reason why so many Poles and Russian civilians died during the war was because Hitler insisted on a retribution ratio of 100:1 whenever partisans killed a German serviceman. This order was often ignored in the more friendly regions of Western Europe, but not in the East.

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

All of Poland and Western Russia is, in a sense, a memorial to nazi barbarity and slaughter. Nobody even knows the number of towns and villages that were wiped out, their inhavitants usually rounded up and slaughtered. Contrary to public belief most of those operations were carried out by the regular German Army and not the SS.

The extermination of the Jews was only the first phase, what was planned to come next would have been several times larger; the extermination of all Poles and Slavs.

An excellent book on the subject is Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation 1939-1944 Richard C. Lukas 1986, revised 1997.

[Tancred]

Actually the Russians and Poles did reopen many of the old Nazi camps and filled them with German civilians. Read the book by Alfred de Zayas.

When Soviet armies entered Germany they raped around 2 million German women, around 10-15% of whom are estimated to have subsequently committed suicide. A monstrous barbarity to rival anything by the Germans. And, in addition to that, around 1 million German civilians, including babies, women and old people, were killed by Soviet gunfire as they attempted to escape the approaching Red Army. Some 21,000 German civilians also died on transport ships like the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Goya that were ruthlessly sunk by Soviet submarines, in defiance of international law.

A further 1.2-1.5 million ethnic Germans were killed and/or murdered as they were expelled from former German and German populated territories after the end of hositlities.

The Western allies did nothing to alleviate the plight of these unfortunates.

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

@Kuni --- If I was a Russian General & saw that stuff back in '44-'45 first hand...well, you'd see today a stack of German clothes, glasses, & blond hair right beside the furnance. The Buntas got off easy.

It's really amazing, now Germany has the #2 economy in the world! Just 1.5 generations later, what is Japan #3? Germany & Japan are like a best friends in the political sense...well, I guess they had to partner up with the USA or become a fence post to the Iron Curtin forever. We'll see how well they remain friends when things get tough. I wonder when Germany/Japan will get a military? Our tax money is really helps their economy in the form of defense, bases, etc.

Anybody got the numbers on what the Russians did to Germans? Anybody got the numbers what the USA/UK did? Didn't the Russians lose 1,000,000 men at the taking of Berlin? Were SS units really better fighters in real combat or is it just myth?

"Here's our chance. We should blow up every bridge, every road, & every building. Then send over a couple of buffalo & let them start like we did" --- Charles Bronson in the movie classic, Battle of the Bulge.

"You wannabee a Legend, kid? They you gotta step up when it's big" --- Jon J. Rambo