OT: Innocent?

Ok, do you remember the war in Jugoslavia? What exactly did you do about the mass murder happening there? There were concentrationcamps in Jugoslavia. Did you go there and lay your life down for the people who were killed? Oh, I can see you didn't.. Well, you are to blame that those people died. You watched and did not move a muscle. Oh, you're not from Jugoslavia and therefore weren't able to do anything about it? Well, I wasn't born in 1945 and people still blame me for the horrible past of my nation, but of course that's completely different.

cu nicole

Nobody was accusing you , about anything , you started commenting about the British Police`s actions, and wanted to `strengthen your claims by saying that YOU Are from a country were people were murdered because of their race and religion . Than when I personally told you I was pesonaly a victim of That period , you started to state that It was only One man`s craziness fault... And if you are so sorry for Juguslavia or any other country , or attack people here about their doing or not doing ?? what exactly do you do ? Besides twisteing Historical facts , Mixing different times etc... I know what i do for peace , for other groups , for more understanding with other people. mirjam

Based on that skewed argument, I do not live in Jugoslavia, your argument has no validity.

Nicole , Please give me your Great grand parents names , As they have probably been recomended for a tree in honor of their deed in the Righteous Amongst the Nations, and i can visit their plaque and give my respect.

Joining the Youth movements was Compulsory as this was the Way to bring up population , who will not oppose the party, Joining the part wan`t compulsory.

The comparison to to Cuba is out of place and time.

Excuse me???? you wrote your above letter under and in answer to Facts , you can`t deny.. please tell me what you want ? aim to gain ? You want Absolution ? >

When was there a gun pointed at your head ???? exactly ? and who asked You to do anything for others , as far as i see you keep telling everybody here to so. mirjam

Lucky people ! that they still kept Some of their wealth , not to mention their lives , and the ability to have children and grandchildren. mirjam >>

Nicole , >

I hope you know that for 100% , from documentation , and not from stories. I never put you down because of your nationality , you yourself tried to use your history as a alesson to the British , and later you told others here How Superior Your `knowledge` was,,,,

As you yourself wrote in another letter , it is EASY to sit in your safe home and tell Others what to do . We all do our best to solve our problems with our own people. Believe Nothoing you see or read isn`t as it happenes. >

In fact i think we deal quite well with it , Both our police as well as our soldiers ,are doing a marvelous job in diffusing very heated up fundamental people. mirjam

If you mean that I know more about germans who went against Hitler, yes, I obviously know more about you. It amazes me how you can not know about the GEscheister Scholl and the Weisse Rose at all and still claim you know more about Nazi germany than an ordinary german schoolchild. We were taught about all this in 6th and 7th grade (i.e. between 12 and 13 years of age WW2 is a history class subject). We visited Dachau, we had a wonderful teacher (she was french by the way) and I still remember much of what I learned way back when I was just barely a teenager.

You are commenting on what you wrote yourself here. I did not write that, those are your words.

Yes. You have fundamentalists aswell, so, can I therefore conclude that the majority of Israeli citizens are still stuck in hatred and extremely old fights, just like you do with germans?

Btw: A demonstration of Neonazis was forbidden just a few days ago, just in case you hadn't heard about that...

cu nicole

I am quite sure my great grandmother was not recommended for anything. It was a village, there's probaly not many now who remember her name. She didn't build a second wall into her house but she brought over food like vegetables and fruit from her large garden when the families were suffering because they didn't have enough.

Oh, because they're not actively killing members of a specific religious orientation?

Why would I want that? I didn't do anything that would need any kind of Absolution.

I would seriously suggest you stop reading things into my words that are not there.

cu nicole

As you might have notoiced i didn`t react mych about the group you mentioned , beacause i wanted to read and ask more about it.

now why doesn`t this surprise me ???? Only i suspect that you were taught more about the few who opposed than about the many who either supported him or silently went on with their lives.

What do you know about me ????

That is is your asummption , not mine .

about 2 years ago i heard a long lecture by the director od Dachau, after which we had a long eye to eye discussion. part of which was exactly about what German kids are taught. And what German people of certain ages know. and that with time More is taught.

Seeing some of the claims you made here .... i can have my doubts as to what and how you were taught. Since i saw that you were confused , because i Usually comment over the senteces i react to , i have this time tried to answer under it hence ..... >>

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You are deliberately misquoting me , mixing up times and subjects . I never denied we have fundamenatalists, and that we have to deal with them , as we do. I really don`t understand how you try to make an assumption , about anybody here and now in comparison to To deeds and feelings i and others have toward German Nazies. There are still hundreds thousand people who are suffering from illnesses and bodily and mentally problems , they Got in the nazie percecution. 250.000 people in Israel were under 15, when they survived Europe Under Nazie regime ... Israelis Don`t hate and aren`t stuck in extremely old fights, Israelies deal with everyday survival. many of us never knew Grandparents , Aunts Cousins .amomgst my close friends at least 25 . never knew or were too small to remember their murdered brothers and sisters. And you call it Hatred and extreemely old fights ???? No many of Us don`t hate , but we can`t forget it either . And in fact we should learn and teach it so it will never happen again.

Do you want a Medal , For it ? I know there are now New strict laws against Neo-Nazie demonatrtions, and it is only natural that it should be implanted. >

mirjam

That is very strange ,,,i am still in contact with the great Grand Niece of the people who helped mu parents, And so are many people , Most families i know who were helped by Other people , try to keep in contact ,,, 2 families is a lot to save and very brave ,,,, Sure they told somebody about being saved ,,, And as you see i don`t doubt your story at all ...i give it all the respect i can . Israel is honoring people who saved Jews, in those times. But having Written that , i can tell you from my own experience as well as other persons` experiences , that many people claim to have saved Jews During WW2 . But it was a false claim. That is why documentation is so important.

And where and how did these families survive ? where did those families Hide ???? Can you at least give me the name of the village ??? and maybe at least the details , Of the families ? How come they weren`t deported like all the others?

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This might be one of the reasons, but there are other reasons .

I don`t know what you want,?,,,so tell me what you want !

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Excuse me You wrote the Above Cahpter " It is Easy to say :So, lay your life down for the benefit of the many" while there is no gun pointed at your head ,,,,,, Thus i asked when it happened that you had a gun pointed at you ?? I and mine had , many a time . mirjam

Look, if this isn't saying all germans are still stupid fools who don't teach the truth about WW2 I don't know what is. I don't know what you've been taught but obviously you have never heared about the germans who went agains Hitler and you don't care much, I can't believe you can go thru life with such narrow tunnel vision, but somehow you're managing. I don't know what makes you so bitter and harsh, but I hope you'll get over it soon because I will not discuss the history of my country any further with you. You clearly don't want to see what's really happening in my country, you have your views and your oppinions and nothing will ever change them. To you germans are just horrible people, you keep saying they're not, and then you come out and say we're being educated about the wrong things because we don't want to see the truth.

I meant to write I know obviously know more about this than you, which would have been clear if you hadn't snipped the rest of the paragraph to suit you better.

Well, you did not know they existed 5 days ago.

Look, you have your views and I have mine. I know what I have been taught, you have no idea about what I have been taught, you have probably never sat in a history class in a german school, but of course you know more about what's being taught in one than I do.

Sure. Fine. I have been taught a lot about WW2. A lot of propaganda films were shown and we took them apart, analyzed what was being said and why it wasn't true, but of course you know much better what I was being taught than I do, because you have lived in germany for so long and because you and your children were educated in our shools. It must be like this otherwise you wouldn't claim to know more about our history lessons than I do?

No. I am quoting your messages in full. I write below your sentences. I don't snip random bits of paragraphs to twist what you're writing.

See, I don't understand how you can claim to know more about our schoolsystem than I do. You're forgetting that I have lived in germany for most of my life, I went to school here, all 13 years of it. I had history class from grade 5 till grade 13. And still you claim we are being told lies by our teachers.

And I don't doubt that. But there are several generations of germans alive now who did not hurt you, your family, or any other Jewish/Israeli People, but you still claim we're still the same, we have not changed.

Ok, so please explain to me why your people are not leaving the Gaza strip. It is not your land. It never really was yet your people refuse to leave it. News reports just now say 44 people were hurt in a fight, extremists used chemicals against the policeforce. Are these extremists Israelis? Are they your countrymen? Do you condemn them as harshly as you condemn generations of germans who were not even alive during WW2, or do you think it's a totally different thing again?

Yes. I call it that because this fighting and killing and retaliating over and over and over has been going on for decades. Your government retaliates attacks by bombing slums. You take away the little those people have left and then you wonder why some of those people, who have lost their whole families in those atacks, come back with bombs strapped to their bodies? They have nothing left to loose.

I'm not saying what they do is right, it's wrong and terrible and has to end. But you can't end violence with violence. It has not worked for the past decades it's not suddelny going to change.

It's like kids playing in a sand pit, one hits the other over the head with a plastic shovel and the next thing you know you have two crying toddlers with sand all over them crying "Mommy he hit me!"

No. I didn't have anything to do with it, but you know it's sweet how you attac me when you have nothing to set against my arguements.

Either you call me a liar, or my teachers, or you just tell me "Do you want a Medal , For it ?" or "please tell me what you want ? aim to gain ? You want Absolution ?".

No, those laws aren't new. They've been in place for about 10 years now, but I guess you just hadn't heared about that yet.

cu nicole

I don't know. My great grandmother died when I was 11. The only one left who might still know is my grandfather and he doesn't remember much anymore. I'm actually glad he still recognizes his familymembers and most of the time it's hard to tell where and especially _when_ he thinks he currently is.

Which you choose not to tell ;-)

I want you to understand that we are not liars, that we arent being taught lies in school, that there is not a huge number of germans saying "WW2 was great, let's do it again", that in fact this number is, over all, quite small. But since I have been reading your posts for the past weeks, I can not see this happening anytime. You need us to still be horrible people for some reason and you will do anything to make us look the part. You provoke me in every post you make by snipping as much text as possible to make the sentences you quote and reply to reflect your views of me and my nationality.

I understand you're traumatized by what happened to your family during WW2, and I know it will be very hard if not impossible for you to ever get over this huge amount of grief. But it will not go away by victimizing yourself. Even if you manage to make me look like the great big enemy who tries to make you suffer every chance I get, it will not make your grief go away. Spreading the misery will not help you feel better. Nobody can help you with your grief, you have to go thru this alone, maybe with the help of a councelor or loved one, but in the end it's your choice, either you want to "get better" (not a better person! Just one with less grief and trauma.), or you don't. Both options are OK. It's OK to want to grieve, it's OK to want more answers where there aren't any more to give, it's a natural part of dealing with loss. But blaming people who had nothing (directly) to do with that loss will not make that loss go away.

Please stop trying to make me feel worse because I am a member of the nation that caused your hurt. I was not born then, I can do nothing to change the past. I am doing everything in my power for it to not repeat itself, that's the most I can do. I can not change history, no amount of research can change history, nothing will make the people killed alive again, no matter how many times the german nation appologizes, it will not make history undone.

cu nicole

Come off it, Mirjam. Israel's very existance is an extremely old fight.

Elizabeth

YOU did? When was that, Mirjam?

Elizabeth

APPLAUSE!!!!!

Nicole you keep claiming wrongly , that i blame you , and i don`t blame you, i speak facts that are uneasy to you , i am sorry i can`t change my life to suit your ideas. I am in many Dialouges with German people. There are all kinds of Mutual reactions German and Jewish people have to work on when they meet. Both sides have to be open and listen to each other, i don`t think you are ready to listen. On the 5th, 6th, and 7th September we wil have our "3rd International Seminar of-`Women In the Holocaust" , There are always German Lecturers. Amongst them Directors of Memnorial Museums , researchers etc... Last year i was invited to attend an international confference in the Catholic University in Nijmegen "Conflicting intergenerational Holocaust effects among victims, perpertrators and other witnesses" Thus you might conclude that i give this matters some serious consideration, as an Artist and a researcher , for a book.

I could go on here and give you some long discussions. In the matter of Assumptions you are doing quite a nice job yourself. As to what is going in my country here and now, i never denied we have foundamenatlists, and that we have to deal with them and do deal with them. On the moral side , you are the one who attacked my opinions from day one, as well as putting words into my mouth. I didn`t judge you i told you facts, you on the other hand think you have the right to judge me and my land. Using the political situation in order to try and clean up the historical facts that will for ever stand between your and mine people, won`t help much. I never at any point attacked you personaly. mirjam :

Thank you Elizabeth for again prooving my point about your Jumping out of your skin , when you think you can attack me ..... Well i am not going to tell you all the stories .... but i will reffer you to a book ,,, "De Verdachte Oorboog" By Milo Anstadt, Contact , 1996. "De Harde Kern" Frida Vogels, Oorschot, 1993. "Pinkas " Geschiedenis van de joodse Gemeenschap in Nederland, by Jozeph Micman, Hartog Beem , Dan Michman. Contact , 1999, [i have seen this one in Hebrew as well. don`t know about English. "Joodse Vluchtelingen in Venlo" By Han Hol 1989. "Brieven Uit Beth Ziknah " By Sophie Cohen Kleermaker, Gebr.Zomer & "Memoboek" , Bosch 1972. Last and not least you might go to the `Westerbork` lists, to the `Mechlen` lists , Keunings Uitgeverij , No date. This are only some of the already printed material, that mentions if not at least one than several of my Direct family members. As to my own experiences , some i include in my art some i don`t. mirjam

Nope, just not to send me email. Or snail mail, for that matter.

Elizabeth