It is a matter of history that when Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps, he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead. He did this because he said in words to this effect:
'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing'.
This week, the University of Kentucky removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offended' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.
Caveat - this may be a slight exaggeration or even a completely false rumour.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Lest we forget
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5 comments:
Inconvenient facts, innit? Even film studio bosses have the dilemma of whether to risk audiences' disapproval and a boycott, or to stick by a fact.
Stephen Fry, who is writing the screenplay for the remake of the Dambusters (shooting May 2008), is thought to favour the dog being called 'Trigger' or anything other than 'Nigger' - which is what Gibson called him when he was being polite.
On the one hand, it seems to be a stupid thing to get wound up about because it wasn't like the dog flew any planes, so why not call him 'Rover' for all that it matters to the war story. The name was already dubbed once in the first film for release on the US market so as not to annoy people. On the other hand, if people can't even face the fact of a dog's name, what chance is there of them facing any other more pertinent facts?
If it were up to me I would write the dog out of the story completely.
Your caveat is right, that story is a big pile of poo:
http://news.uky.edu/news/display_article.php?category=1&artid=2873&type=1
The quote may be crap, but the fact the allies made sure the whole thing was as well documented as possible isn't. Nor is the fact local German civilians were often made to visit the camps before they were cleaned up; indeed local Germans were often forced to do the cleaning up.
Whether the idea was to ram home the enormity of what was done in their name, to create a legion of witnesses who could not deny the existence of the camps or simply a desire to make the German people feel as sickened as I imagine the allied soldiers were I have no clue; probably it was a mixture of all three.
The plain fact is that evidence was gathered and witnesses witnessed. Hence the contrition of Germany to this day and the fact that all but a fuckwitted minority claim that Germany's defeat wasn't both deserved and real.
ps Compare and contrast this with the attitude of the Japanese. Most Japanese perpetrated attrocities occured outside Japan and hence a large proportion of the people and their government never saw them and to this day they deny them.
Score one for Ike and nil for Big Mac
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