Friday, February 24, 2017

Holocaust AoW Impressions

      What I have learned is that even though the Holocaust was 70 years ago, the effects of it have lingered, and will continue to linger, for a significant period of time, even as our firsthand accounts fade. As we search around the camps and ask survivors about their stories, we learn more and more about Nazi atrocities. However, the survivors who have stories to tell are dying out, and we lose a few even if we manage to preserve some. And that's just those who want to tell their stories. Some don't tell anyone until close to death, and sometimes they don't at all, leaving their children to pick up the pieces...if they even know the pieces are there to pick up.
   
      As we find criminals, we bring them to justice, even though it may be futile. These men, despite the atrocities they committed, managed to get away with it for most of their lives. I get it, crime must be punished, but the way it's being done is both the only way, and the least useful. They don't see the error of their ways, and they can fake their way out of punishment with ease, being old men. Overall, who are we bringing to justice, if anyone? Can justice even be applied? Who knows?  I guess the only way to know is to ask our dwindling pool of survivors if this is working... at least we're finding relics to make up for it.

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