(no subject)

[shinytoaster]

I watched the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are this evening. I don't watch a whole lot of TV these days because most of it is remorselessly moronic dreck, and I don't usually make a point of watching this show either, which features some witless C-Lister exploring the depths of their family tree. Tonight however, I made an exception, because I like Stephen Fry enormously. And Stephen Fry is of course the quintessential Englishman and certain to be very funny.

It wasn't exactly a funny programme. And it turns out Stephen Fry isn't exactly English, either. The maternal side of the family originated in a small town of no consequence in modern-day Slovakia, about halfway between Bratislava and Budapest. This town is notable only for its sugar factory, which employed most of the town's population, including Stephen's grandfather, whose name was Neumann.

Quite by chance, in the mid-1920s, Neumann was invited to help supervise the British sugar industry and construct a new processing plant in Bury St Edmunds. He duly moved a thousand miles across Europe, dragging his wife and young daughter with him, and in doing so he inadvertantly saved their lives. Neumann's family who remained were murdered in Auschwitz.

It's so fucking upsetting and so fucking depressing and it enrages me beyond belief, it enrages me to the point of incoherency and the point of tears.

This Friday will be the sixty-first anniversary, if one can begin to contemplate calling it an 'anniversary', of the day Soviet troops arrived in Auschwitz and Birkenau, or Holocaust Memorial Day here, Gedenktag für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus in Germany, and Dzień Pamięci Ofiar Nazizmu in Poland.

People don't seem angry about this any more. That's a shame. They fucking well should do.

Comments

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

People are still angry and upset about it here. Including myself.

[tobymalfoy.livejournal.com]

Stephen Fry incorporated this part of his family history into one of his novels. Only I don't remember wich one it was. -.- I'm tempted to say 'Making History', but I have a feeling that it's not, despite having the Nazi regime as the main theme.

People don't seem angry about this any more. That's a shame. They fucking well should do.

I don't really care about the date. And I'm not really angry about what happened back then, because I consider it a waste of a perfectly usefull emotion to be angry about something that happened before my lifetime. What I am quite frequently angry about is when people forget, because forgetting leads to the same mistakes being made again. And the same mistakes may very well lead to the same results.

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

Hmm. People are actually forgetting? I know there are idiots who claim it never happened, but I haven't seen complacency about it anywhere. Now I wonder if my life's too sheltered.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

I think we're all forgetting to some degree. You can't keep something like this in your mind all the time because you'd tear up so often that you'd never get on with your life. That's why days like this Friday are so important.

[tobymalfoy.livejournal.com]

Yes, they are. Not necessarily the fact that it happened (although there are enough that deny that fact and that makes me fucking angry), but how it happened and that we have to keep remembering that to make sure it never happens again.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

I do get surprised when someone like you says he thinks it isn't worth getting angry about something that happened before his time, because genocide still happens. It doesn't make it any less shocking just because it doesn't happen so close to home. It has happened in Europe within the last twenty years. What is the difference between being angry about the Holocaust and anger about the Serbs killing Bosnian Muslim men ?

It's worth getting angry because if you don't feel some emotion over it all, then that's one less person who can stand up to stop it happening in the future. It's awful enough to know we as a community didn't manage to stop the Serbs doing their ethnic cleansing.

It doesn't matter whether you're angry about events or other people's reactions, because the point of anger is to prevent more death, whichever way you look at it.

[tobymalfoy.livejournal.com]

I do get surprised when someone like you says he thinks it isn't worth getting angry about something that happened before his time, because genocide still happens. It doesn't make it any less shocking just because it doesn't happen so close to home. It has happened in Europe within the last twenty years. What is the difference between being angry about the Holocaust and anger about the Serbs killing Bosnian Muslim men ?

The difference is that Bosnia happened while I was alive. There were plenty of people around for me to be angry at: Those that did it, those that stood by, those that applauded, those that failed to do their job and watch out for the signs of something like that comming, those in political power with the means to prevent it, but didn't... Being angry about the Holocaust has no such target and I find that I cannot be angry at a historical fact. I can be angry at those that deny it happened, at those that refuse to learn from it and at those that simply forget what can be learned from it.

It's worth getting angry because if you don't feel some emotion over it all, then that's one less person who can stand up to stop it happening in the future. It's awful enough to know we as a community didn't manage to stop the Serbs doing their ethnic cleansing.

See, this is were you have me confused. How does not feeling anger about something translate into feeling nothing? I feel plenty about the Holocaust: Sadness, Horror, Shock.

It doesn't matter whether you're angry about events or other people's reactions, because the point of anger is to prevent more death, whichever way you look at it.

I think it does matter a lot. I think it's much more important to be angry about the reactions to things that are happening, than events that happened before, because by being angry about what is happening, you can make your anger heard and by that maybe change something before it's too late.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

I have to say that while I try to respect your opinion on this one, I can't help but feel uneasy that you think it's a waste of a perfectly useful emotion. What would you rather be angry about? I find anger means I don't forget, but I'm glad you can remember in your way.

[tobymalfoy.livejournal.com]

What would you rather be angry about?

I actually thought I said in my original comment. Perhaps it wasn't clear enough? I would rather be angry at those that forget, sit by, turn a blind eye or deny. And I am. Quite a lot and quite frequently.

I find anger means I don't forget, but I'm glad you can remember in your way.

I find that the disgust, horror, sadness and shock at the sheer scale of human cruelty serve just as well.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Have I told you recently how much I love you?

(Am by coincidence procrastinating instead of writing a piece on president Ahmadinejad of Iran, who claims the whole shindig did not exist. In which case I want several great-aunts and relatives back.)

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

Ahmadinejad is a c**t.

It's the photos that do it for me. They showed the family photos, all nicely posed and with the three little girls with ribbons in their hair and everything, and it's that sort of thing that makes me snap inside. Did you ever see the Beeb's rather wonderful World At War? I hope you did - they did something very similar in the opening credits, with the photos catching fire.

[zorb]

Out of curiosity, did they mention whether Fry's Neumanns were related to this one?

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

Um, it's conceivable, but given the name translates as Newman, which must make it pretty common. They certainly didn't mention it.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

The trouble is, unless you are lucky enough to be visited by one of the Holocaust survivors at school or you study German history in any depth or you have Jewish ancestry, you don't have any way of getting below the surface of the whole point of the holocaust, it's just all books ( such as Anne Frank ) or films.

We need to remember because it still happens. We need to stand up as a world and say it's not OK to kill people for not being the same.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

But 6 million Jewish people who died were the same, Michelle. They were exactly the same as you or me, bar a propensity for wearing yarmulkes and a fondness for chicken soup and gefilte, which aren't things that really make you stand out. I'm not trying to paint you as an anti-Semite, heaven forbid, but I really think danger starts when you start trying to categorise people.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

No, you're reading me wrong. Nobody is the same, Alex, we're all different. Different political beliefs, language, sexuality, ethnicity. The point is, the people who commit these genocides find something they see as different to justify their actions. My dad's family only survived what happened in Smyrna because my great grandad helped them because he had a UK passport. So please don't tell me I don't get the point. Many families died because they happened to be ethnically Greek living in a part of what is now Turkey.

[arcly.livejournal.com]

Much love for Stephen Fry in that programme, which had me quite upset too, especially when he met the single Jewish survivor back in Slovakia. Made me think of Primo Levi, whose account of his survival of Auschwitz is here - http://tinyurl.com/ansty - for anyone who hasn't read it. Hell of a writer. Just doesn't bear thinking about, all of it.

[minkboylove.livejournal.com]

The saddest thing is, Stephen Fry's family history isn't at all unusual. My best friend is Jewish and her family tree reads much the same - big gaps all over the place where great aunts and uncles and cousins vanished in a similar, sinister fashion.

[sophie10.livejournal.com]

One of my A Level art projects was about the Holocaust and I was lucky enough to meet some men and women who survived the camps. The subject doesn't make me angry, just incredibly sad. People are horrible really.

[sashatwen.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way. In order to be angry, I'd have to point fingers at someone to be angry at - and basically everybody qualifies, including myself.