Time to let them rest..

[muddy]

And are we not polite to our visitors ?
There are any amount of Chinese tourists  to our country plus Germans and Japanese .

[Dextrous63]

In any conflict, there will always be psychopaths, sadists and sociopaths who will be more than happy to hurt/kill others.  Where else will they be given legal authority to do so. 

However, the majority will be well intentioned, perhaps naive, perhaps just brave and professional, or perhaps were conscripted and have no choice.  The unnamed hero's of it all who suffered, threw themselves in harms way, and may have had to kill those similar to themselves but on the other side.  For me, they're the unnamed heroes, lost within the empty tomb (which, iirc is the translation of cenotaph).  They're the ones who are worthy of our remembrance, for they could have been us or our children in another time.

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. 

That's why it is important to remember the fallen, irrespective of how long ago it was.

[JBR]

And are we not polite to our visitors ?
There are any amount of Chinese tourists  to our country plus Germans and Japanese .

Yes, I am, including the dusky-coloured ones.  My optician is a prime example of an Indian gentleman.
I think it is quite easy to tell which dusky-coloured visitors are not to be trusted.  Certainly the ones who stand guard outside of their 'private hotels'.  There is a fine example not far away from us in Altrincham.
There is also a great number of them in Bradfordistan, where the mother-in-law lives, though I'm sure that some of them are safe and trustworthy... I think.

[ansu]

"It also has annual ceremonies for its fallen military as does Germany ." You are right on a Sunday in November we go to the cementary and commemorate the soldiers fallen in the wars irrespective of the countries they came from. Our young people look after graves on military cemeteries all over Europe during their holidays. Pupils visit the concentration camps with their school class. After their visit there my daughters, for instance were really shocked. 
War is such a terrible thing, but sometimes I have the impression the we forget this. 

[Dextrous63]

The enormity of Aushwitz Berkenau left me absolutely gobsmacked.

[Raven]

The enormity of Aushwitz Berkenau left me absolutely gobsmacked.

I've only seen it in documentaries on the telly, it left me in a cold sweat, I don't think I could handle the real place. 
Yet young people today don't believe it happened  how can they be so ignorant. Do they really think our generation would make it up. 

[Alex]

I've only seen Auschwitz on TV but I did visit Bergen-Belsen.   Belsen didn't have any gas chambers, people died from starvation, dysentery and typhoid. A place I'll never forget.

[Dextrous63]

When they ran out of timber to make the accommodation sheds, they (Germans) requisitioned barns and stables, moved them to the site and re-erected them with no modification to make allowance that humans were to be housed in them. 

The site itself stretches as far as the eye can see in both directions.

Water/sanitation never worked properly due to the water trenches that were dug evaporating/losing water in summer and turning to ice in winter.


August 24, 2025, 07:49:44 PM

I've only seen Auschwitz on TV but I did visit Bergen-Belsen.  Belsen didn't have any gas chambers, people died from starvation, dysentery and typhoid. A place I'll never forget.

There were the occasional prisoner such as the story of a priest who tried to plead for some sort of humanity to take place who were locked in a cell and left to perish without water and food.

How can anyone ever justify to themselves that that was acceptable????

[Vlad]

In any conflict, there will always be psychopaths, sadists and sociopaths who will be more than happy to hurt/kill others.  Where else will they be given legal authority to do so. 

However, the majority will be well intentioned, perhaps naive, perhaps just brave and professional, or perhaps were conscripted and have no choice.  The unnamed hero's of it all who suffered, threw themselves in harms way, and may have had to kill those similar to themselves but on the other side.  For me, they're the unnamed heroes, lost within the empty tomb (which, iirc is the translation of cenotaph).  They're the ones who are worthy of our remembrance, for they could have been us or our children in another time.

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. 

That's why it is important to remember the fallen, irrespective of how long ago it was.

Bloody hell, I have met a few of them ....

"It was a different world then. It was a world that required young men like myself to be prepared to die for a civilisation that was worth living in." — Harry Read, 6th Airborne Division, Britain's Parachute Regiment"
 Passed over in 1984.

So sad, all lost in just 80 years.

[JBR]

Bloody hell, I have met a few of them ....

"It was a different world then. It was a world that required young men like myself to be prepared to die for a civilisation that was worth living in." — Harry Read, 6th Airborne Division, Britain's Parachute Regiment"
Passed over in 1984.

So sad, all lost in just 80 years.

An interesting point.
I wonder how many young men today would be prepared to die for our present-day civilisation here in Britain.
I'd also go so far as to wonder about our present-day armed forces.  I certainly hope that they would fight to the death, if necessary, but to be honest I am not absolutely sure.
I think that if you are fighting for a country, that country has to be worth fighting for!

[muddy]

I think that it is so sad that any young man has to go and die for his country .

[Dextrous63]

I'm sad that anyone has to go and kill for the sake of his country.

[Vlad]

I agree with that.  I have never been to either Japan or China, but I have been several times to Germany.
I never felt any arrogance or superiority from the German people and most of those I met were polite indeed.

I suspect that the Nazis were as they apparently were (I was not there of course) because of their leaders of the day.  In fact, I suspect that there would probably have been many Germans who were not the evil beings portrayed in the war films, but were obliged to act as some of them no doubt did due to 'pressure from above'.

I should also add that I have met more arrogant beings in Paris than in Germany!

Hell yes, French waiters! So bloody aloof and superior, the withering look when you try to order in French makes you want to hide under the table 

[Dextrous63]

Hell yes, French waiters! So bloody aloof and superior, the withering look when you try to order in French makes you want to hide under the table

I know.  Don't know why they get so uppity when one asks for une burger de boeuf et froomage avec bowcoop de pommes de terres frites.  

[Michael Rolls]

Because they are too thick to understand their own language