Gitta Sereny - The fake railway station at Treblinka (13/20)
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- čas přidán 19. 09. 2017
- To listen to more of Gitta Sereny’s stories, go to the playlist: • Gitta Sereny - Working...
From her experience as a welfare officer for concentration camp survivors, Gitta Sereny (1921-2012) was fascinated by the Holocaust and those who engineered it. She interviewed key figures in the Third Reich, continuing her study of evil in later writings. [Listener: Christopher Sykes]
People really need to read her books before commenting. She's not a Nazi sympathiser. Her consideration of Stangl and Speer are deeply nuanced and detailed, and her experiences very unique. Her chuckling I think is a nervous reflex (English is her third language). In her books on Stangl and Speer, she thought that, regardless of her feelings towards them, that they should have hanged.
I also think the chuckling and laughing throughout is nervousness as well as her unstated acknowledgment of some of the ironies and dissonances she's discussing
Her book interviewing Franz Stangl Kommandant of Sobibor/Treblinka 'Into that darkness' is a brilliant insight into the Extermination process.
I'm glad the interviewer corrected her "refugee" comment.
She sounds like she is minimizing in this interview series.
That "refugees" and then "prisoners" correction.
Joseph F - curious what you meant by minimizing? All the prisoners were refugees after liberation- as per the first segment, she came into the camps after liberation and dealt with the survivors as refugees, so it was only natural she would have primarily thought of them as such based on her own experiences. Are you suggesting that this supposed slip of the tongue exposes the Holocaust as a lie? If so, don’t you think the “conspirators” would have simply edited it out? If anything, keeping the slip in the final interview shows she has absolutely nothing to hide. But of course, that would be water off a denier’s back. Or have I read you wrong?
@@saharajoe999
The holocaust happened. Between 6 to 12 million people died - depends on who you include as a victim of the genocide. If you include Polish and Russian civilians you end up with an even higher number.
If you read her book you see her on occasion stating that SOME statements survivors made that had no merit. For example that Stangl had a harem of boys or he dressed kids into uniforms and marched them to the gas chambers. Other survivors and guards categorically denied this.
A recurring theme of "Into That Darkness" is dealing with Stangl's comments and investigating wither they are lies, the truth, or alternations based on him simply forgetting about the event. It seemed that they occurred roughly in equal parts.
Throughout the book you do not get the impression that she necessarily likes him but you ultimately see the human aspect of him. It is just a weird occurrence as you ultimately get the impression that any person could actually do what he did. Particularly if they are in a paramilitary context ie: a police officer. Reminds me of police battalion 101.
@@saharajoe999 I can't understand what your point is. I'm horrified that she can attest that they did nothing to the prisoners - or that the statements of prisoners might not be true. I'm sorry I listened to this.
@@saharajoe999 yes, I don't know how you got this from my comment. You have completely misread my meaning and it seems contradicted yourself in the process. It's utterly disingenuous to describe the victims as refugees.
That implies that they somehow had a choice to leave. Read my other comment. You say that she has "nothing to hide", but also that she cannot possibly claim that the Nazis did no harm to the victims (I refuse to pander to some intellectual argument that reasons that they were technically refugees).
No doubt the above will be misunderstood again. Can we just agree that this person has taken a view which is quite untenable, to say nothing of being utterly heartless and cruel? Just like the perpetrators of this appalling crime.
I don't think we really disagree here.
@@davidhill5684We get too hung up on every little word people use today. If it doesn't mean exactly what WE think it should mean, then it's the wrong thing. She's being very matter of fact. There were a handful of Germans in the place. Did they come into contact with every single person that came off the trains? No. Impossible. And, the deportees were there only briefly before meeting their ends. At most, several hours. So, from a purely practical perspective, what she's saying is accurate.
European communal party she describes, not death camps for sure.
fake railway?
no shit, it was all fake...stories from the most honest people in history☺
Sorry, they shot people on the ramp of sobibor. smiling ???? can t take her serious.
You get the impression that Sereny didn;t take this too seriously with her constant laughing
This is extremely offensive and particularly sacrilegious to show this during Holocaust Remembrance week when we just marked the 80 commemorative ceremony of the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto. Describing Franz Stangl the commander of the Treblinka extermination camp where between July 1942 and October 1943 900000 people were murdered mostly Jews from Warsaw and other areas of Poland as "someone who did very little" is outrageous him being one of the most notorious genocidal war criminals in history. Alluding to the Jews as "refugees" is truly beyond the pale as these were Polish citizens on Polish territory who at gun point were driven from their homes and into the Warsaw Ghetto by German and thus foreign soldiers who had no point in being in Poland in the first place. Subsequently at gun point they were forced to appear at the Warsaw Umschlagplatz from which they were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp and ninety minutes upon arrival virtually all murdered by forced inhalation of carbon monoxide from a truck engine and subsequently their corpses set on fire. This attempt to whitewash the worst of Nazi crimes is utterly despicable and has no place in the civilized world and should never appear on CZcams. Thank you very much and have a great day. El Molei Rachamim And Am Israel Chai 🇮🇱🇺🇲
I can't figure out if this person realises just how barbaric and inhumane the treatment of the prisoners actually was. To say "they didn't actually do anything like beat them" beggars belief quite frankly.
The arrivals were separated men and older boys and women and children.
They were asked to undress prior to a shower in a wooden barrack then women and children gently urged up a path lined with fir branches to the shower block (gas chamber) and locked into rooms there. If the numbers did not allow the men to come straight away, the women were gassed by carbon monoxide exhaust from a large engine.
Although some distance from the men, a boy drove a flock of geese around in a yard. The geese honking drowned any cries from the women/children.
The men were then dealt with the same way. All were gassed by one SS man turning a valve.
There were 24 SS there in total + 150 Ukrainian guards.
Prisoners worked at the death camp end to remove bodies from chambers and cremate them on grids. They had their barracks there in the death compound.
I believe her point is that the SS tried to use other prisoners or foreign auxillaries as much as possible to do the dirty work inside the camps. They tried to keep themselves removed as much as possible from the immediate horror, even if only by a small margin. I don't believe she's implying in any way that the prisoners were not treated barbarically or that the Germans were not culpable and responsible.
Fast forward to Gaza.