History repeating itself?

One of my sisters visited Westerwald (Stahlhofen am Wiesensee) in Germany with her family this past weekend. (They live in Germany, so it wasn't too big a trip!)

Our dad wished her a safe trip and said, "I found [your destination] on the internet and spent some time with you in my thoughts! . . . I also found a less pleasant story about Westerwald from the New York Times published in November 1988."

Title of the article: For Germany's Jews, the Night Hope Died--by Serge Schmemann. It's a retrospective on what has come to be known as Kristallnacht, an event that, I know, transformed my father's view of the world, but whose transformative effects, in his letter to my sister, he ascribes mostly to his dad. Quoting from the end of the article, he said the following statements were appropriate for his parents, "especially Papa":

[U]ntil the pogrom, many resisted the gathering evidence that they could no longer stay in a place where their ancestors had lived for centuries and for which many had fought in World War I. "I had wanted to emigrate to Australia already in 1934, but my father wouldn't hear of it," Ernst Kahn recalled. "My mother and father were old people, and they said the Germans won't do us any "harm. . . ."

After the pogrom of Kristallnacht, nobody in Germany could plead ignorance any longer. "Inside Germany, there could no more be any doubt that the country was in the hands of a mass murderer, and there were too few who understood that in this situation patriotism meant to stand up and be counted," said Michael Sturmer, a West German historian.

"War on humanity in Germany intensified on the late afternoon of Nov. 9, 1938," Mr. Sturmer said. "But it took the bystanders, near and far, a long time to understand that their own fate was at stake.'"

I have been doing some research--very, very preliminary research--into what is going on in the United States today. The stuff I've found sounds like it's coming from total nut-cases. Or is it?

I haven't gotten much beyond having the following kinds of information presented to me. Now I need to follow up to find the actual text of the Executive Orders and to find independent (Google Earth?) photos of the alleged detention camps.

But, truly: If these things are so, then what kind of society are we heading toward? And when does it become appropriate to "stand up"? When should the freedom-loving Germans have stood up against the Nazis? Clearly, November 9, 1938, was too late. . . . When and where and why was the "point of no return"? Are we past that point in the United States . . . when the Congress can pass trillion-dollar appropriation bills that no one has even read? (See here as well.)

ETA 2/23/09 at 11:10 AM:There are wonderful skeptics who offer reasonable questions to help counter-balance the "nut-case" perspectives. That's one of the reasons I so appreciate blogs in which comments are turned on! Here, for example, are some counter-balancing perspectives--with specific questions to ask--about (at least some of) the alleged concentration camps.

EXAMPLE: You see a large, mostly undeveloped property being patrolled by a bunch of guys with guns?

More than likely, someone started to develop the site without really knowing what they were doing and went bankrupt in the middle of the project.

If that is the case the ownership of the property will pass to the receiver. These properties will typically sit for a few years while they get the legal mess straightened out and all the liens cleared.

I've seen it happen time and time again. The guards are there to protect the receivers from liability. A half completed golf course is a hell of an attractive nuisance for every teenaged wanabe motocross/ BMX racer.

Once all of those hurdles are cleared, you still need someone to step in and redevelop the site. There could be other hurdles in the way of that. It could be that the original developer tried to fill in a protected wetland, or maybe there is a zoning issue that the local government can not resolve.

If you are really curious, check with your local planning commission. The chances are excellent that they will know exactly who owns the site and what the future planes are for it.

Maybe.

Or,

Do you have any idea the type of infrastructure you would need to successfully house 20,000 people, let alone 2 million.

You need water, and plenty of it, you need waste treatment facilities, housing, heat, medical facilities.

Oh, and how are you going to get 2 million people up to Fairbanks Alaska without going through Canada? Oh, yeah, that's right. The Canadians are part of the NWO also.

I guess the main thing is: We need healthy skepticism on both sides!

ETA 2/23/09 at 7:37 PM: My sister added a note this morning concerning some thoughts that resulted from her visit and our dad's letter:

A friend of mine lent me a book recently. [It was] written by Amelie Fried. It told the story about her father. She had no idea what her father and grandparents had gone through in the Nazi time until her husband saw a name in some documents in New York which made him wonder if she had a larger family than she knew... and what a family!!! Almost everyone [was] destroyed in the Hitler regime.

It's amazing what kind of information she was able to get her hands on even though her father had already passed away.

One thing I read I thought I wanted to pass on to you....

She told about her Grandfather gettting beaten up and landing in prison... How she described it reminded me of your grandfather... He ended up going to the police to complain!! They, of course, were not so interested. So he wrote a complaint to Austria where he came from. They ended up writing to the Germans in his town and got a response back... The response made her speechless, and kind of hits me as well to understand--in a sick kind of way--how people could do the things they did those days long ago.

They wrote (I am translating as I can),

On the 18th of May Mr. Fried was insulted in the most crude manner from The NSDP and hit to the ground and then beaten until he was injured. The response from the Police in Ulm was "There was absolutely no rage expressed against Mr. Fried personally. Instead it was only his attribute of being a Jew which was being attacked. Mr. Fried's threats of complaint through the Austrian government makes no impression on us and could only be used against him. Please give us the honor of informing the Austrian consulate that there in no persecution taking place against the mentioned Austrian person.

Mrs. Fried then wrote, "Let that example go over your tongue a few times.... The attack wasn't meant for my Grandfather... it was only meant for his attribute of being a Jew and therefore he shouldn't take it personally, please!"

The perverse thinking of the Nazis was that the Jews were no longer people... They were no longer individuals and therefore it was ok to get rid of them without a bad conscience. They weren't being killed as people, it was only their character of being a Jew.... "The Jews can't really take that personally!"

Mrs. Fried then told about an aunt of hers who still lived in Germany [at the time she wrote the book in 1996]. [The aunt] still had a bad feeling about herself since she was Jewish.... Somehow she still shouldn't [exist]. This was in 1996!!!!

Can you imagine what was done to a whole generation and a half of people... and continues on in the minds of many?

How many people have been told, "You are not meant to be... Please disappear. You are not wanted!!"

And what does Jesus have to say?!