[Livia]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

By "outwith living memory" I simply mean that anyone who was alive and old enough to remember the time will be dead. This applies to the nuking of Japan, too, as with all things. In a few decades, no one will remember it. We will know it happened, we will have history books, we will remember our grandparents talking about it, but no one will be alive who can say; "Yes, I remember it, I remember the news breaking, I remember the headlines the next day."

Also, off topic but, the Japan A-bombs are hardly a benchmark for the "Next" nuclear war (i.e. the end of the world). See the spoiler below. To scale, the tiny puff of smoke at the bottom is a 15KT nuclear blast, the same size as the Hiroshima A-bomb. The main image is the size of the blast of the largest tested United States warhead.

Spoiler:

http://www.nucleardarkness.org/inclu..._bombs_750.jpg

My grandmother is very much alive and came to this country after being liberated from a concentration camp. My grandfather - Alev Hashalom - was also liberated and came to Britain. She still bears the tattoo on her arm. She still keeps the bag packed under her bed with her jewellery and money in case they ever come again.

This isn't a thread about Japan.

[arista]

Originally Posted by Livia

My grandmother is very much alive and came to this country after being liberated from a concentration camp. My grandfather - Alev Hashalom - was also liberated and came to Britain. She still bears the tattoo on her arm. She still keeps the bag packed under her bed with her jewellery and money in case they ever come again.

This isn't a thread about Japan.

Sorry Livia
thats my fault

[Livia]

Originally Posted by arista

Sorry Livia
thats my fault

Don't apologise arista I know it's something you feel strongly about, even though I don't agree x

[arista]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

By "outwith living memory" I simply mean that anyone who was alive and old enough to remember the time will be dead. This applies to the nuking of Japan, too, as with all things. In a few decades, no one will remember it. We will know it happened, we will have history books, we will remember our grandparents talking about it, but no one will be alive who can say; "Yes, I remember it, I remember the news breaking, I remember the headlines the next day."

Also, off topic but, the Japan A-bombs are hardly a benchmark for the "Next" nuclear war (i.e. the end of the world). See the spoiler below. To scale, the tiny puff of smoke at the bottom is a 15KT nuclear blast, the same size as the Hiroshima A-bomb. The main image is the size of the blast of the largest tested United States warhead.

Spoiler:

http://www.nucleardarkness.org/inclu..._bombs_750.jpg

Yes the Conclusion of the 2nd World War.
But the Soon Start of WW3

[Pete.]

Punished yes he should have been. Sentenced to prison aged 94, I don't agree with.

[Jay.]

am i the only one wondering why he's being jailed, if he was just a librarian? like he wasn't exactly the brains behind it...

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Jay.

am i the only one wondering why he's being jailed, if he was just a librarian? like he wasn't exactly the brains behind it...

A librarian? He was the "bookkeeper". He was the one who collated and counted the money taken from people arriving at the concentration camp, before they were murdered.

[Jay.]

Originally Posted by Livia

A librarian? He was the "bookkeeper". He was the one who collated and counted the money taken from people arriving at the concentration camp, before they were murdered.

omg he deserves it a little bit then.. although, we don't know the full story, at the time, I guess

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Jay.

omg he deserves it a little bit then.. although, we don't know the full story, at the time, I guess

He's just had a legitimate legal trial and he's been jailed. I think the full story came out.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Jay.

am i the only one wondering why he's being jailed, if he was just a librarian? like he wasn't exactly the brains behind it...

[smudgie]

On paper, it does look futile jailing this old man, however, I think only the people that have suffered the horrors of the concentrating camps can really say if it is justice or not.

[Samuel.]

In no way deserved.

Bizarre decision, especially 70 years on.

[DemolitionRed]

I am totally with Livia on this one. If people like Susan Pollack or Livia's grandparents think that Oskar Groning should go to prison then who the hell are we to disagree? These people are living victims of men like him. Livia's grandmother still keeps a packed case under her bed; she is still a victim and victims deserve closure.

With war crime there is no statutes of limitation and he is clearly a war criminal.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

I am totally with Livia on this one. If people like Susan Pollack or Livia's grandparents think that Oskar Groning should go to prison then who the hell are we to disagree? These people are living victims of men like him. Livia's grandmother still keeps a packed case under her bed; she is still a victim and victims deserve closure.

With war crime there is no statutes of limitation and he is clearly a war criminal.

I don't disagree that he should have gone to jail, like I said I'm not a sympathiser and I don't really care if he dies in a chair in a cell or dies in a chair in a house. Or in a chair at all for that matter. He's almost certainly going to die within the next few years and I doubt he's out clubbing or climbing mountains at the moment which is what makes it all seem - to me - sort of irrelevant. Is it harsh of me to say that I sort of consider anyone over 90 to be, basically, already dead? Probably sort of is, but I probably sort of do... Which I guess informs a lot of my opinion on this.

Then again, if it does give people who have suffered some sort of closure, even if it's only a little, then that at least is a positive side effect of it all. I'm just very (very, very) skeptical that that has anything at all to do with the reasons for his trial and conviction, which smacks of "making some sort of point for some reason". A bit of showmanship rather than actual justice.

[Samuel.]

The emotionally invested shouldn't be the ones deciding fair unbiased justice

[Ammi]

...as someone who isn't emotionally invested, my thoughts are that so much has been placed on 4 years of imprisonment for an old man, when the thing of it is over 70 yrs of freedom for him when he wasn't a 94yr old man, he wasn't actually instrumental in killing anyone himself so 4yrs seems a very lenient but just term...I can't imagine what it would feel like to be a Holocaust survivor or victim's relative... would it bring any sense of 'satisfaction'..?...I doubt it, nothing could do that I would say but at least it's the knowledge that he hasn't lived his whole entire life as a free man and never had to answer to anyone for his part....

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Samuel.

The emotionally invested shouldn't be the ones deciding fair unbiased justice

He had a fair trial in a German court of law, with a prosecution and a defence.

[Samuel.]

Originally Posted by Livia

He had a fair trial in a German court of law, with a prosecution and a defence.

It was directed at those arguing that if imprisonment is what the victims and their families want then who is to say otherwise.

[DemolitionRed]

I don't think the imprisonment matters, its the fact that he's been brought into the public eye and found guilty.

[Shaun]

I don't really see what it's meant to achieve. He's practically dead already, it's not going to heal any wounds and he's not directly responsible for any of it but I'm not going to lose sleep over his situation.

[Livia]

My Grandmother is also in her 90s. She's far from dead despite the start in life she had. She still ballroom dances, shops, enjoys her family... unlike 6 million who weren't so lucky. Her life is as valid as anyone else's. This man, although also in his 90s, has received justice at long last. He was an officer, not an ordinary solider, and was found guilty in a German court of law guilty of being accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews so all the supposition that he wasn't responsible and was only following orders is, in my opinion, apologetic hogwash. Never forget. Never forget. Never forget.

[MTVN]

I do think he has some responsibility. Saying he was 'just following orders' takes away from the fact that he presumably did very much believe in the Nazi cause. There's nothing unusual about that: large swathes of the German population did. It goes beyond psychological defects and deference to authority - this was an ideology that enamoured millions of people and that they were utterly convinced of. He was a cog in the machine and so I do understand the argument in favour of jailing him. I think he does as well really - he has accepted all through the trial that he bears a moral responsibility for being swept along in the Nazi vision. My qualms are more just about whether this is really in the public interest and whether it's not just some attempt to make up for those who played a much bigger part and yet escaped justice.

But, like Shaun, I won't lose sleep over it.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by MTVN

I do think he has some responsibility. Saying he was 'just following orders' takes away from the fact that he presumably did very much believe in the Nazi cause. There's nothing unusual about that: large swathes of the German population did. It goes beyond psychological defects and deference to authority - this was an ideology that enamoured millions of people and that they were utterly convinced of. He was a cog in the machine and so I do understand the argument in favour of jailing him. I think he does as well really - he has accepted all through the trial that he bears a moral responsibility for being swept along in the Nazi vision. My qualms are more just about whether this is really in the public interest and whether it's not just some attempt to make up for those who played a much bigger part and yet escaped justice.

But, like Shaun, I won't lose sleep over it.

Many war criminals have been jailed over the years as their deeds have been dragged into the light. Many were executed, and rightly in my opinion. And yes, you're right, the German people were swept along with it. The treatment of Jews by the ordinary German people even outside the camps was a blight on their history and one that Germany has gone to great lengths to try to put right.

[user104658]

Well exactly, and I have a suspicion that this is more about Germany doing some "final bits of putting things right" with the last few scrappy officers they can find alive in order to bookend the war and go forward with a laundered reputation once the war passes out of living memory. I get that there are still a few surviving people from that era but my original point was that, in a couple of decades time, there won't be. That means that Germany only has a few years to squeeze in a few final convictions for brownie points. This guy was barely out of his teens during the war and is now pushing 100... The fact is, there simply aren't any of the real ghouls of WW2 left to convict. They were either caught and tried long ago or they've already lived out their lives free and died.

This guy, if you read the articles, really can't be described as much more than a minor cog in the SS machine. Does that make him an innocent? No, it does sound like he was self-serving and at the very least took advantage of a "privileged" posting even if he is being truthful about not being 100% on board with it. But it does marginally make him little more than a scapegoat for the really awful ones who are long gone.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Well exactly, and I have a suspicion that this is more about Germany doing some "final bits of putting things right" with the last few scrappy officers they can find alive in order to bookend the war and go forward with a laundered reputation once the war passes out of living memory. I get that there are still a few surviving people from that era but my original point was that, in a couple of decades time, there won't be. That means that Germany only has a few years to squeeze in a few final convictions for brownie points. This guy was barely out of his teens during the war and is now pushing 100... The fact is, there simply aren't any of the real ghouls of WW2 left to convict. They were either caught and tried long ago or they've already lived out their lives free and died.

This guy, if you read the articles, really can't be described as much more than a minor cog in the SS machine. Does that make him an innocent? No, it does sound like he was self-serving and at the very least took advantage of a "privileged" posting even if he is being truthful about not being 100% on board with it. But it does marginally make him little more than a scapegoat for the really awful ones who are long gone.

I understand that this cynical viewpoint is your own opinion TS. I disagree with it 100%. I've said all I have to say about it.