Is It Time To Draw A Line Under The Holocaust?

Hello Darlings,

Thanks for your wonderful responses to my last post. I don't want to be a meanie, really I don't. I just want to be able spend time with people who take time out of their busy lives to spend time with me.

I don't really have many friends in my life. Although I do have some really great friends, they tend to be scattered around the Globe. So having other friends around the Globe is almost perfectly natural to me. As you all know I speak to Nutty on a daily basis, but she is 150 miles up the motorway and a 2 1/2 hour drive. If we lived nearer we would see each other all the time. Friendships can easily be formed regardless of time and distance and the inter-net is fantastic for that, but I don't think we should ever lose sight of the basic rules of friendship and one of those is about putting in the effort, which you all do in abundance and have made an impact on my life. I am very grateful and thankful for that and have become fond of you all.

On Sundays I often watch a show call "The Big Questions" it's on BBC 1, one of todays questions was "Is it time to draw a line under the holocaust?". For obvious reasons I do have an interest in a question about the holocaust. Not just because I am Jewish, but also just on a very human level. I am aware that there are people out there who either totally disbelieve that the holocaust took place or who believe that it is over exaggerated, but that's not what the question was about and I don't want to get too bogged down in the details of that. People are entitled in my humble opinion to believe in what they wish to believe in. Life as I always say is about choices and I am no-one to remove choice or freedom of speech. I may not believe in what you or they believe in, however I would defend your right to believe as you wish, so long as you are not about to murder innocent peoples or oppress them and make them bend to your will. None of us are Gods, to play so mercilessly with peoples lives.

The premiss of the question was that now that the perpetrators of the atrocities are in their dotage years, being around about 80 to 90 yrs old should we still be trying to track them down and bring them to justice. Many seemed to think that enough time has passed that it is time for us to stop looking for them and bringing them to justice. That in fact no-one wants to see someone that age in the dock.

I disagree and had to ask myself why!!
Is it because I am Jewish?
Would I feel the same way if it was a Catholic or a Muslim?
Is it because I have a vengeful nature?
Is it my natural instinct and sense of justice?
Or indeed all of the above!!!!!!!!

Having worked it through my brain I have come to the conclusion that it is right to bring these people to justice. They committed crimes against humanity and if we do not bring them all to justice by tracking them down, what ever their age, we ourselves are guilty of crimes against humanity.

It is indeed a crime against humanity, to not do anything. When we sit on our collective hands and do nothing we send a message that says, go out and commit the worst atrocities you can think of, it's okay, lay low, disappear, we won't trouble you. Get married raise a family, become respectable, a pillar of your community. Even enjoy your old age and dotage. Play with the children you have, the grandchildren they give you and even the great grandchildren What ever it is you wish to do, even grow old, all the joys of life you denied others with your crimes.

Since time began there have been many many crimes against humanity and in the last century
Bosnia and Rwanda were but two of them. Then there are the crimes that the likes of Saddam Hussain committed. I could go on for hours naming them all, but that's not my point.
I seriously believe that we must bring all perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice. We owe it to the victims, to their families and to ourselves. You never know when you will be next on some crazy lunatics list.


"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-- by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known as the author of the poem First they came....

Oh and please don't think that I am against ordinary service personnel, far from it. They do an amazing job protecting us against the mad men , a job I wouldn't want to do. I am talking about the heavy weights in all this.

To let the serious perpetrators of some of the most serious crimes against humanity, to forgive the likes of Hitler is to shame all of humanity.