Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalHolocaust Remembrance Day
Please visit: Homocaust: The gay victims of the Holocaust @ http://www.homocaust.org/
During the Nazi period up to 100,000 gay men & women were persecuted & imprisoned for their sexuality under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal code. The Third Reich had no place for such 'deviants' & set out a systematic strategy to rid itself of this 'poison'. About 15,000 were sent to concentration camps where, forced to wear the 'pink triangle', as many as 60% lost their lives.
Those that did survive were subject to ongoing persecution in post-war society & struggled hard to be recognized as victims of the Holocaust. In 2005 very few of these witnesses are left to speak of their experiences & in a few years there may be no survivors left. Their voices call now to future generations to listen & learn ensuring their plight does not slip quietly in to the realms of history alone.
While the contents of this site do not constitute easy reading, the message remains simple: NEVER AGAIN.
Listen closely to these voices because they are calling to you…
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Thousands of youth remember Holocaust at Auschwitz
Source: Associated Press
WARSAW, Poland — Thousands of youth from Israel, the United States and other countries marched Thursday between Auschwitz and Birkenau, the two parts of Nazi Germany’s most notorious death complex, to honor the millions killed in the Holocaust.
Also Thursday, Polish officials and members of the Jewish community gathered in Warsaw to mark the 69th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the doomed revolt that a group of Jews waged against the Nazis in 1943.
An estimated 10,000 young people, some carrying Israeli flags or wearing them draped around their shoulders, took part in the March of the Living in Oswiecim, a town in southern Poland where the Germans operated Auschwitz during World War II.
The event, which takes place every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, involves a walk of two miles (three kilometers) from Auschwitz to Birkenau, where Hitler’s men executed Jews, Roma and others in huge numbers in gas chambers.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/thousands-youth-remember-holocaust-auschwitz-article-1.1064194?localLinksEnabled=false
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Knowing Jack: Holocaust Remembrance Day 2012
My grandfather, Jack, will never forget the day his father was shot to death in a city park in Grybòw, Poland, by a notorious Nazi named Hamann as he watched through a small office window. It was Jack's 22nd birthday. Next week he will celebrate his 92nd in Sarasota, Florida. Not a day has passed in the 70 years in between that Grandpa hasn't remembered what has come to be called the Holocaust. Today is the day designated by Congress for the rest of us to remember the grisly fate that befell the Jewish people of Europe under Hitler and his willing accomplices -- Holocaust Remembrance Day. But how can we in 2012 America begin to comprehend the events of that far off place and time?
For the past several decades Jack has spoken to schoolchildren and Jewish groups to tell his story, to put a human face and name to the outsize numbers and foreign locales of the Holocaust. Jack knows he belongs to that small and shrinking group of survivors who were old enough then to really understand what was happening and young enough now to still be alive and able to tell their stories. But, Jack is getting older. He's tired. This year, he told me, he doesn't have the energy to do it. Jack still feels his obligation to bear witness. He still fears what will happen when no survivors are left to testify about what they lived through. He just doesn't have the energy to do it. This year, Jack asked me to tell his story.
Though I've called him Grandpa all my life, Jack is not my real grandfather. Rather, he is my real grandfather in every sense of the word except biological. I never knew my mother's father; he was murdered by the Nazis in the Vilna ghetto or the killing fields of the Ponari forest just outside the city now called Vilnius, Lithuania. Of all the family on my mother's side, only my grandmother and my mother survived. They came to New York in June 1946 aboard the S.S. Marine Perch. It was on the deck of that ship that Jack first saw my grandmother. By the time I was born my grandmother had been married to Jack for more than 20 years.
more...
Rick Warren on Same Sex Marriage: "When The Church Accommodates Culture, It Weakens It'
Source: ABC News
Pastor Rick Warren is interviewed on "This Week."
Pastor Rick Warren stood by his opposition to same sex marriage in our conversation this week, saying that he does not believe the church should conform to accept growing support for same sex marriage.
"History shows that when the church accommodates culture, it weakens it," Warren said.
"If I'm unpopular for certain beliefs, well, then I'm unpopular for certain beliefs," he added. "And to me, the Bible is very clear that sex is for a man and a woman in marriage only."
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/rick-warren-same-sex-marriage-church-accommodates-culture-221846801--abc-news-politics.html
Anti-Semitism takes the stage in Hungary
This is the first story in a five-part series exploring the rise of the far-right in eastern Europe. In part one, the political battle over an historic theater highlights growing anti-Semitism in Hungary. Part two examines the growing popularity of Svoboda, a far-right party in Ukraine. Part three visits a popular Ukranian restaurant designed to ridicule Jews. In part four, the EU considers what it can do about far-right extremism in its domain, and part five takes a broader look at the problem across the region.
BUDAPEST, Hungary — First went the director, then the prima donna.
A political tug-of-war over an historic theater in the Hungarian capital has reignited concerns about growing anti-Semitism in this Eastern European nation.
Budapest’s picturesque New Theater has long been a popular mainstay among the local cultured and urbane, who tend to be disproportionately liberal and include many of the local Jewish community. But recently, a series of firings and resignations have left the popular theater in the hands of avowed anti-Semites, sparking protests and political violence.
The deterioration of the storied theater highlights an emerging trend of rising neo-Nazi sentiment in parts of Eastern Europe. Cloaked in nationalism, the ideology has gained new traction amid Europe’s economic crisis, which far-right politicians have sought to blame on Jews and other ethnic minorities such as the Roma. Those ideas are particularly disturbing to many here, in a country where the second highest number of Jews in Europe were murdered during World War II, and from where the highest number of Roma were transported to Nazi death camps.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/120329/anti-semitism-takes-the-stage-hungary-echoes-hitler-pt-1
Edit: there are 5 stories dealing with different parts of Eastern Europe.
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