any news from the tour of teresienstadt, er, i mean guantanamo?

[unblock]

teresienstadt (terezin) was the "model" concentration camp that they paraded film crews and international organizations through, it included a grassy "park" where jews were permitted to picnic and play. but, of course, only when visitors were watching. when there were no visitors it was pretty much the same concentration camp as the rest of them. maybe slightly less brutal, but it was all a charade.

any bets that they cleaned up guantanamo for this little visit by members of congress, and will go right back to their tricks after they're gone? or will they invite the congresscritters to take a turn on the leash?

[earthboundmisfit]

1. I agree. See these:

Note: these are repeats from a response of mine in LBN. Again, I hate to bring up more similarities to the Nazis & Concentration camps, but if there WEREN'T so many...

From Rick Steves' "Sobering Sites of Nazi Europe"
~snip~
Just outside of Prague is Terezín concentration camp (Theresienstadt in German, www.pamatnik-terezin.cz ). This particularly insidious place was dolled up as a model camp for Red Cross inspection purposes. Inmates had their own newspaper, and the children put on

cute plays. But after the camp passed its inspection, life returned to slave labor and death. Ponder the touching collection of Jewish children's art, also on display in the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague's Jewish Quarter.
~snip~

and this, from Moffett Library, UC Berkeley, Media Resource Center:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/propaganda.html

The Fuehrer Gives a City to the Jews (Fuehrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt)
This is the only film known to be made by the Nazis inside an operating concentration camp. This propaganda film was produced in 1944 to use to prove to the International Red Cross and the world that Jews were being well-treated in concentration camps. This film of a "model" camp is an elaborately staged hoax presenting a completely false picture of camp life. Upon completion, the director and most of the cast of prisoners were shipped to Auschwitz, with only a few surviving to attest to the falsity of the film. 1944. 26 min. Video/C 6682

[pnorman]

2. The Fuehrer Gives a City to the Jews

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Actor Ian Holm stoically narrates Gerron’s life, a fascinating study of great talent, energy, and miscalculation. A decorated veteran return to Germany after World War I, Gerron foreswore a medical career by a chance nightclub performance. Large and bulky, with earthy facial expression, his warmth and charisma charmed 1920s audiences. In short order, Gerron became a leading character actor of the Berlin stage and later won acclaim for directing many films. His home at Stolpensee Lake outside Berlin became one of the city’s major salons in the years of Weill and Brecht. An early expressionistic satirist of the Nazis, Gerron first tried to stick it out in Hitler’s Germany, but eventually fled to Paris in mid-1933. There and later in Amsterdam, he professionally reinvented himself. As war drew near, he debated whether or not to leave the continent for America. Once offered coach passage by Hollywood friends on a ship, he declined the ticket because it was not first class. This was a fateful decision. Gerron soon became a prisoner of the Nazis again, when in 1940 they occupied the Netherlands. Gerron was also singled out by name and sight in the widely distributed hate film, The Eternal Jew (1940). For a time, he continued working in the all-Jewish Hollandische Schomburg Theater, but was eventually deported to the nearby Westerbork transit camp. For a time, he won a brief reprieve by organizing light music and comedy productions for S.S. Kommandant Albert Gemmeker. On Feb. 25, 1944, Gerron was deported by cattle car to Theresienstadt (or Terezin) near Prague, the “model” camp maintained by the Nazis to quarter “prominent” Jews and war veterans.

Theresienstadt, an old Austrian army fortress, was soon overcrowded with some 40,000 people on its grounds. The solid edifice belied the reality. This was a way station of disease and malnutrition – the ultimate destination for its inhabitants was Auschwitz. Gerron quickly took a role in directing productions in the camp and memorably sang “Karrousel” with its unintentionally mocking lyrics: “We’re riding wooden horses…It’s a strange journey, destination...We cannot escape the circle.”

Seeking to quell rumors abounding on the Jewish fate, the S.S. applied a coat of paint to Theresienstadt, planted flowers, opened a music pavilion with orchestra, and fixed up a few cafes for duping a visiting Swiss Red Cross official. This “Potemkin Village” ruse worked, thus inspiring S. S. Kommandant Karl Rahm to order Gerron to produce a cheery film about the camp for distribution to neutral countries. The ensuing documentary was made in late summer and featured a Jewish stage ensemble with carefully chosen brunette children, a full concert orchestra, and seven-men soccer teams entertaining juvenile spectators. Once the documentary was completed, Rahm resumed his deportations to Auschwitz, which included most of the cast members appearing in The Fuehrer Gives a City to the Jews. The eleventh and final transport on Oct. 28, 1944, included the now spirit-broken Gerron. He was immediately gassed upon arrival in Auschwitz. The next day, Himmler ordered destruction of the camp’s extermination facilities.
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http://www.kaet.asu.edu/exclusive/rubinoff_paradise.html

pnorman