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Stolperstein

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Re: Stolperstein

#61

Post by wrthfl »

gpjanik wrote: post #7

It's weird that the article explicitly mentiones various groups that were killed/deported to German concentration camps across Europe and commemorated by the stones, but does not mention the second largest one - Poles. German historical policy tends to not include Poles as victims the 1939-1945 Germany, but in spite of that, there are multiple stones commemorating them in today's Berlin.

I looked into the german version, expecting it to mention it more, but Poland is just mentioned once in a side sentence. It kinda saddens me.

Re: Stolperstein

#62

Post by blueflow »

voz_ wrote: post #2

Insanely important, especially with the renewed rise of antisemitism - sad to see this downvoted.

Nobody is like, "Oh no! This baddie i just killed could be a Stolperstein in the future". Remembrance is one thing, self-reflection is another.

People will genocide their enemies and be like, "Thank god we aren't like the Nazis", or worse, "Trust us the guy we just killed was a Nazi".

None of this helps with moral reasoning.

Re: Stolperstein

#63

Post by trhway »

voz_ wrote: post #56
jd115 wrote: post #26

Quoted post unavailable.

Russian atrocities in Ukraine are horrific, but they are certainly not even close to the cold extermination machine and bureaucracy employed by nazis against Jews, Poles, Homosexuals, etc.

>close to the cold extermination machine and bureaucracy employed by nazis against Jews, Poles, Homosexuals, etc.

I don't understand where do you see any difference. Russia methodically conducts genocide and ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians that Putin announced in his original war speech. Russia has unleashed total terror on Ukrainians on occupied territories - anybody showing any Ukrainian ethnical or political allegiance or having even just former association with Ukrainian armed forces or government is arrested/kidnapped (and some of them are already known to have been tortured, killed while for many nothing is known) by the Russian SS force "Russian Guard". And for bureaucracy - the "Russian Guard" has been disappearing a lot of those people according to the already prepared lists. And that given that 12 million of Ukrainians have already been forced to run away by the bombings and the threat of occupation to Europe and West Ukraine (including many LGBT people who didn't risk to get the Russian, in particular Chechen - as there is large Chechen mercenary force fighting on the Russian side - treatment).

And i don't see any difference here from the German Nazi actions on the occupied USSR territories back then. And Russia doesn't do such things in Ukraine today for the first time - just look up for example USSR in Poland in 1939.

Re: Stolperstein

#64

Post by cs137 »

xyzal wrote: post #13
voz_ wrote: post #2

Insanely important, especially with the renewed rise of antisemitism - sad to see this downvoted.

Quoted post unavailable.

No. In fact, most Jews I know are intensely critical of Israel's policies and recent actions.

Unfortunately, there is a degree to which antisemitism is disguised behind disproportionate criticism of Israel and the Israeli people, and it's impossible to know, at an individual level, why people hold their opinions.

Does Israel's government do awful things for questionable reasons (like most, if not all, national governments)? Yes. Is Israel the worst government in the Middle East? Far from it. To be honest, it's probably the least repressive, racist, or otherwise obnoxious government in the region (that's not setting a high bar). Israeli Arabs (especially women) have more freedoms in Israel than they would in any of the neighboring countries. Should Israel do better? Of course. It's absurd, though, that there's such a strong interest in BDS while the continuing consumption of Saudi oil goes unquestioned by most.

Also: why is it that the behavior of Israel's government comes up in a discussion about memorializing people who were murdered before the state of Israel even existed? I have Irish (American) ancestry, but no one has ever asked me to answer for the Irish government (or connected me to it in any way, seeing as my Irish ancestors came over in the early 19th century). It's deeply weird that some people are so quick to connect anything having to do with Jews or Judaism with the conduct of one government in particular, which is thousands of miles away from where many Jews live.

Re: Stolperstein

#65

Post by jebronie »

kybernetyk wrote: post #27
durnygbur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's their way of commemorating their victims and somehow in the process the second largest group slipped through. I don't want their way of commemorating their victims in my home Poland.

[flagged]

Nobody in germany generally calls them "polish death camps" and nobody thinks poles are in any way to blame. Even if you called them polish deaths camps, people would assume you mean the Nazi concentration camps on occupied polish land.

Re: Stolperstein

#66

Post by waffleiron »

keiferski wrote: post #48
gpjanik wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poles living in Germany are usually working migrants, not a minority that has lived there since centuries (like Germans in Poland). It's hard to compare those situations.

No, you are not correct. Poles have been in Germany for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_Germany

From the wikipage:

>The position of the German government is that after the German territorial losses after World War II, the current Polish minority has no century-old roots in the remaining German territory, because Germany lost all the territories where people of German and Polish ethnicity overlapped. Since they are therefore only recent immigrants, they do not fulfill the requirements of a national minority according to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Treaty of Good Neighbourship. Being German citizens, they still retain all civil and political rights every German citizen possesses, and therefore can voice their will in the political system.[10]

Re: Stolperstein

#67

Post by smcl »

boffinAudio wrote: post #58
uniqueuid wrote: post #3

It's an awesome idea, because it brings the painful past right into our daily lives. You're forced to serendipituously "stumble" across them every now and then. The stories on them, told in a brief phrase, are mostly heartbreaking, sometimes uplifting, always relevant. "Executed for making fun of the Führer", "Deported and gassed for hiding Jewish neighbors", "Survived concentration camp but parents, siblings and rel…

Here in Liesing, Austria, I walked past a stolperstein this morning, which sits at the entrance to a local Billa (supermarket), which is a new construction on a site where I suppose the victim of Nazi aggression lived before being taken to a concentration camp to perish. Although I see these stones all over Vienna, and find myself in contemplation every single time I see them elsewhere around Europe, it is even more…

I have the same thing over the border in Brno, Czech Republic. Didn't really notice them for so long, until suddenly I stopped to read one and realised they're all over the place. I always stop to check them now.

Additionally I have similar feelings about the atrocities committed by the UK. To me it feels so unambiguously right to officially acknowledge and apologise that our ancestors did pretty heinous shit (up to and including invading countries this century).

Re: Stolperstein

#68

Post by VSerge »

There are many such memorial plaques on the pavements of Vienna. They are almost part of the landscape, easy to walk by without noticing, yet every so often, when one stops rushing and reads a few of these (it was often whole families being deported, not just individuals), it hits again. And it is important that it never stops hitting and reminding us of this horror and of the need of avoiding repeating it.

Re: Stolperstein

#69

Post by fs111 »

kybernetyk wrote: post #27
durnygbur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's their way of commemorating their victims and somehow in the process the second largest group slipped through. I don't want their way of commemorating their victims in my home Poland.

[flagged]

This is absolute nonsense. We are all very much aware that it was us, the Germans, who did this.

Re: Stolperstein

#70

Post by keiferski »

waffleiron wrote: post #66
keiferski wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are not correct. Poles have been in Germany for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_Germany

From the wikipage: >The position of the German government is that after the German territorial losses after World War II, the current Polish minority has no century-old roots in the remaining German territory, because Germany lost all the territories where people of German and Polish ethnicity overlapped. Since they are therefore only recent immigrants, they do not fulfill the requirements of a national minority acco…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhrpolen
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