Poland launches Auschwitz page on Facebook
When I lived and worked in Warsaw, Poland, just before the turn of the century, I had a client who was about to make a TV spot. The client insisted on a Polish director. We offered the name Marek Dawid.
"Who's his DP (director of photography)?" the client asked.
"Pawel Edelman," was the answer.
"Oh, I'm not having two Jews on my shoot," came the reply, which was both stunningly anti-Semitic and frighteningly stupid, as Edelman went on to be DP on such movies as "The Pianist."
I tell this story only because Poland, despite its pride in being the only European country occupied by Nazis that didn't have a collaborator government, is not devoid of anti-Semitic attitudes.
This is why many will welcome the creation of an Auschwitz Facebook site.
According to the BBC, the authorities at Auschwitz, as bleak and frightening a place as you can ever visit, view the site as an experiment but hope that it will be a lasting reminder to younger generations of the concentration camp's painful significance in history.
Pawel Sawicki, a museum official at Auschwitz, told the BBC, "If our mission is to educate the younger generation to be responsible in the contemporary world, what better tool can we use to reach them than the tools they use themselves?"
These tools are already being used, after all, by those who seek to deny that the Holocaust ever happened, which has led to much controversy as to whether they contravene Facebook's terms of service.
The new Auschwitz Facebook site allows for discussion and, as yet, nothing has been posted by deniers.
However, it will be interesting to see whether, over time, it will serve as a lasting reminder when there is no one still alive who personally experienced Auschwitz's horrors.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
I was under the impression that there still were a select few "eltere yidden vos gait [dunno the word] dei Gehinnom" (old Jews who went through that Hell).
I'm sure you realized that I meant to write Oswiecim (the Polish name for Auschwitz), but there is a nonstandard S and E in the name (so it didn't show up).
I did not mean only Jews - however there was no "Endloesung" for gentile groups.
You make an incorrect generalization about the people of Poland using one bozo as your example; bad dog. In a tree hugging culture your editors would slap you for that, but I imagine that CNET does want it can to increase the hits even if they start leaning towards the National Enquirer direction of journalism.
He didn't say everyone in Poland was anti-Semitic. American is "not devoid of anti-Semitic attitudes" either, but he's not generalizing that American's are anti-Semitic.
You sound like a fool suggesting he did that.
You know there was never a Polish SS division but yet there were a French SS as well as Danish, Norwegian, Dutch SS divisions. So how come we don?t keep hearing about the Danish and Dutch anti-Semites. How about the German anti Semites for that matter? Six million Poles were killed in WWII, half Jews and half Gentiles so all Poles suffered from German Nazi atrocities. Auschwitz itself first was used as a concentration Camp for Poles before becoming a Jewish death camp.
The "Poland, despite its pride in being the only European country occupied by Nazis that didn't have a collaborator government" is a generalization, though. I don't pride myself on that, thank you very much. We've got a lot of more recent achievements to be proud of (if everything has to come down to national pride)
doesn't any one feel it's slightly morbid to have an Auschwitz page on facebook? the site is all about mindless fun, the likes of build your mafia games and how lucky are you today tests... not sure, just a feeling.
as for what the author meant and whether he was expressing a surprise or not, why doesn't the author tell us, huh?
For heaven sake, the russian suffered the worst of the war, also they was key to finish the war (the "Day-D" was a flop).
Regard.
A citizen that is pissing off to heard about the so called holocaust.
Apparently your grandmother wasn't orphaned of her father at age 4.
My german cousin sent me a youtube video of how hitler secretly joined the cult to discredit it but then took the cult over to fashion it as he pleases. The structure of how this was done can awlays be replicated today and into the future when ideas are based on religion.
Imagine all the people living as they should. (Not in todays world.)
Every polish kid went as a school trip to the concentration camp and seen it with their own eye. I my self lived to 3 big cemeteries in the Wola neighborhood on ulica (street) Gibalskiego. A developer there in the mid 80's turned our soccer field into a construction site for an office building, when they were digging trenches for the basements, they found a whole bunch of Jews shot in a hurry with all of their belongings and valuables still on them like gold and diamonds, and such... Later the construction was stopped and a memorial was put up.
If you don't believe me, see it for your self:
Latitude: 52°14'38.06"N
Longitude: 20°58'28.27"E
The brown building, not sure how old these pictures are....
America was never invaded, that's the only experience you guys really lack, and it isn't an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone.
but point of fact, America has been invaded. Twice.
The most recent one was not of much consequence, but during WWII, the Japanese DID occupy Kiska and Attu islands, part of the State of Alaska. They were there for over a year. Technically an occupation of American soil, but admittedly of not much importance.
The first invasion?
During the War of 1812, The British occupied Washington, DC, and BURNED the White House, the Senate and House of Representatives buildings, and the Treasury Building.
agreed that we in the States haven't experiences the full-blown destruction of modern war on our own soil, but we have been invaded.
and you're right; I would not wish the experience on anyone.
Just so you understand why.
We live in an age of vulnerability. Holocaust deniers ply their mendacious poison everywhere, especially with young people on the Internet. We know from captured German war records that millions of innocent Jews (and others) were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany - most in gas chambers. Holocaust books and films help to tell the true story of the Shoah, combating anti-Semitic historical revision. And, they protect future generations from making the same mistakes.
I wrote "Jacob's Courage" to promote Holocaust education. This coming of age love story presents accurate scenes and situations of Jews in ghettos and concentration camps, with particular attention to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. It examines a constellation of emotions during a time of incomprehensible brutality. A world that continues to allow genocide requires such ethical reminders and remediation.
Many authors feel compelled to use their talent to promote moral causes. Holocaust books and movies carry that message globally, in an age when the world needs to learn that genocide is unacceptable. Such authors attempt to show the world that religious, racial, ethnic and gender persecution is wrong; and that tolerance is our progeny's only hope.
Charles Weinblatt
Author, "Jacob's Courage"
http://jacobscourage.wordpress.com/
- by nicmart October 17, 2009 11:13 AM PDT
- Scratch a European and reveal an anti-Semite as often as not. I have a good Polish friend living in Utah who is not anti-Semitic. She tells me that when the Polish ex-pats living in Salt Lake City have a get-together they commonly share anti-Semitic jokes.
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