Dogdaddy:-
What really frosted my a** was the number of civilians and politicians in
Germany that claimed they had no idea about the camps and/or the incredible
brutality of the SS. Some Clerics also claimed no knowledge of this.
Ike due ot his forebears had no love for the Krauts and that is why he made
the category DEFs(Disarmed Enemy Fighters) to keep the former POWS to
help rebuild after the war instead of letting them just walk away.
I may be wrong on this but I think it was the Camp at Ebensee,Austria that had
a beer hall across the street from the main gate but the townsfolks claimed they
had no knowledge of the camp. Many of the SS Guards drank here after work.
Can you imagine(and I know this to be a truism) that some of these SS guys went
home at night to their families because they had just done another day's work at
the Camp??
I could get very violent even today at my age and after so many years.
Sgtleo
I recently rented a great 4-part documentary called Shoah, which had on it the beerhall/guards incident you are speaking of. It was great! The filmaker interviewed one old guy who had been an officer @Auschwitz who was quite knowledgable about the everyday operations and used terms such as "units" in referring to the number of people that they were able to gas each day. This guy didn't know that he was being recorded , and his name being shown on the screen, so he talked openly about it and at times was even jovial about it....Amazing.
Dogdaddy