Monday, October 08, 2007

If I react, the stories will stop

It's hard to believe that there are still horrifying stories from the Holocaust left untold. But there are. Here is the story of a priest traveling through the Ukraine collecting the stories of the murder of approx. 1.5 million Jews there.

"People talk as if these things happened yesterday, as if 60 years didn’t exist,” Father Desbois said. “Some ask, ‘Why are you coming so late? We have been waiting for you.’”


Read it first at normblog.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Madam

I'm happy to find your article :

http://reconstruction. eserver. org/ 064/herman. shtml

and I translated it in Frsi for
'' RadioZamaneh '' :
http://radiozamaneh.biz/radioblog/2007/10/post_183.html

regards

Reza Shoughi

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

I have deleted a comment. You want to know why? Because I am under no obligation to tolerate all forms of BS. Yep. How liberating for me.

Marie said...

Of course, this is your blog :)

I read this article in the New York Times the other day, and it filled my heart with tremendous sadness. Then I read yesterday about the rape epidemic of the Congo women, a very brutal story. Such cruelty, such wanton acts against life, it's heart chilling and somewhat incomprehensible, that humans being were and still are capable of such acts against life.

Beja said...

Your pictures made me cry!

I used to get pomegranate juice from that little shop on Vali-Asr with my boyfriend and that just made me bawlllllll :(

lol

But, I'll get home to read the story. I never forget that famous quote from the priest talking about the fate of the handicapped, and the homosexuals, then the fate of the communists, then the fate of the jews...that was an ultimate appropriation of how people handle their problems...by ignoring them!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

I have deleted another comment. I have to tell you that the comments that I have deleted have broken my heart just a bit. I know that the Internet and anonymity give people permission to express the worst aspects of themselves.

I am hoping for the best from my readers. And, more often than not I have been rewarded in my hopes.

Thank you to all my compassionate and civil readers...

Anonymous said...

Israel has no privileged state in world history. Israelis have proven this by their actions in recent history. What is intolerable is the continuous barrage of propaganda that insists that it is a privileged nation. Israelis are in their own shit just like everyone else. Get real, tori!

Unknown said...

None of the comments I deleted had anything to do with Israel. Neither did the article I referred to, so I am not sure what you are referring to, Anon.

Anonymous said...

Let's not make too big a distinction between Jews and Israelis. As you know, surely, any real Jew is an Israeli citizen upon request. Check it out.

The Law of Return

The Law of Return applies only to individuals belonging to the Jewish ethnic community.

The Law of Return, passed in 1950 and amended in 1954 and 1970, stipulates that "Every Jew has the right to settle in Israel as an oleh". This means that Jews have a preferential status, since Israeli nationality is automatically accorded to them on request and if their Jewish status is recognized by the authorities. Assistance is also accorded to help them settle in Israel.

It is disengenuous to think of them as separate. Anyway, I am tired of hearing their propaganda and look forward to a time in which the US no longer dishes out billions of dollars to them.

Unknown said...

Hey Anon, I am a Jew and not an Israeli: law of return or not. I think most Jews and most Israelis would agree that there is a distinction between the two. I maintain that, this article has nothing to do with Israel.

Your logic would imply that this whole blog is "Jewish propoganda." Watch out for my nefarious goals, Anon.

Marie said...

Some people of the Jewish disapora do not even consider Israel to be a legitimate country. Just because a person who can prove Jewish lineage is entitled to Israeli citizenship, does not make the two the same thing. That is faulty reasoning, along the lines of 'a chair has 4 legs and a cow has 4 legs, therefore a chair and a cow are the same'.

The only connection between Tori's post and the subject of Israel is that, because the Jewish people were the target of a brutal, efficient and terrifying extermination campaign, emigrating from Europe to the newly formed state of Israel became a viable option. Prior to the Jewish Holocaust, Israel had difficulty attracting the numbers of Jews needed to establish its Zionist state.

Marie said...

And let us not forget who was behind the formation of Israel. The British, who were keen to establish a non-Arab state in the Mideast, one that would hopefully prove a reliable ally.

Anonymous said...

One of the tropes of postmodern discourse is the ironic use of the language of logic to advance an illogical thought. Marie's little anology between my connection of Jews and Israel and a cow and a chair is a case in point. But, the categories of Jew and Israel are vastly different from the categories of chair and cow. Chairs are chairs and cows are cows and cannot be the same, even if they have features in common. Obviously, the categories of Jew and Israel can be combined. Jews are the privileged citizens of Israel. Each Jewish citizen is a constitutive part of the Israeli state. True Jewish non-citizens of Israel are only one sentence away from the union of Jew and citizen of Israel. The comparison that Marie makes is so far-fetched as to be ludicrous. She should study logic a bit and refrain from using its vocabulary illogically.

Unknown said...

Jews are only potential Israelis if they choose to become so. In that way, you might say that I am a potential Muslim or a potential Christian or a potential Hindu. It's just as ridiculous to say that I am a Muslim because I just need to convert as to say that I am an Israeli because I can legally seek citizenship there.

Anonymous said...

tori, in contrast to Israeli policy on true Jews, no policy of any Muslim state that I know of gives you a privileged status if you convert to Islam. you should rethink your comment.

Unknown said...

That's where you're wrong, Anonymous. Let's say that I am a Jew who converts to Islam in Iran. I can now inherit all of my family's property. They can no longer determine inheritance. I have access to jobs that I could only get as a Muslim. My whole life has changed. My testimony counts for more and any death payment is higher. I'd say that's pretty priveleged.

Anonymous said...

But, it is not because you are a Jew. What you argue is a matter of law and not a matter of state policy. This is a crucial distinction.

Unknown said...

I don't understand the distinction.

Anonymous said...

Right. Is there anything you do understand?

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