Hi Everybody!

    I'm Victoria. I am still in high school but I am very interested in the holcaust and it still breaks my heart when I read different books about it. This summer I went to the National Holocaust Memorial Muesem in Washington D.C. and I thought that was the best place I ever went to. It was so sad to walk through the permenant exhibit. They had really things there that was there during the Holocaust. I love reading about it also. I'm not sure if I have any connections with people to the Holcaust but it is still important to me.

Hope to talk to you all soon.

           Victoria

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Sorry for the extra postings,something is wrong with the P.C...well,maybe it is me who needed to say this many times...Holocaust=EVIL!

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I'm Irish, Cuban and German.  I am by religion a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker).  My husband's mother was a French Jew (Alsace/Lorraine) and his father was a Russian Jew.  We've been married for 26 years. 

I grew up hearing about the camps.  My parents were great teachers.  Later, of course, we studied it in school.  The Diary of Anne Frank was required reading in our high school.  The name of "Holocaust" wasn't really used globally until the 1970's.  We always refered to the horrors of the camps as the "Nazi Atrocities".  A mini series came out in 1976 called, The Holocaust, and then the term seemed to be globally used after that.  I remember watching it. 

My husband is 83 years old, and was in the Marine Corps during WWII.  So, he was in the South Pacific.  However, a friend of ours was in the Army during WWII and helped liberate the camps.  What he witnessed haunted him the rest of his adult life.  He died several years ago.

What bothers me more than anything is the current trend of people who say it never happened.  I cry to think that a generation may forget the atrocities, or grow up not believing it ever happened at all.  I always wish Ted was around to tell them what he saw, and how grown military personnel openly cried when they first liberated the vicitims in the camps,  Or how the two little girls tried to kiss his hand when he gave them his C-rations and a Hershey bar because they were starving. 

This issue always hits me on a visceral level.  Even now my eyes are filling with tears.  I can't even fathom the kind of mentality that could devise such a diabolical and evil "final solution". 

Man's inhumanity to man is always distressing.  What Stalin did to his own Russian people, what is happening right now in Darfur, just disgusts me. 

I look forward to hearing from like-minded people, sharing and learning from our thoughts and experiences.  Thank you for allowing me to join.

I wish thee peace & love,

Lisa

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Hi everyone. I'm Kelly. Although I don't have any personal connection to the Holocaust, I am very passionate about the topic. For my year 12 Modern History major I studied Genocide, which then focused quite heavily upon the horrific happenings within Germany not so long ago. I find it difficult to understand why this happened and how those involved could sleep at night knowing what they had done... did they not have a conscience?? Nobody should be subjected to what many individuals who were considered different or 'impure' were during those horrifying years.

I look forward to discussing the Holocaust further with all of you.

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Lory to the group... I dont' think you're phyco don't worry ... I do believe in past lives... and its not your choice which one you get... but it is your choice to believe it and learn from it!

Cassie

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Jan welcome to the group!  I'm glad to see you here!

Please don't admire me but admire those who lived through the Holocaust

Love&Light,

Cassie

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Hello. I learned about the Halocaust in grade school when a survivor came to talk to us. I remember crying for days because I couldn't understand why or how people could do that to each other. The feelings were brought out again when I read The Diary of Anne Frank. I have no connection to the Jewish faith, but I admire anyone who does. To go through that, or know that your family went through that, and still believe in your faith is amazing and admirable.

I feel that the holocaust and the lessons we need to learn from it are being forgotten in today's society. I heard a child yesterday, a kid of about nine years old, call a teacher a nazi. I had to approach him and explain what that name means. I find that people are drawing swastikas everywhere, without knowing or caring what they represent, and calling each other nazies! Its sad, and children have to be taught about like I was as a child. It scared me for weeks, especially since the survivor told of his friend who had red hair and freakles was torchured because of it. My little brother has red hair and I can't imagine him having to go through it.

I admire the host of this site for starting this! The horrors of the holocaust should not be lost or diminished in our society.

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  Each of you!  I urge you to post often, and invite friends   

Remember this is a place to remember!

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My family has been in North America for about a century or so.  We were originally from Germany but left from there at the end of the 19th century.

A famous person inmy family was the American poet Karl Shapiro. 

I have not studied extensively about my roots like some of the people here have.  I hope to learn more.  I consider myself Jewish because I was brought up this way.  I guess I can call it a feeling more than anything else.

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I want to welcome everyone to this group!!

I also want to tell everyone that no insults will be tolorated in any of the following jewish, racist, sexist, ect!

If any are said you WILL BE BANNED FROM THIS GROUP! 

If we think you've come back under another name, as pathetic as that sounds people do it, YOU WILL BE BANNED from this group!

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I am also here to learn and to give support...thank you for this group, I believe that the holocaust should never be forgotten, never...such a tragedy, the horror of it is unthinkable...

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I joined this group to learn more, seeing as I am from a jewish background.

I was told no family was lost in the holocaust.  I guess they were lucky.

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I have watched movies about the Holocaust.Read books by Corie Teen Boom about her life in the consultation camps.Seen her on TV.The hard ship the Jews went through no one knowes in less thy walked in their shoes only G-d knowes.Its hard to watch and not cry, to see the way G-d's people were treated.Hard to believe a Evil man could do this.

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I had no idea that this group was here.  I am Jewish on both sides.

My mother's parents came here from Russia before the revolution - I suspect to get away from the pogroms, but I don't know for sure.

My father's parents were from Austria-Hungary - so I suspect we probably lost family from that side in the Shoa.

For me, this has always been an intensely personal issue.  It is beyond understanding that people could set out to do something like this  - consciously and with planning and desire to destroy.

I have known people who survived the camps - both Jewish and non-Jewish.  I have had confrontations with members of the American Nazi party and others.

And I swear - this must never happen again......

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for the both of you and...

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A for you!

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A for both of you!

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Hi, everyone!  I'm Susan.  I'm a mut (LOL)...I'm 1/2 Korean, 1/4 Jewish, and 1/4 Irish/Scottish.  I was raised Christian, but my birth father (whom I am close to) is an Orthodox Jew.  I feel like I have very little knowledge of the Holocaust, just for the fact that it seems too impossible to wrap your mind around the depths of that kind of cruelty.  I've seen the movies, read the books, heard the horror stories, but absolutely nothing can explain it more than listening to an actual survivor recount their experiences.  It's horrifying!  The most devastating story I've heard was from a woman who was dumped in a ditch with her young baby.  When the Nazis opened fire on the women and children, she threw her body over her child.  A bullet grazed her arm, but went straight through her baby's skull.  The woman survived; the baby didn't.  I cry everytime I think of that story.  To have to live with that memory had to have been horrible.  The truth must be told.  We should feel the pain the Jews felt, and we should never, ever forget it! 

Shalom to all of you!

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Hello to all...

I am not sure how much I will be able to contribute here. The Shoa deeply affected me. All my european realitives perished in that time. Not a single survivor. Intimate artifacts remain but none of the people! I marched with Dr. King when I was a teenager. I was raised color blind. I was raised to be religiously tolerant. I helped with the massive relocation of Russian Jews in the late 70's and early 80's to the USA. I am very involved with the Jewish Federation, The Jewish Agency and the National Council of Jews. My family especially my paternal grandfather was very involved with the creation of Israel. I have numerous friends who are survivors of the Holocaust.

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Everyone!

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Hey Paola

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Hi im new..

And  well... makeme happy to see a post of my friend Nanette altohught she never will be wih us... God be with you my firend... we miss you.

Im form Peru..and  this group i think is very important for learn  about that time so cruel..that thi speople lived.

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Hi.  I just heard about this group from Amos in the Pro-Israel group.

My uncle's unit helped liberate one of the concentration camps during WWII -- I can't remember which one right now...  Of course, I never heard anything about his war experiences until after he passed away -- my aunt is the one who told me about this. 

As far as I have known, my family did not lose anyone in the camps -- my grandparents (on both sides) came over around the turn of the century, and I know a lot about Mom's family but next to nothing about Dad's (his father was german, so chances are there were some losses there).  A couple of yrs ago, I got to talk with a distant cousin (on Mom's side) that filled me in on a huge branch of the family I didn't know about -- including members living in South Africa -- and, sure enough, we did lose a whole branch of the family.  Much of the info is now lost, but I'd like to research it at some point (I am the keeper of the family's geneology records).

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Everyone I give you a big

I hope we can all learn and grow together!  Bright Blessings to everyone!

Cassie

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Hi! My name is Maria Angela. Thank you for the invitation Angelika!

When I was 5 years old, we moved into a neighborhood in which Jewish people, Protestants, and Catholics all lived. I always admired and felt closest to Frances, a Jewish girl just about 6 months older than me. I also loved her mother Else, who was warm and cooked well... But when her father came home, I was petrified and left as soon as possible. He usually beagan yelling in Yiddish if he saw me there.

So Mama explained to me just a tiny bit about the holocaust. Wolf had gotten out of the Warsaw Ghetto via the sewers, and who knows how much suffering. He met and married Elsie in Germany, then they came to the US. I later learned that he thought the shorts worn by American kids and playing dress up, and so forth were an attempt to make his daughter immoral. So I experienced the shoa at that time as seen in the pain and horror in Wolf. We had other Jewish neighbors who had gotten out also and lost relatives. They didn't discuss it, but Mama explained a little so I would understand.

One day, a couple newer girls in the neighborhood, who hailed from Appalachia began to yell at the Friedberg girls...names I had never before heard. I was shocked. I didn't know what the words meant, but I saw the hurtfulness, and left off playing with Debbie and Debbie, and sided with the Friedbergs. Then Mama had to explain antisemitism. To have that right where I was, and not far away really shocked me.

When I was a teenager, I read quite a bit about the shoa. I loved Eli Wiesel. And many other such writers. I watched any film on it that I could.

When I was in college, I was going to convert to Judaism, after a traumatic experience, and I went to all the conversion classes and had an opportunity to learn more of the shoa. Eventually, I decided to return to christianity, but was very glad for my deepened insight.

During my first marriage, when I was 24, we went to Israeli folk dancing in Philly. I won a trip to Israel, and we saw the Holocaust memorial. Later, when he was stationed in Germany, we went to Dachau.

Off and on I have read or watched things that have come up. But I am sure that I have very much more to learn. Thank you all for your contributions here.

Shalom

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 Hi Cassie - thanks for the invitation.

I've been an anti-racist activist for about 12 years now, so this subject is near and dear to me. I've had several...er, 'run-ins' with groups and individuals that like to deny the Holocaust, or lessen it's severity in some way or other. I helped put one in prison for 6 months. I hope to both contribute and learn here.

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HELLO !!!..nice to meet you all........what a WONDERFUL group!!....I know I will love it and learn a lot of things...I suppose most of us have a bit of everything in us, I do....but it's not important if we are jewish or not....it's important that we learn from history and try not to repeat the mistakes.....

Lots of love and light

Ana

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Hello Cassie, thanks for inviting me over! I am living with that past...you do not know how other countries still see the Germans...although I was not amongst these people but sometimes we are still discriminated although I am amongst the ones who is against of all the Nazis...and my family as well and a lot of others I know - but still they are present...they deny what happened and they win over a lot of people to join their party...horrible!

Hope that this group will be a group to inform and "educate" people.

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Thank you for invite me CASSIE

My name is AUSAF AHMAD living in Karachi PAKISTAN

I have my own construction Company and I am running a Reiki Healing Center and Reiki teaching school absolutely free for the peoples.

Thank you again for the invitation.

God bless you all with good health and lots of happiness and funs.

Ausaf Ahmad 

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My name is Cassie, I'm your host here.  I've made this group to help people remember.  To help everyone learn, including myself.  I know things about it,but not everything.  I myself, hope to learn more form you! 

I have some diffrent blood in me; French, German, and Jewish... does that make sence? *confused*  Sometimes I describe myself as "I killed myself."  Not sure if thats the best way...

I hope we all learn as much as we can!

Thanks for being a part of this group!

Love&Light,

Cassie

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Hi, I am Jan.  Thank you for the invitation.  I teach European politics at the university and I always have to teach about this.  I also teach a course on war and peace and I am interested in how extreme nationalism affects women especially.

Thanks !  I will be glad to learn here.

Jan

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Please introduce yourself here, and let us know how the Holocaust has affect you.

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