All the evils of Nazism

Every so often, a film is released that absolutely must be seen in a cinema. Nuremberg is one such film. Set for release in November 2025, the story of the Nuremberg war crimes trials after the Nazi defeat in the Second World War has been told before in previous film and television dramatizations, but not like this.

The story centres on Douglas Kelley, played by Rami Malek, a U.S. Army psychiatrist assigned to evaluate the mental fitness of Nazi leaders imprisoned at Nuremberg. Kelley becomes entangled in a psychological duel with Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), Hitler’s second-in-command, who proves to be disturbingly charismatic and manipulative. As Kelley interviews the prisoners, he begins to question the nature of evil, the limits of justice, and his own moral compass.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29567915/

Auschwitz and the Holocaust, 80 years later

The world is about to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where 1 million people were killed. May the world never forget. 

Why not?

Without a doubt it is one of the most horrible books ever written. It is the rantings of a deranged maniac. I feel repulsed even looking at it. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf has been banned from publication in Germany since 1945. In 2015 its copyright and ban will expire. German politicians are debating whether or not its publication should be permitted from 2016.

Munich's Centre for Contemporary History plans to publish an annotated critical edition of the book. While this is understandably a very sensitive issue for victims of the Nazi regime, their descendants, and the German people in general, a critical edition seems to me to be a great idea.

Mein Kampf is a historical document that should inform part of the collective memory of Germany's past, and needs to be studied, engaged with, and shown for the work of evil that it is.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mein-kampf-returns-german-ministers-prepare-to-lift-ban-on-publication-of-adolf-hitlers-controversial-manifesto-9562903.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/opinion/should-germans-read-mein-kampf.html?_r=0

Split Enz were wrong

A church acquaintance sent this to me. I don't normally circulate chain emails, so I'm posting it here instead, in slightly edited form. Those listed weren't the only victims of the Nazi Holocaust, but I agree that we need to perpetuate its remembrance. The text of the email reads as follows.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking the other way! Now, more than ever, with Iran and others claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

Then again, if you look at the genocides that have occurred in the recent past in Uganda, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sudan, to name but a few examples, it would seem that the world has forgotten the lessons it learned from those dark days, and our world is the poorer for it.