Nastiest place I ever saw

D

David Innes

Joined
Sep 9, 2000
Messages
181
I don't know what started me thinking about this, it's all just kind of popped back into my mind in dreadful clarity for some reason. Nothing at all to do with khurkuri's that I can think of.

When I was serving in the Army, aged about 19 or so, some friends and I decided to visit Bergen-Belsen. This would be in the summer of 1976 or so...

I'd heard stories about the Holocaust generally, and heard stories from my family about the movie reels they had seen about the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, but, like most kids, didn't have much idea about what had happened, except I knew the Nazi's had killed a lot of people there.

We drove down to Celle, and went on to the site. It was a warm summers day, but as soon as we walked through the gates and into the grounds I was shivering with cold. There was no grass. There were no birds. There was no sound, except the hum of bees and people crying. The people crying were us... I had never wept as an adult until that day. I recall feeling very embarassed by this until I noticed all my mates were weeping.

There wasn't much to see really... mounds, covered with heather, with small stones inscribed with "1500 people buried here" or "6000 people buried here" that went through the whole area, and memorials raised to the memories of the dead by Israel and Britan, and pine trees all around.

There was a sense of sheer horror about the place that I cannot put into words. The sheer idiotic, stupid pointlessness of what had happened there, the sense of ignorance, arrogance and inhumanity was all pervasive. That anyone could subject another to conditions so brutal, filled me with disgust, fills me with disgust.

I don't really know what bought this one, but I remembered it tonight like it had been yesterday. I just thought I would share my feelings with you.
David
 
Sometimes the ghosts just pop back up to remind you that they are still there. Try not to let them bother you.

I'm a country music fan. This summer a song was released about a little girl who's parents die in a murder/suicide and how Jesus saw her through it. For a long time I couldn't listen to that song without getting choked up. The little girl and her brothers from my reality didn't make it. I forgot about them for a while but now I see their "ghosts" from time to time and it saddens me all over again.

People do the most despicable, horrifying things to each other. There is no sense, rhyme or reason to it. The only solice is that eventually, the Devil will lose.
 
When I was about 12, my folks took me to visit one of the concentration camps in Germany. I was considered too young to view the films, so I missed that part. However, I will never forget the awful feeling of desolation, pain, and misery that permeated the grounds. That was a place where evil had been.

In order to try to tie this thread to the forum, the British soldiers were among those who liberated Bergen-Belsen. Anyone know if there were any Ghurkas in the ranks?

rf
 
Some time ago I picked up a CD of Keltic music at a second hand store. It had one particular song with an enchanting melody. The instruments were pennywhistle, guitar and bells, and there were vocals. It was only the third or fourth time I listened to it that I paid attention to the words.

Although I am usually pretty cynical about works of fiction designed to elicit emotion, this song still makes me cry when I listen to it. It reminds me of things that I, and other members of my species, are capable of. I don't believe this is available online, so I will reproduce the words here.
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Sweet Eleanor (From the CD "Keltic Heritage" by North Sea Gas. Words by Dave Gilfillan.)

She was just four years old, when she was passed from the train,
By a kind and pretty girl, she never knew her name,
And they walked hand in hand on that bright summer's day,
To a camp just by Belsen, where they were told they had to stay.

Her mother wasn't well, she was kept to the rear,
Where she cradled Eleanor, all huddled in fear,
And Eleanor would dream in the dark lonely nights,
Of her soft gentle kiss, that put her world to rights.

O sweet Eleanor, may you rest in peace,
May the Lord's arms enfold you in your eternal sleep,
May your life be remembered for the pain that you bore,
May the shame of your death be recalled forevermore.

It didn't last too long, for sweet Eleanor,
For the pain and the suffering she had little strength for,
On a cold April night back in 1944,
Closed her eyes, said goodbye to the world, sweet Eleanor.

O sweet Eleanor, may you rest in peace,
May the Lord's arms enfold you in your eternal sleep,
May your life be remembered for the pain that you bore,
May the shame of your death be recalled forevermore.

There's no fancy gravestone to tell where she lay,
There's no record, photograph, to mark her short stay,
She's one of many more, who lie dead among the trees,
But for now and evermore sweet Eleanor will be free.

O sweet Eleanor, may you rest in peace,
May the Lord's arms enfold you in your eternal sleep,
May your life be remembered for the pain that you bore,
May the shame of your death be recalled forevermore.

May your life be remembered for the pain that you bore,
May the shame of your death be recalled forevermore.
 
My old schoolmate and later roommate's mother was an inmate at Bergen-Belsen. Every day one look at her arm would remind me of the horror she had been exposed to as a young woman. It was anguishing.

The one piece of good karma that came out of that travesty was that her future husband, Leon, was a British soldier who had helped liberate her and later fell in love with and married her. As nice a man as you'd ever have wanted to meet.

Blues

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Live Free or Die

Blues' Knife Pix
 
Another strange anecdote, if I might be permitted....(What's it got to do with khukuris? Everything...)

In the Spring of '99 my wife and I traveled to Paris on vacation. During that stay I met with a cousin, Jean-Claude, whom I had never met before and had only corresponded with via email a few times before that.

Anyway, Jean-Claude's father was Jewish and his mother Catholic. He was born in 1942.

His father had gone into hiding but would return from time to time to see his wife and two young sons. A policeman in the building denounced him and he was taken away to the "camps" and never seen again.

My cousin was raised Catholic and the irony of the story comes in when I asked him if he harbored any malice toward Germans (as Paris had many German tourists during the time I was there).

Oddly enough, he told me that he was very comfortable with Germans as his stepfather was an American G.I. who married his mother a few years after the war and relocated the family to Germany where he was stationed. (He was later educated in the US at Penn State, attended law school and returned to France.)

The irony was that his first communion was held in a chapel at Auschwitz. (Of course he was too young to understand the nuance at that time.)

Needless to say, it's an interesting world we live in.

Thanks for letting me ramble on.

Blues

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Live Free or Die

Blues' Knife Pix
 
Ha! Pianoman knows exactly what I'm talking about!
As far as I know the Indian Army contingent, including the Gurkha Brigades who were involved with the liberation of Europe were landed in Italy and fought their way north. No doubt they experienced 'hell on earth' in other places, but the history books don't mention anything too specific after the battle of Monte Casino. Which was pretty nasty. About 9 on a scale of 1>10, according to the combatants.

What an awful period in history. Still, I guess you could look at every successive generation and find horror like this, to some degree at least, at any time.
Example: I took my kids camping up on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, during which 'holiday' (their mother chose to stay at home... B*tch!) we visited a town called Hexham, where the old prison, built around 1400, was open as a tourist attraction. There was one cell, with one entrance, a trapdoor, 22' above the cell's floor. Now, my knowledge of anatomy and physiology may be a bit shaky, but I'm fairly sure that any fall over 20' is invariably fatal, never mind being flung headfirst in chains into a dank cellar, probably after being falsly accused of whatever... Perhaps working on the Sabbath, or failing to pay local taxes.
Still, nothing to do with khukuri's, but by gawd, you should have seen the weapons they had on display, from medieval to 18th Century! Morningstars, clubs, battle axes and hammers, swords, daggers and dirks. All tried and tested on the appropriate target! The stuff you see in museums just didn't cut the mustard compared with the everyday working weapons of the Borders, where raiding and pillaging were highly respectable occupations... A youth wasn't considered a proper man until he had murdered his next door neighbor!
Cheers to all, thanks for your understanding.
David
 
The camps are the same no matter the time or place. I've not been to Germany, but I've seen other camps of a different sort in the Delta country, not as well built or organized or large, but just as nasty.

Howard, Me thinks Ed A. Poe had a little influence on the song. Somehow, that only makes it more melancholy.

And lest anyone thinks......."It can't happen here".......Keep your Khukuries close.
Dan
 
I am firmly of the opinion that 'it' can happen anywhere, and so damn fast you won't even notice it happining. Did you know the concentration camp is a Brit invention?
David
 
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