Snowdon is a dummy

@Walter Hinteler,

Nothing like treating your trusted family members by spying on them.

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@BillRM,

I think the term "concentration camp" is appropriate. A camp where one "concentrates" political enemies, suspects, rebellious tribes, etc. As opposed to a death/extermination camps. Just because it reminds you of the Nazis doesn't mean the word is improper.

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@Olivier5,

Just to get the (German) names correct - and that's only (!) for the concentration camps between 1933 and 1945:

the German name is Konzentrationslager (short: KZ), which was a literal translation of the English term "concentration camp".
There were roughly 1,000 of those camps, including sub-camps.

The seven "extermination camps" (German: Vernichtungslage) were concentration camps in Poland and Belarus, mainly erected only to systematically kill millions of people.

Concentration camps were youth detention centers, extermination camps, labor camps, transit camps, women's camps and other concentration camp-like units (e.g. secret police's camps, SS-camps ...)

The first KZ was built in Dachau in 1933, for political prisoners.

The death rate in the 1,000 camps (excluded the seven extermination camps) was about one third of those imprisoned.

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@Walter Hinteler,

I'll attest to that, Walter.

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The UK's response to Snowden's revelations lets Putin off the hook

Quote:

"Our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by our law," responded Vladimir Putin to a question from Edward Snowden live on Russia Today. He added: "We don't have a mass system of such interception, and according to our law, it cannot exist." The Russian president may as well have been reading from a UK script.
[...]
What is urgently needed is a well-funded, frank investigation of the most worrying of the Snowden revelations regarding the surveillance practices of GCHQ, such as the alleged interception of millions of webcam images from Yahoo users with no connection to terrorism, and the mass interception of communications via the fibre-optic cables that pass through the UK through the Tempora program. Such an investigation must go beyond Ripa and examine mass data handovers that may be taking place without any statutory oversight under section 94 of the Telecommunications Act.

Meanwhile, Russia and other governments with truly redoubtable human rights records are able to point to UK surveillance practices to justify their own. Despite the commissioners' best efforts, this report does little to distinguish Britain's interception systems from those of Russia. Ripa has similarities to the Russian system of operative-investigative measures (Sorm), which is used throughout much of the former Soviet Union, and which combines legal and administrative oversight with systems that in practice allow direct, unfettered access to communications networks; indeed, in most cases provision of such access is a licence prerequisite for telcos and ISPs.

Moving beyond the status quo will require much greater transparency reforms than have been considered in Britain so far. Here, US reforms may prove instructive. The combination of reporting on the Snowden disclosures and legal challenges by civil liberties organisations and technology companies has led the Obama administration to embrace some important, if insufficient, increases in transparency. And US Congress is considering multiple proposals for legislative reform. The declassification of an array of documents means that much more information is available about the most controversial NSA practices, such as the bulk collection of phone records, compared with what we know about GCHQ. A similar approach in the UK would allow the interception commissioner the chance to show his work, and rebuild some degree of trust with the public.
... ... ...

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter, Your definitions for 'concentration camp' and 'extermination camp' is spot on! Thx. T.

The reason for the camps determines its classification.

Camps in the US were motivated by politics, and not to exterminate its detainees.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

I think the term "concentration camp" is appropriate.

Sorry I do not, as the term is far far too emotionally loaded due to the actions of the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s in camps name concentration camps that have zero to do with the US internment camps of ww2.

In fact, in my opinion to do so is insulting to the memories of those millions that was victims of the nazis concentration camps and their families.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

I hope this isn't butting in too much, CI, but I think some here don't know where you spent part of your childhood.
http://able2know.org/topic/133786-1

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Camps in the US were motivated by politics, and not to exterminate its detainees.

Nor to work them to death or starve them to death while doing so or harm the interment camps population in any manner.

So to used the term concentration camps that bring to mind to almost all people in the west the terrible suffering of the Nazis concentration camps is both shameful and untruthful when it come to US internment camps.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Quote:

I hope this isn't butting in too much, CI, but I think some here don't know where you spent part of your childhood.

All the more reason for him to know that those internment camps have nothing to do with the mental picture that come to all of us when the word concentration camps is used.

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@BillRM,

When the first KZ in Dachau was opened, the reason given by Himmler was that all Leftish and Marxist persons should be got there who "gfährden die innere Sicherheit des Staates" (who are a danger for the internal security of the country). (Source: Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten, 21 March 1933)
The US The detention camps were described at the time as an "internal security" measure. (Soure: Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians)

Btw: 15,000 German-Americans were in those camps as well: German-American shares experience of wartime internment

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Of course the reason given for the internment was the internal security for the US and I have no question that a similar reason might had been given for the Nazis camps that does not change the fact that the US camps and the Nazis run camps had little in common.

Hell the out and out Nazis in the US camps was free to hold birthday parties and such for Hitler and to attempt to recruit fellow Germans in the camps into the American Nazis party.

Hindsight is wonderful and looking back there was little need or reason to used internment camps for the Japanese Americans on the west coast and racial feelings surely was one of the driving factors for doing so.

Given the situation at the time however it is sadly understandable and the one things that is not understandable is why the hell was those US citizens after the war not made whole for any of their losses and put back on their feet.

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@BillRM,

The term "concentration camp" predates the nazis. You are doing them too big a favor by reserving this term to them.

Anyway, apparently the euphemism used by the US govt was "relocation camps"... CI and his flocks were neither "interned" nor "concentrated", they were "relocated"... :'-/

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@ossobuco,

osso, Thanks for the 'diversion.' I read my post from 2009, and learned that all the photos have disappeared; sorry to see that happened, but thankful to be reminded of the pilgrimage.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

We were not 'relocated.' That word connotes it was voluntary; it was not. It was under Executive Order 9066, and the military took over the transportation of Japanese Americans to 'concentration camps.' In the short time allowed between the EO and relocate, people had to sell/destroy most their possessions - which was impossible. Most had no means in terms of money to move to another location to pay for transportation, food, and housing.

Don't forget that the Great Depression ended about 1943, and Japanese Americans had difficulty finding any employment - even college grads.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

osso, Thanks for the 'diversion.' I read my post from 2009, and learned that all the photos have disappeared; sorry to see that happened, but thankful to be reminded of the pilgrimage.

Which probably accounts for your intense hatred of this country...and your need to derogate it at almost every opportunity.

You ought really to get over it...or give in to your loathing and move somewhere else.

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@Walter Hinteler,

When the 442 liberated the prisoners at Dachau, the pictures show the prisoners were skin and bones.

Quote:

At December 06, 2007 9:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
I wrote this brief article quite a few years ago. There are some explainations for the holes in the overall story.
The 522nd probably did reach Dachau before many of the other units since the entire unit was completely mobile. The other units were nearly all on foot (infantry). Plus the weather was bad and the area had lots of German soldiers still fighting.
Most of the 522nd foward observers and batteries did intercept the long death marches running toward Dachau several times. Also several sub camps were also liberated or examined by 522nd units.
The cremetorium activity during the liberation is mysterious. Some of the 522nd vets I interviewed claimed a foul stench in the air and chared bodies in the ovens. You can still burn things without coal in an oven?
The stories in the article are not fiction but are recalled by survivors and WW2 vets from over 50 years ago.
My main point is to share this interesting story and not really claim who was at Dachau first. Where is Dachau?: the town of Dachau, the main concentration camp, the county/distict containing hundreds of sub camps (kommandos).
And does it really matter who arrived first. What matters is that 500 Nisei soldiers (with white officers) in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion (A WW2 US Army Unit) assisted in the liberation of the infamous Dachau death camp.
By the way, Capt Feibleman was a Jewish NY lawyer who served with the 522nd.
These men deserve their place in history as liberators and American soldiers.
Sincerely,
Burt Takeuchi

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

It was the War that liberated the prisoners ci. The 442 happened to be passing.

I remember seeing a movie of a condemned prisoner of the Gestapo looking through the bars of her cell and saying "When will the Americans come?" It was set about 1941 or 2 I think.

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@cicerone imposter,

As you know, my long time favorite boss was born in a camp in Wyoming. He doesn't hate the US either, is patriotic, also did well here, but he has long had wide open eyes for injustice that happens here, and.. to some extent in human history, everywhere. A neighborhood that my larger family had lived nearby, off and on, over many years, was decimated then. (Sawtelle; I had a thread about that once.)

Exiting my diversion..

Edit to question my use of the word patriotic. That can have an icko tone, and I don't mean it that way. I mean that he wants his country to be its best self.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Oh, stop it Frank. CI does not hate the U.S.

2 Replies

Snowdon is a dummy

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