Auschwitz was liberated 77 years ago

It suits you. 😉

Please take your historical ignorance and pro-Israel bullshit somewhere else. Accusations of anti-semitism has been used to death and frankly has lost all power at this stage.

I think not only the idea that recorded history may be forgotten over time, but where many of those whom we hear screaming the loudest about the history of the holocaust, are in effect the David Irvings of this world.

The same who hold out that what is known to have happened under the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular is in their view a product of propaganda or similar.

Unfortunately social media whilst being perhaps the greatest modern resource for the dissemination of knowledge, has in some respects become a boon for those like Irving who seek to rewrite history to suit their own prejudices .

"But is it really fair to suggest that the Soviets underwent a complete personality change after Operation Barbarossa and were never nasty to the Poles ever again?"

No it isn't fair. If you go back to my first post in this thread I think you will find I pointed out that it was the Red Army that 'liberated' Auschwitz. I have repeatedly pointed out the murderous policies of the Soviet regime "before and during WW2".

It was the Soviets who were responsible for the Katyn massacre (something I've also pointed out previously in this thread) and it is also fair to point out that if they were allied to anyone in May 1940 it was to Nazi Germany having about nine months earlier coordinated their invasion of eastern Poland with Germany's invasion from the west with agreed demarcation lines and minor adjustments of occupied territories.

If you try to make points by false assertions, such as 'it was the allies who were responsible' for Katyn, don't be surprised if people misinterpret what you are trying to do.

If you have a point to make, just go ahead and make it.

"And like Cyclingtourist, I am at a lost as to what the actual point is in this particular tangent."

I think what Snickers Man was trying to say in a rather convoluted manner was what I posted in my first (#76) post in this thread.

Cyclingtourist quote:

"Auschwitz was 'liberated' by the Red Army which was the army of the Soviet Union, a state that practiced murder on a comparable scale."

The allied campaign in WW2 was primarily one to defeat Nazi Germany (and Imperial Japan) militarily and restore sovereignty (this meant something different to Stalin) to the occupied nations. In this it succeeded in doing in the West but in the East, most notably in Poland, the liberation took an extra 45 years.

The liberation of the camps wasn't a military aim just an accidental biproduct of a victory that included the mass aerial bombing of German cities.

On the contrary there is considerable proof both documentary and witness that from June 1942 on 'The Final Solution' related to the direct relocation (transport to actual extermination camps) rather than the previous practice of using Polish ghettoes as temporary processing stages. This marked merely a stepping up of a policy that was already well established.

For example Himmler visited Auschwitz on the 17 July 1942 where he witnessed the arrival of 2,000 Dutch Jews, after the selection of 1,531 workers on the ramp (an unusually high number) he then witnessed the gassing of the remaining 449 in bunker 2 and the burning of their remains. This was almost exactly 11 months after he had witnessed the shooting of Jews at Minsk. ref 'The Auschwitz Chronicle 1939-45 Auschwitz Chronicle, 1939-1945: From the Archives of the Auschwitz Memorial and the Gorman Federal Archives: Amazon.co.uk: Czech, Danuta: 9780805009385: Books

You could also read 'Life and Death in the Third Reich' by Peter Fritzsche for a more comprehensive account of the evolution of Nazi racial policy between 1933 and 1945.

Is it the word 'liberated' in inverted commas that is the problem? It's reasonable to claim that for most of the remaing inmates in Auschwitz it was liberation when the Russians arrived. I read an account recently of an SS unit that re-entered the complex and removed several hundred inmates and marched them westwards. A survivor of this event stated that the fate of those who could not keep up was death at the hands of their guards. The woman who related this story escaped the forced march and returned to the camp. For her, and others, the arrival of the Russians was seen as deliverance.

Not sure of the relevance of including the bombing of German cities in your post.

I used inverted commas because firstly the Germans had largely evacuated the surviving inmates and only about 7,500 remained. Also the NKVD instituted its own camp system (Poznan, Krakow, Lodz, Danzig, etc.) and deported many Poles to Siberia including members of the Polish Home Army (AK) who had been fighting the Nazis since the twin (German & Russian) invasions of Poland in September-October 1939. I think the use of inverted commas is appropriate.

I mentioned the mass bombing of German cities in the context of the 'victory which wasn't to liberate camps' because it resulted in the mass killing of German and other civilians. It's my opinion that this bombing, while legitimate, did continue beyond a point where it was morally justified especially in the last few months of the war. I felt it was relevant.

Himmler's diary records having observed no such mass execution. The source of that claim is the testimony of Rudolf Höss, which is discredited by internal contradictions and blatant impossibilities.

He visited Auschwitz but, given his itinerary and the records of his engagements, he couldn't have witnessed any gassing.