of any form of free culture."
In 1934, Furtwängler publicly described Hitler as an "enemy of the human race" and the political situation in Germany as a "Schweinerei" ("pigsty"). (Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia)
Warum willst Du nicht verstehen, dass ich dafür sterbe, dass viele nicht mehr einen frühen und gewaltsamen Tod sterben brauchen? (Fiete Schulze aus der Hamburger Arbeiterbewegung im Abschiedsbrief an seine Schwester. Fiete wurde im Alter von 40 Jahren im Juni 1935 hingerichtet.)
Es gibt für alle äußere Legalität eine letzte Grenze, wo sie unwahrhaftig und unsittlich wird. […] Ich fordere die Freiheit für unser deutsches Volk zurück. (Kurt Huber [1893-1943]: Aus seinem Schlussplädoyer vor dem Volksgerichtshof am 19. April 1943)
Der Mensch wird nicht kleiner, auch wenn er um einen Kopf kürzer ist. […] Jeder, der treu für die Zukunft gelebt hat und für sie gefallen ist, ist eine in Stein gehauene Gestalt. […] Ein Mensch zu sein wird auch weiterhin ein heldenhaftes Herz erfordern, solange die Menschen nicht ganz Menschen sind. (Julius Fucik [*1903 in Prag] war Sohn einer Arbeiterfamilie. Als Redakteur gehörte er zu den Führern der kommunistischen Widerstandsbewegung in der Tschechoslowakei. Er wurde am 24. April 1942 verhaftet und am 8. September 1943 in Berlin hingerichtet.)
Wie einer stirbt, wofür einer stirbt, darauf kommt es an. (Alfred Schmidt-Sas [*1895 in Schlegel bei Zittau in der Oberlausitz] war Lehrer und Musiker. Er hatte sich gegen die nationalsozialistische Bewegung ausgesprochen. Nach mehrfacher KZ-Haft wurdeer am 9. Oktober 1942 vom Volksgericht zum Tode verurteilt und am 9. April 1943 in Plötzensee hingerichtet.)
Gottes Geist ist Sinn und Kraft. Schwester Teresia Benedicta [Dr. Edith Stein, *1891 in Breslau] wurde als Jüdin, Philosophin [Edmund Husserl] und freiwilliges Sühneopfer für den Frieden am 2. August 1942 mit ihrer Schwester Rosa [*1883 in Lublinitz, Oberschlesien] aus dem Karmel-Kloster zu Echt in Holland in das Lager Amersfoort, dann Westerbork verschleppt und am 7. August 1942 mit 987 Juden in das KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau deportiert, wo beide am 9. August 1942 den Tod fanden.
Elie Wiesel [1928-2016] in his Nobel Lecture on 10 December 1986, in Oslo: “Stripped of possessions, all human ties severed, the prisoners found themselves in a social and cultural void. "Forget", they were told, "Forget where you came from; forget who you were. Only the present matters". But the present was only a blink of the Lord's eye. The Almighty himself was a slaughterer: it was He who decided who would live and who would die; who would be tortured, and who would be rewarded. Night after night, seemingly endless processions vanished into the flames, lighting up the sky. Fear dominated the universe. Indeed this was another universe; the very laws of nature had been transformed. Children looked like old men, old men whimpered like children. Men and women from every corner of Europe were suddenly reduced to nameless and faceless creatures desperate for the same ration of bread or soup, dreading the same end. Even their silence was the same for it resounded with the memory of those who were gone. Life in this accursed universe was so distorted, so unnatural that a new species had evolved. Waking among the dead, one wondered if one was still alive.
Perhaps, because wise men remember best. And yet it is surely human to forget, even to want to forget. The Ancients saw it as a divine gift. Indeed if memory helps us to survive, forgetting allows us to go on living. How could we go on with our daily lives, if we remained constantly aware of the dangers and ghosts surrounding us? The Talmud tells us that without the ability to forget, man would soon cease to learn. Without the ability to forget, man would live in a permanent, paralyzing fear of death. Only God and God alone can and must remember everything.
How are we to reconcile our supreme duty towards memory with the need to forget that is essential to life? No generation has had to confront this paradox with such urgency. The survivors wanted to communicate everything to the living: the victim's solitude and sorrow, the tears of mothers driven to madness, the prayers of the doomed beneath a fiery sky.
They needed to tell the child who, in hiding with his mother, asked softly, very softly: "Can I cry now?" They needed to tell of the sick beggar who, in a sealed cattle-car, began to sing as an offering to his companions. And of the little girl who, hugging her grandmother, whispered: "Don't be afraid, don't be sorry to die... I'm not". She was seven, that little girl who went to her death without fear, without regret.
Each one of us felt compelled to record every story, every encounter. Each one of us felt compelled to bear witness, such were the wishes of the dying, the testament of the dead. Since the so-called civilized world had no use for their lives, then let it be inhabited by their deaths.
After the war we reassured ourselves that it would be enough to relate a single night in Treblinka, to tell of the cruelty, the senselessness of murder, and the outrage born of indifference: it would be enough to find the right word and the propitious moment to say it, to shake humanity out of its indifference and keep the torturer from torturing ever again. We thought it would be enough to read the world a poem written by a child in the Theresienstadt ghetto to ensure that no child anywhere would ever again have to endure hunger or fear. It would be enough to describe a death-camp "Selection", to prevent the human right to dignity from ever being violated again.
We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is "different" - whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem - anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually. A naive undertaking? Of course. But not without a certain logic.
We tried. It was not easy. At first, because of the language; language failed us. We would have to invent a new vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, anemic.
Let us remember Job who, having lost everything - his children, his friends, his possessions, and even his argument with God - still found the strength to begin again, to rebuild his life. Job was determined not to repudiate the creation, however imperfect, that God had entrusted to him.
War leaves no victors, only victims. I began with the story of the Besht. And, like the Besht, mankind needs to remember more than ever. Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.”
Aleppo (5. Dezember 2016): Im belagerten Ostteil von Aleppo sind nach UNICEF-Schätzungen derzeit rund 100.000 Kinder in höchster Lebensgefahr. Der Sprecher von UNICEF Deutschland, Rudi Tarneden, forderte den sofortigen Stopp der Luftangriffe auf die syrische Stadt. “Die Intensität der Zerstörung und ihre Rücksichtslosigkeit sind vergleichbar mit den Gräueltaten, die im Zweiten Weltkrieg verübt wurden.”
In Syrien gehe es um die Rettung des letzten Minimums an Menschlichkeit, betonte der Sprecher des UN-Kinderhilfswerkes: “Die Helfer, die in Syrien und in Aleppo tätig sind, tun ihr Möglichstes, sie unterstützen die Bevölkerung, aber sie werden nicht mehr sehr lange durchhalten können.”
Nach einer mehrtägigen Waffenruhe haben russische und syrische Streitkräfte die Bombardierung der syrischen Stadt Aleppo seit Donnerstag wieder aufgenommen. Es sollen die heftigsten Angriffe seit Beginn des Krieges vor fünf Jahren sein. Erneut wurde ein Krankenhaus bombardiert, wobei 20 Menschen getötet und 100 verletzt worden seien. (5. Dezember 2016)
‘DAS IST ROSTOCK.DE’ 05.Dezember 2016: „Die Bomber kommen drei- bis viermal täglich”, sagt Moataz Alboha. „Sie bombardieren die Krankenhäuser. Für die Menschen in Aleppo gibt es keinen Strom mehr, kein Wasser, kein Brot, keine Medikamente, und für die Kinder gibt es schon lange keine Schule mehr.“ Bis spät in die Nacht schauen die Syrer die
