The 19th Century French poet, Charles Baudelaire, wrote the devil’s greatest deception was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
On Monday a German federal court upheld the July conviction of Auschwitz SS camp guard, Oskar Gröning who admitted to witnessing the reality of Hitler’s Final Solution but had no direct role in the killings.
Oskar Gröning has been found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews. He was sentenced to a four year jail term.
The ruling is important because it overturns an almost 50-year-old German legal interpretation, where an SS dentist at Auschwitz was acquitted because direct knowledge without actual participation in mass murder was not regarded as sufficient proof of guilt.
Full column here:
Milton, you piqued my curiosity:
Castro Street was named for José Castro (1808–1860), a Californio leader of Mexican opposition to U.S. rule in California in the 19th century, and alcalde of Alta California from 1835 to 1836.
You piqued mine too. A such i’m awaiting some leather shorts from Munich Muscle & Moustache Menswear that are due to arrive before xmas. I’ve asked the family to buy me either talcum powder or dubbin as a present.
it was only last night that I found out that major name Universities in the USA had a (limiting)quota for Jewish students (known as Numerus Clausus) that existed up until the late sixties.
There is no doubt the world is seeing a rise in anti-semitism. It appears to be driven from both the far right and the left. How do we combat this? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are widely held to be fact in some parts of the Arab world and are required reading by the far right. Anti Semitism, like any form of racism, is a slow insidious cancer. The treatment of WW2 only put the disease into remission and now it’s coming back. Oskar Groning whether inside or out can’t really do much. It’s too late. The genie is out of the bottle again. I doubt though that it was ever put back in.
If I may digress slightly…I spent some time working in Bolivia back in the 90’s and flew around the country a lot between two locations and the capital. I figure that I’ve very likely flown on that BAE146/RJ5 that killed the football team in Medellin, as there were a limited number of them getting about the place. Creepy feeling.
Digressing further, I spent a bit of time picking fruit for a while after I left school. There were single people, couples and families who would follow the seasons with different crops and would keep themselves busy all year round. Somewhere between that time and now the industry has discarded these salt-of-the-earth types and replaced them with backpackers. I’m intrigued by how this happened – clearly it has been an economic imperative. Advantage has been taken of cheaper labour and if we rely on the backpackers then the growers have driven an entire subclass of people into history. Another point is that there is actually a certain amount of skill involved in picking, some crops more than others, and you would get a constant drag on productivity and some product loss with inexperienced pickers. It’s a strange development.
I know for a fact I flew on this thing almost three months to the day before it came down: https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20131125-0
Not sure you’re entirely right about the fruit-picking. Certainly I know (and know of) citizens who consistently work for the same farmers every year on the same crops. My sister and a few mates did multiple seasons on cherries, strawberries and apples and an ex’s step-dad used to work spuds and asparagus every year for the same bloke. There was an ex-copper and his wife who would travel around doing the same – hardly people who would put up with poor treatment or outrageously low pay.
I don’t think farmers are averse to hiring locals if they can be reasonably sure they’re getting a good worker. Where it falls apart seems to be where operators have tried hiring Aussies and had a bad experience. I had an online conversation with a farmer a while back and he had been entirely put off Australians because the ones he got he either couldn’t keep past their first lunch-break (too hot, too much work) or they hung around doing a half-arsed job and then called Fair Work Australia at the first sign of him putting his foot down. There have been a few cases of farmers of particular ethnicities hiring the same because they can get away with abuses but most back-packers are from countries that enforce reasonable labour standards and they won’t hang around putting up with crap. The one obvious point of coercion is the 90-day rural labour rule to secure a second year visa. There seems to be significant scope to use that to disadvantage backpackers.
I’ve considered the harvest trail myself and would be doing it right now if I didn’t have a couple of OAP canines.
BLS, I’m not talking about the ones who lob in and disappear the same day. I mean the pros. Clearly there’s still some around but if you’re happy to take on backpackers at lower pay, that reduces the pool of experienced locals.
Lets not pretend that every farmer is a saint either…
Understood.
Trivalve, I know a few members of the families in Perth who were and are in the fruit and vegie game. Basically, the Australians who used to pick fruit ( I too did it as a 17 year old) want too much money. With the squeeze on growers from Coles and Woolworths thats just not possible. Hence the backpackers.
and yet Coles and Woollies overcharge on fresh produce. Shareholder profit is what matters……..
Right – like the dairy farmers want too much too I suppose…
Darren I normally enjoy disagreeing with you but cannot in this case. Talk to any of the growers here in North Queensland and they will tell you exactly what you have just written. Like it or not there is a price to be paid for Coles and Woolies. It also includes, less variety, less taste and the loss of the small grower.
productivity Dazzle?…. how unfair
There’s a dark underbelly to that business in parts of Victoria, SA and Queensland at least, with systematic visa fraud and activities bordering on human trafficking. The victims are not European backpackers but tend to be people from PNG and the Pacific who get tricked into working with false promises of education or even migration. The villains are labour-hire companies, but in some cases the farmers know perfectly well it’s too cheap and something’s not right, but turn a blind eye. Which is oddly appropriate to the topic.
Correcto mundo!
What sort of “industry” basis its planning on an unpredictable, transient workforce? Innovative, agile, efficient ? NO. When you exploit with impunity due to your coalition partners wilful blindness I guess you can.
Don’t tell me you’re letting Labor off the hook on this! They are equally complicit and have been for years. Really mate a little bit of balance every now and again wouldn’t hurt.
Labor is not in Government. Labor did not put a 32% tax on backpackers in the Budget. Labor does not force an “industry” to be so ill prepared so as to be relying on a transient workforce. The treatment of itinerant workers is a National disgrace and crime. What industry says we will produce this “widget” product and hope someone turns up to pack it into boxes for us in the hope it can get to consumers? ?
Well it certainly wasn’t a new aircraft TV, but this airline LAMIA was only set up in the last year. The pilot had the option to refuel and declined it. The airline has had its licence revoked. God knows what a pilot would be thinking flying in that part of the world with anything less than max fuel on board.
It is just amazing there were any survivors when you see the crash site. One of the footballers who made it through credited adopting the brace position for surviving . Annie and Rodent would have a field day with that one, has Annie made it through to this new world?
hello all! I finally turned over the right rock! Hope you are going well Jack, and all others of course. Catch up reading.
Much happiness to you everyone.
Hope you’re travelling well Wraith. Welcome back.
Hi Wraith glad you’re here. Much happiness to you too.
Ditto.
And yet there are folks who voted for the likes of Malcolm Roberts…..
Only 77 apparently
oh well.. for erry ricky muir…sigh
The Devil?
I thought it was Keyser Soze.
One of the best movies, ever.
“The Usual Suspects” caught it last night. I was actually thinking that many who comment here and on the other side seem to create a Keyser Soze for their fight for the day.
I note you never have a topic of the day………
Denial, different classes of citizens? We are seeing this in this country today with this coalition government. You only have to look at the Australian site where JTI’s article has been attacked by the freaks that the coalition and its partners the hansons and the Australian incite on a daily basis. As a Nation we continue to regress under this government and media partnership. Atrocities have occurred and fearful acts against minorities will increase until a Leader decides to stop pandering and inciting the weak, fearful groups who make excuses of past acts to drive their twisted ideologies.
A long bow?
And Robin Hood?
Or just an ill-fitting hood adversely impacting the cerebral cortex?
Really mate? Everyone is having a decent intelligent conversation and you have to straight away go to your usual stuff. You need serious help.
JTI ran it. Who besides yourself elected you as the new arbiter if the blog? The fact the article goes on to discuss the fruit cakes you support in the Australian Senate gives my comment some relevance . Some have the ability to see the bigger picture, you on the other hand are one of those that cannot see the “devil” until it is pointed out for you. Move along I am sure most are tired of your trolling.
Lot of ignorant comments on the other side, replied to one couldn’t be bothered with the rest…….bloody idiots!
Astonishing isn’t it! I don’t bother anymore.
Oh get over your self Tracy. Marxist tendencies creeping in.
Oskar Gröning was interviewed for Laurence Rees’s Auschwitz the BBC series, the book that acompanys it is worth a read. Lived in West Germany in the late seventies, early eighties and the local village had some ground that was fenced off which was a bit strange, it was the site of a Lebensborn and they were reluctant to redevelop it.
Sometimes had the sense we were “occupiers” especially from older Germans, there wasn’t the feeling that the Russians were waiting in their droves over the border even though at that time they were. We were ten minutes from the Dutch border and would often get served in front of Germans in a shop even if they were there first, rather embarrassing on occasions.
I don’t think even then that the average German had come to terms with what had happened during the war, yes it was taught in school but it wasn’t really present on television and the phrase “hushed tone” was probably accurate in the public domain.