Anorak Nation: Discussion: Re: Lies that change radio history

It was callously logical. The only way you stayed alive was if you were of some use in the camp, i.e. that you paid your way. If you were too old or too young or looked ill, then you were a liability. If you looked healthy, you were in with a chance. That said, it was still a lottery.

I suspect those carrying out the selections were across the spectrum - from those doing anything to stay alive and, at the other end of the spectrum, those who loved every minute. On the very few, rare occasions when she has opened up about this, my mum has talked about the officers strutting around like cocks of the midden, full of themselves, intoxicated on the power they wielded. She is equally derisory about the majority of the Germans she came across ouside the camp - they just loved the rhetoric that Hitler was feeding them about them being the chosen superior race. Understandably, she loathes Germans to this day. Listening to her comments, I am forced to agree that Germans of a certain age are culpable for what they let happen. How those making those decisions at the camps came to terms with their crimes, I wouldn't know and care even less. If they suffered the most horrendous painful death that would still be too good for them. How many ordinary officers were prosecuted for war crimes, I really don't know.

But, as you said in a previous post, it continues, whether it's Bosnia, not that long ago, or various parts of Africa.