Amazing video…
My grandparents almost died in the II world war too,today they have a big and wonderful family.
This man have all the reasons to celebrate the gift of life and the joy of his descendents…

Genuine mirth is the one true human trait Satan can not abide.
Thanks for sharing this, Deacon Kandra.
Too many people think ‘it can’t happen’ here because ‘their’ civil injustice is grounded in good, moral, Christian thought. One look at what far-right American Christians are backing in Africa and we see it very much would happen here if they ever gained enough votes.
Germany was more genuinely Christian, in the sense you mean it, than the US today.
Hatred is cheap and very effective. It is the fiat dollar of politics.
These people are spending true coin of the realm.

These people are dancing n the graves of the millions who didn’t survive The ones who were starved and tortured and gassed and cremated or buried in mass graves. How macabre!

Mel Taylor,
They are celebrating the victory of life over death. I live a few minutes drive from Dachau. People are taught in school from a very young age what happened. Field trips to such horrible places are mandatory as are discussions on how to behave towards despised groups.
I’m sorry to have to say that the support for the Kill the Gays bill in Uganda by far-right American Christians is used as an example in some German schools of what happens when religious conviction takes the upper hand.
The only way to prevent such atrocities from ever occurring again is to acknowledge our guilt, make whatever restitution is possible and then to ensure such hatred never again achieve political power.
Many people who consider themselves fine, upstanding Christians use Christianity to explain why this or that group must be discriminated against. This desire to impose religious convictions (which not all Christians share) on secular life was exploited brilliantly by the Nazis.
So, yes, they are dancing. I think it is a very good thing, not a sign of disrespect but an affirmation of life.
Germany’s constitution, by the way, was written under the direction of the US. It specifically recognizes several groups as fully human and entitled to full civil rights which the US, today does not.

The antidote to survivor guilt???

Gerard,
There is no antidote to survivor’s guilt. I had students in their 80′s who still wept bitterly over family members and friends, neighbors and acquaintances they lost, especially at the very end, to the Nazis.
I met two older men who lost their partners to the Nazis.
Those here who don’t knee-jerk reflex on their ‘gay love is disordered’ hot-button should give some consideration to just how many gays, Roma, Sinti, disabled children, homeless people were murdered alongside devout Catholics and at least six million Jews.
There have to be limits to the intolerance which each religion brings along with it. We already have American far-right conservative Christians supporting the Kill the Gays bill in Uganda. NOM has now joined forces with one such group.
It really is a slippery slope when once science, medicine and fact are turned aside to impose one’s own version of Christianity on everyone else. How many here who embraced NOM for ‘doing God’s work’ would now do so if they truly researched their new partners?
reCAPTCHA: moral aides. Goodness, me oh my.

TO LIFE: I regularly showed graphic U.S. Army films of the liberation of the concentration camps to my high school history classes. (I got them from the history teacher in the next room who was Jewish.) I am retired now. But I sure wish I had this video to show after the Army films.
I really believe that in the places so many Jews died, if the dead could speak, they would look on this video as THEIR final and ultimate victory over Nazism and Hitler–and Death iself.
But we better wake up. On so-called “liberal” college campuses across the country anti-Semitism is growing like a satanic cancer and the media is basically ignoring it.

Deacon Bresnahan,
I’ve been teaching biology for too many years and have not ventured into many other arenas on campus. How do you see this anti-semitism growing and manifesting itself?

Gerard–just Google “Campus anti-Semitism” and you will see the sickening evidence on thousands of sites as well as a 2005 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. And virtually all of it is coming from the “liberal” political left, not the right as is so often wrongfully assumed when the issue of anti-Semitism comes up.
That you are unaware of all this is certainly a damning indictment on how the “liberal” media has successfully low-keyed what too many of their hate filled fellow “liberals” on many campuses have been up to.

Deacon John:
I normally do not agree with Gerald on a lot of his postings but this I have to chime in on.
I have been employed, both full-time and part time, on public and private college campuses in the Midwest since 1965. I simply do not see any evidence of anti-Semitism in our area at all. I am not saying it could not be there — or maybe even growing in some other regions of the country. My students are veterans, single-parents, housewives going back to get their nursing tickets because husband has been on unemployment for so long, and even the unemployed themselves. Their average age is 27 and their gender ratio is 2/1 women. These students are also taking heavier course loads in school year 2010 and thus their involvement in any form of student activities, student protests, campus political clubs or even campus religious clubs is nil. They are at Maslow’s “survival level” and are far too busy to hate.

Deacon John M. Bresnahan,
I think it is a wonderful thing to point out – loudly – antisemitism whenever and wherever one sees it.
Especially when someone in a position of authority within the Catholic church does so.
I am, however, a bit puzzled as to your conclusion that antisemitism is an exclusive phenomenon among those of us who are liberal.
Instead of listing facts demonstrating why you are wrong, I will seek the more harmonious path and ask, why, Sir, specifically, you come to this conclusion.
Thank you.

A108–As I wrote–research for yourself. Go to Google where there are 43,000 sites under the heading “campus anti-semitism.” One huge source for the current anti-semitism from the Left and liberals is their adoption of radical Palestinianism. And in case after case it has flowed over into attacks on Jews as Jews including riots directed at Hillel speakers.
It is hugely ironic that the “liberal” media has been able to find a phantom racism (with no proof or visual evidence I have seen) in the Tea Party movement –which is endorsing a number of Black candidates this Fall–but can’t seem to find evidence of the anti-Semitic hate-signs and shouts all over the place on many college campuses-and mildly reported on in a very few places– (not all campuses–but the ones with the strongest “liberal” identity it seems), but so many it should have reached the commenters here by way of media coverage–if there were much. Thank God for the internet that some in this administration in Washington are trying to get control of.

Oh, dear.
Deacon Bresnahan,
I quite agree that many on the left foolishly support the Islamic world over Israel.
As a married gay man and a Christian, I find that stupid. Not naive, stupid.
That said, your comment about the ‘tea party’ makes clear your own prejudices in the matter.
Deacon Kandra does not permit discussion regarding the participation of the Catholic Church in the Nazi era, so I shan’t even go there – I will just make the very cautious assertion that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
On a personal note, I was roundly attacked in our California Democratic precinct for defending Israel unconditionally. There’s false passion and hidden motivations on both sides.

A108–The point isn’t whether Jews–or anyone else– supports Israel. The point is that in situation after situation when a Jewish person or group on campus has supported Israel–instead of sticking to that issue–those opposed to Israel quickly turn to attacking Jews in general. This is just one example of what some are starting to call the “new” anti-semitism of the left on campuses.
And yet the media has covered very little of THAT. And, you may not like the Tea Party, but they deserve fair treatment in the mass media, yet they clearly haven’t gotten it if one can go by the lack of videos and audios on the mainstream news to back up media charges of Tea Party racism.
I just find it very ironic that media’s Tea Party narrative falsely damns those Tea Party people, but ignores real cases of bigotry on college campuses.

Thank you for your very reasoned and positive comments on this video. After reading so many negative ones, it was heartening. Check out my blog post on the subject at http://www.blog.survivalinshanghai.com. I write about the Holocaust, Jews in Shanghai, German-Jewish Relations, and whatever else strikes my fancy.