This current week of 16-21 January 2012 encapsulates two events which symbolise the extreme moral duality of the human race and history. Why? Because this month of January 2012 marks both the 70th birth anniversary of sports and cultural icon Muhammad Ali and the Rheinard Heydrich led Nazi Wansee Conference on the ''Final Solution to the Jewish Question''-the blueprint for the Holocaust which caused so much human misery between 1940-45 and for a lifetime for those psychologically traumatised by their experiences of it, after 1945. Held in the beautiful villa of Wansee in Berlin which still stands today, Heydrich presented to his cronies in the S.S. and Nazi hierarchy who attended, a list which clearly shows that even countries neutral in 1942 would have been induced -had the Nazis beaten the Soviet Union and established their unchallenged hegomony over Europe,-to give up their Jewish populations for extermination. Heydrich listed 6,000 Jews in Spain;8,000 in Sweden; 55,000 in Turkey;3,000 in Portugal; 333,0000 in England-he meant the United Kingdom; 2,300 in Finland and 4,000 in Southern Ireland. Chllingly, his list produced at Wansee recorded that ''Estland''=Estonia was ''Judenfrei''-Jew free''-grisly testimony to the fact that already by January 1942 every Jew living in Estonia on June 22 1941 -the eve of the invasion of the Soviet Union- had already been exterminated by an ''Einsatzgruppen sent there pre-Wansee Conference. in January 1942. Even Switzerland, which Heydrich listed as having 18,000 Jews in January 1942, didn't escape Heydrich's attention. on his list.
Thanks for the reminder, Brian. The Wannsee Conference marked the beginning of the systematic murder of the Jews. It was more haphazard prior to this.
God save those poor soles, I even thought of converting to judesim myself, I love the culture and the music, and most of all, i'll do it in there memory Never again.
Not a conventional 'war movie' But HBO's Conspiracy is one of the most chilling and effective indictments of the Nazi system. If you hav'nt seen it you should.