Introduction to the WW2 Site - Please Say Hi Showing 1,151-1,200 of 4,899

['Aussie Rick', Moderator]

Hi Derek, please take your time to have a poke around and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks Rick! Will do.

[Lilo]

Derek wrote: "Hi all. I'll probably just lurk around here mostly as I'm not that well informed on WWII yet. It's a new interest. But, very dependable sources tell me that this is a very friendly group:)

Derek"

Welcome, Derek! Your sources are, indeed, very reliable. I bet this is the nicest group you'll find on Goodreads. So let's drink to this. (But don't sneek into Aussie Rick's famous vine cellar. He guards it like a cerberus.)

[[deleted user]]

LOL! Cheers Lilo:)

[Lilo]

@ Derek: If you are not too knowledgeable about WWII, I suggest you read "My Name Was Five", by Heinz Kohler. This would give you a great introduction to this era. I keep recommending this book because I have fallen in love with it.

[[deleted user]]

Thank you, Lilo. Just added that one to the TBR.

[Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces]

Welcome Derek. Prior or a "lack" knowledge is certainly not a prerequisite nor a bar to being an active part of the group. Please do feel free to join in, suggest books, seek recommendations and please ask questions as someone may have an answer and it may even start a new discussion. Either way we all learn something about this wide and varied subject and chat about books at the same time :)

[Colin]

FYI, the next WW II book we have coming out through Zenith Press is Volume II of The German Aces Speak, for those who like Luftwaffe subjects.

[Bob]

Lilo wrote: "@ Derek: If you are not too knowledgeable about WWII, I suggest you read "My Name Was Five", by Heinz Kohler. This would give you a great introduction to this era. I keep recommending this book bec..."
Oh Lilo I just tried to order "my name was five". It wasn't easy as they said it is only available on print on demand. I went ahead & ordered it. Thanks for the suggestion. I just got back from Shaniko, Or which is the town in the name of my book. It is a little town in Oregon which is practically a ghost Town now. It was an interesting trip.

[Lilo]

@ Trinette: I am glad you ordered "My Name Was Five". I'll guarantee that you won't regret it.

It must have been interesting to go and see Shaniko. Have you visited it before? Had your husband been back to Shaniko? It's such a pity that your husband didn't live to read your book. (Maybe he did read it, somewhere in the sky, sitting on a cloud.)

[[deleted user]]

Geevee wrote: "Welcome Derek. Prior or a "lack" knowledge is certainly not a prerequisite nor a bar to being an active part of the group. Please do feel free to join in, suggest books, seek recommendations and ..."

Thank you so much Geevee! :)

[Bob]

Lilo wrote: "@ Trinette: I am glad you ordered "My Name Was Five". I'll guarantee that you won't regret it.

It must have been interesting to go and see Shaniko. Have you visited it before? Had your husband be..."

Yes, Lilo, I had been there once before, with my husband. We also visited the Rajneeshe camp. Well that was memorable. Their camp is now a Young Lfe camp. We feel like that is a great turn around for the site. Well, I should have written it sooner. He did tell me so much about it, so I could pass the story on, but he never knew I did do it.

[Wade]

Welcome to all our new members(Quite a few i see), this really is a great group.

[Liza]

Hi everyone,
I'm Liza. As an Aussie living in France, I enjoy reading and learning about WW2 and look forward to the group discussions here.

[Sarah]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Sarah and I love WWII history. The main book I've read so far is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I am looking forward to the readings and discussions!

[Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces]

Welcome to Liza and Sarah, please feel free to join in on threads and discussions.

['Aussie Rick', Moderator]

Hi Liza and Sarah and welcome to the group, I hope you both have an enjoyable time here exploring and discussing WW2.

[Liza]

Thanks for the welcome, Geevee and Rick, looking forward to the discussions here.

[Lilo]

Welcome, Liza and Sarah. I'm sure you'll feel at home here.

[Lilo]

@ Sarah: I haven't read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", but I have seen the TV documentation. I found it very informative, but the statement at the end that the general German public must have known about the mass-murder of Jews in concentration camps is just simply wrong. I can testify to this, as I was 5 1/2 years old when the war ended, and I still remember my family's and our friends' horrified reactions when the news of the mass-murders first came over the radio.

[Lilo]

@ Travelin:

Germans did know of horrible mistreating and individual (or small group) killings of Jews, but the general population did NOT know about mass-shootings into trenches, and even less about the gas chambers.

They, of course, knew about the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) and realized the seriousness of it, but by the time of the Kristallnacht, the police state was bomb-tight and only death-defying heroes dared to oppose against it.

I can tell you what the Germans thought what Hitler and Goebbels meant with the "Final Solution": They thought that this would be deportation of all Jews from Germany to undesirable places, like, maybe, the Ukraine or heaven-knows-where. And many people (especially non-Nazis, who felt disdain for Hitler and his big-mouthed propaganda minister) also did not take this "Final Solution"-talk seriously. They considered Hitler and Goebbels wind bags who were emitting lots of hot air.

Just think of it: Would you, as a sane person, deem it possible that somebody intended to kill 6 mio innocent people? This is so far off! It's just simply beyond every normal-working brain.

I don't have any patriotic feelings towards Germany. If the Germans had known, I would be the first to admit it and the last to deny it. But the general German public really did not know. The population near death camps might have known or, from what I know by now could have guessed, but not every concentration camp was a death camp (= extermination camp). Death camps were in the East (most of them in Poland). News didn't travel very fast, these days; especially when Hitler didn't want it to travel. And Hitler didn't want it to travel. I suppose he was afraid of a coup of his generals or of an avalanche of opposition, caused by a stone that a death-defying hero might get rolling. Or maybe Hitler thought that the German population was not yet ready to accept the idea of murdering all Jews. Might have thought that there still was a bit more hatemongering to do first.

There had been rumors, but nobody that my family knew had believed them. Only morons would believe every rumor they heard in a totalitarian state (especially during a war). And these rumors were so horrific that they were simply unbelievable. They must have sounded like horror stories some 14-year-olds had made up to scare their peers.

I cannot tell for every area in Germany, but I can testify that in our area (20 miles north of Dachau) the general population did NOT know what the "Final Solution" was. (Dachau, btw., was an ordinary concentration camp, not a death camp. It had no gas chambers, and there were no shooting trenches, as I took from the internet.)

[Dj]

Lilo wrote: "@ Sarah: I haven't read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", but I have seen the TV documentation. I found it very informative, but the statement at the end that the general German public must h..."

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and it's less well known Fall of the Third Republic are probably two of the first books I read on WWII, despite being a little dated and unable to talk about the code breaking aspects of the war Rise and Fall is perhaps one of the best books on the war, in an overall sense from the German side there is. Although the war doesn't really come into play until about half way through the book.

The author had the fortune (misfortune) to be in most of the capitals of the Nations Germany was taking over prior to war actually breaking out.

[Lilo]

Travelin wrote: "@Lilo:

Your long and honest answers based on personal experience seem increasingly rare and valuable these days, so I don't want to sound ungrateful if I suggest that some questions are still ope..."

I'll reply asap. We have lightening storms off and on today. So I cannot stay too long on the computer.

[Lilo]

@ Travelin:

You don't sound ungrateful, and I am not the least bit touchy. I think it is important to discuss these issues, and discussing means voicing different opinions and stating how they had been built.

I personally had not heard any rumors. I only heard my family members, the widow downstairs, and family friends mention that there had been some rumors about mass killings, but nobody had believed them for being so utterly unbelievable.

These conversations took place RIGHT AFTER the war, when the radio had informed about the mass killings, the widow downstairs had come running upstairs, and everybody was totally shocked and shattered by the horrific news. I somewhat later heard these rumors also mentioned when my family, still very upset, discussed the topic with friends, who were equally upset. These friends said the same thing. They (a lawyer and his family) had more friends and contacts than we had. So when these lawyer-family friends were saying that there had been some rumors but nobody had believed them, they were talking about a larger group of people -- all non-Nazis, of course, as non-Nazis would have known better than to mention any such rumors to Nazis, and Nazis (who may or may not have heard the same rumors) would have never mentioned them to non-Nazis.

Any (usually unwanted by non-Nazis) conversation between Nazis and non-Nazis was either unrelated to politics, or it was some bragging by the Nazis about Hitler's accomplishments or expression of faith that Hitler was going to win the war. Non-Nazis had to be careful not to contradict the Nazis in any way, or they would be in trouble. Even showing any signs of disdain could be highly dangerous. So, for instance, could my mother not let on that she had to throw up when two SS-brothers (relatives of our landlady) bragged to her about throwing Jewish children onto the pavement from 4th-floor windows. She could only hope that her hasty excuse to depart from the (unwanted and one-sided) conversation (that took place on the street, next to the duplex where we lived) would not have any repercussions. (Luckily, it hadn't.)

I do not have the slightest idea what these rumors were and if they were related to Dachau. I just know that they were related to mass-killings. Yet I do not know to what extension of mass-killings. The adults just said that there had been some rumors and that nobody had believed them because they had been totally unbelievable. They did not specify.

I only briefly saw "Mein Kampf" when my family had been forced to buy it. They made a negative comment about it and put it away. I am rather sure nobody of our family ever read it. They were overfed with Hitler's and Goebbels's speeches and felt nauseated by them. I remember that they were always eager to listen to the beginning of such speeches for in case there was some important news, but they rarely listened to them until the end. I especially remember my family members "shutting up" Goebbels whom they found intolerable to listen to. Yet they were also very annoyed with Hitler's speeches, which they may or may not have listened to until the end. (Hitler did not talk as often als Goebbels.)

My family members kept saying that Hitler's and Goebbels's speeches were all "propaganda". The word "brainwash" did not exist at the time.

I very faintly remember the expression "final solution", and I equally very faintly remember that my family discussed where Hitler wanted to send all the Jews, how horrible it must be for them to be sent to a strange, in all probability, not very desirable place. If they word "deportation" had been used (which I do not remember), I probably would have asked the meaning of the word and would have been told. This issue is only very faint in my memory. All I have in my brain is the vision of Hitler intending to send Jews to undesirable, barren areas somewhere in the east where it wasn't nice to live and where they didn't want to be.

As I said before, there were no Jews (left???) in my hometown. But I "knew what they looked like", because there was a poster-drawing of a Jew not too far from where we lived. He looked very ugly with a crooked nose. But I, nevertheless, felt sorry for this "unknown Jew". This was probably because my family members sympathized with Jews, but I do not remember any related remarks or conversations.

Towards the end of the war, our family members (like everybody in our area -- according to Wikipedia NOT all over Germany) had to obtain a document of "Aryan Lineage". It was difficult to prove that one was "purebred". My family members were all able to obtain the necessary birth certificates and other documents. Nevertheless, my mother was suspected to have Jewish ancestry (which she hadn't) because of her curved nose. So she had to produce additional documents, and the whole family was terribly upset. This is when I first realized what catastrophe it would be if you were (partly) Jewish. You were an outcast, would lose your food ration stamps, and if bad came to worse, you might end up being sent to Dachau, which was a terrible place to be and where old and fragile people might even die.

I do not know if the average German would have (or even could have) heard what was said in the Reichstag. However, I believe that Hitler and Goebbles might have said similar in other speeches on the radio. The "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" would definitely not have been understood as "mass killings". Hitler as well as Goebbels were forever ranting against the Jews. They were forever exaggerating anything that had to do with Jews. They were forever exaggrating ANYTHING. I am sure nobody who had a few working brain cells took anything they said at face value. This was "propaganda", that is, "hot air". And since nobody knew about any plan to build gas chambers, I don't think that people even took any of this annihilation-talk seriously, if only for the simple reason that it does not appear very practicable to annihilate millions of people within a country (without having a regular war front).

If you have a chance (maybe on youtube), listen to a few of Hitler's and Goebbels's speeches. Don't just read them. Listen to them. Then imagine you did not know the outcome. And then ask yourself if you were inclined to take all this ranting verbally.

As you say, by 1939 there were comparatively few Jews in Germany. This means, many must have left the country by then. Most Germans assumed most Jews to be rich, or at least, well to do. So I assume that many Germans might have thought that Jews were free to leave Germany and, thus, could take care of their problem with Hitler. Yet this is only my assumption. I never heard anything of the like. Maybe the average German thought: 'If the Jews are not wanted here, why don't they leave?' I don't think that the average German was aware of the fact that other countries had immigration-quotas that were full. Maybe this contributed to the complacency of many Germans towards the ranting against the Jews. I don't know. It's just a thought.

How many Germans chose consciously to keep on fighting for a genocidal madman? Well, first of all, as I keep telling, most did not know about the genocide. Secondly, the numbers were dwindling when the war got nasty. Yet they had no real choice. Deserters did not have good chances. If caught, they were hanged, if not caught, chances were they starved or froze to death. The only ones who would have had a fair chance were the generals. They could have defected with a whole battallion (or whatever their units were called). Yet generals were quite often from an officer dynasty. And these people were rigid. They were brainwashed by their ancestors to be true to their fatherland, whoever ruled it.

The anti-Nazi military commander of my hometown, for instance (whose wife was acquainted with my mother), ... I just decided I won't tell you. Can't give away everything that's in my memoir. :-)

And don't forget: Germans have a certain trait to be rigid, obey rules and commands, and follow a leader. Besides, there is a huge percentage of stupid people in any population, and they tend to believe anything an accepted leader tells them, especially when he says it loud enough and often enough, and makes them feel important.

I am always glad to discuss these issues. This is why I originally joined our group, before I even knew what nice people I would find here to hang out with.

P.S. I think I'll post this comment on other discussion threads of our group, as well. This way I won't have to repeat myself all the time.

[Liza]

Lilo wrote: "@ Travelin:

You don't sound ungrateful, and I am not the least bit touchy. I think it is important to discuss these issues, and discussing means voicing different opinions and stating how they had..."
Gosh, thank you for this very interesting insight @Lilo... I have only just joined this group, so I don't know about your memoir, but it's something I'd love to read. So, please keep me posted!

[Lilo]

@ Liza:

Thank you for your interest in my memoir. I am presently battling its final edit. (It still sounds too German. :-)) Will let you and the WWII Reader group know when it hits the market.

[Liza]

Lilo wrote: "@ Liza:

Thank you for your interest in my memoir. I am presently battling its final edit. (It still sounds too German. :-)) Will let you and the WWII Reader group know when it hits the market."

Ah, but that could add to its charm and authenticity, Lilo!

[Lilo]

@ Liza:

Hope you are right. -- Yet I think that Mark Twain was right when he said something like: "Germans dive into a sentence, and then after a long, long time they emerge again with a verb in their mouth."

[Heinz]

Travelin wrote: "@Lilo:

Your long and honest answers based on personal experience seem increasingly rare and valuable these days, so I don't want to sound ungrateful if I suggest that some questions are still ope..."

I just want to add a few brief comments here. First of all, I agree with Lilo's comments. Second, I am sure the average German did not listen to Hitler's speeches. They were considered full of screaming nonsense. And at the time, certainly, any reference to the "final solution" would not have been interpreted as a call to mass murder any more than we would do so if our Secretary of the Treasury said that "we must find a final solution to the unemployment problem." This is very different in retrospect, of course. Nowadays, almost everywhere in the world, that phrase instantly conjures up the Holocaust, but not then. There were a few exceptions, of course. As I point out in my own book, My Name Was Five, I had an aunt who worked as a secretary at the Gestapo. She knew about the true meaning of the phrase and conveyed it to my mother. But you can be sure that knowledge did not go any further. That would have meant instant death.

[Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces]

Once again we have had a very interesting, measured and polite discussion within this group on subjects that are difficult and remain highly emotive. This is something I enjoy and benefit from, and for this one we are even more blessed with Heinz's and Lilo's insights too. Thanks all.

['Aussie Rick', Moderator]

Totally agree with your comments Geevee, this is a topic that is very emotive and hard to discuss without voices getting raised but I think that everyone who has contributed has done so in a measured and calm manner without any vitriol. I appreciate Travelin's questions and the responses from Lilo and Heinz who both offered some interesting insights. I have heard some of Hitler's recorded speeches and even though I can't speak German I can understand why he could be so charismatic and draw people into a frenzy. I suppose like many people outside of Germany I also questioned how could people not know what was happening. Lilo & Heinz’s response helps explain some of that.

[Chin Joo]

Interestingly I was just discussing this topic with Lilo in private a day before the topic came out on this thread. In one message I told her that I have always wondered what I would do had I been an 'ordinary German' at that time. What would I do even had I understood exactly what the Final Solution meant.

And coincidentally the book that I'm reading (Unwilling Germans?) brought up another important issue. Given that Germany has accepted that the Holocaust did happen, what is the general psyche of the citizens who did not participate in the atrocities? I guess that's the reason for the strong reaction to the book Hitler's Willing Executioners.

Thank you for this discussion. It's quite an experience when you have a chance to talk to people who actually lived through it.

[Lilo]

I don't remember how often Hitler spoke on the radio, but I know that it wasn't very often. If you had asked me, I would have wild-guessed the time between his speeches to be 4 to 8 weeks, but 3 months could be true. And if he spoke for 2 hours, I am quite sure my family would have not heared him out. His voice alone was rather intolerable, and from what I took from my family's remarks, he repeated himself a lot.

I remember that my family was always eager to hear what news he might have to tell, but then after a very short while (maybe 5 or 10 minutes) they'd get mad, seemed to be annoyed that he talked nonsense (but I don't exactly remember), and I am quite positive that they wouldn't have listened to him for two hours. We were always together in the living room. (I didn't have my own room, and the kitchen was tiny.) So unless it was summer and I would have played outside, I would have had to listen to Hitler's screaming for 2 hours. I would have surely remembered that. I hated news (also BBC broadcasts) because I always had to keep my mouth shut, so that the adults could hear. News would probably last 15 minutes, and they seemed very long and were quite challenging for me. A Hitler-speech lasting 2 hours would have been torture, so I would remember. I doubt that my family would have kept it turned on for more than 20-30 minutes.

I remember clearly that they "shut up" Goebbels on a regular basis, not too long after he had started speaking, saying something like that they weren't going to listen to his stupid propaganda. I don't think he ever lasted much longer than 5 minutes.

And Heinz is absolutely right. The "final solution" did not have the ring as it has today. I heard my family and their friends talk about this expression AFTER the war. I don't remember what they said exactly, just something that they had not thought much of it. (Don't forget, this expression had always been embedded in screaming and ranting all kinds of nonsense.)

I remember that at some time during the war, there had been some talk in our family that Hitler wanted the Jews out of Germany and intended to send them to undesireable, barren areas, in the East or elsewhere, far away, and that this would be hard to bear for the Jews, especially for older people. Could be that the word "deportation" had come in.

If there had been any suspicion of mass-murder, I would have definitely heard, as I was always "well-informed". Nobody in our family ever much attention that I was listening. This, of course, was quite careless. I think they trusted that I would not tell any Nazis that we didn't like Hitler, and I didn't. Yet when 2 1/2 years old, I told the daughters of a murderous SS-criminal that my family listened to BBC, unbenownst that this was forbidden and that there was the death penalty on it. (I never told any of my family members that the warning had come too late. I lived the remaining 3 years of the war expecting the Gestapo to come any day and shoot us all. My family never learned that our lives had hung on a thread.)

[Lilo]

I just noticed that I forgot to tell when I read the 3 pages or so of "Mein Kampf". My family had stuck the book away soon after they had been forced to obtain it, and I am sure they did away with it immediately after the war had ended, for I never saw it again.

I was in my thirties, living in Germany (returned from Canada), when my in-laws moved to a smaller apartment and got rid of a lot of their books. I took them all. Amongst them was "Mein Kampf". I read about 3 pages. Then I dumped it as I found this nonsense just as intolerable as my family had found Hitler's and Goebbels' speeches. The book is still in Germany, in a delapidated farmhouse we keep for a German address.

[Lilo]

@ Chin Joo:

What is the general psyche of the citizens who did not participate in the atrocities?

If they were Nazis, they don't talk about it, or if challenged, they might say: "We were only the Wehrmacht, and we didn't do it. We just followed orders."

If they were non-Nazis, they also don't talk about it as they do not wish to embarrass anyone.

And what are they thinking? Let me guess. I think, they think: 'I don't want to hear about it anymore.' At least that's what my non-Nazi mother said when I wanted to talk about it. And I bet you the Nazis and their descendents want to hear about it even less.

[happy]

I want to add my welcome to all the new members - take a couple of days off and this just explodes:)

Stephanie, Derek, Liza and Sarah - Welcome

If I missed anyone - Welcome also :)

@Lilo - thanks for your insights. I visited Dachau in the early '70s when I was a teenager - very memorable

[Lilo]

Please go to the discussion thread LAND AIR AND SEA - books and discussions about the Holocaust.

I just posted a long comment there, which I am sure will interest everybody.

[Lilo]

@ Happy:

I must admit to my shame that I never visited Dachau, even though I only lived 20 miles north of it.

I once suggested to visit it with my husband, but he talked me out of it. As a teacher he had visited Dachau before with his students, and he said that there wasn't much to see. I think this was probably because he wasn't feeling well at the time. (I guess I'll ask him again why he didn't want to go. Can't ask him now, for he is already asleep. It is 2.45 a.m.)

[happy]

When I went (twice - once in 8th grade and then again in 10th), most of the admin building were still there and had been turned into a museum. The prisoner area was an open field with one recontructed prisoner hut. IIRC there were ovens and a gas chamber (that was never used)

I can understand how it might be sensitive to Germans, esp at that point in time (only 25 yrs or so after the war)

Alex Kershaw in his lastest book has an intersting take on the liberation of Dachau.



The officer he is following commanded the battalion that liberated the camp.

[Cold War Conversations Podcast]

Hello,

I'm with the Manchester Military History Society however the book collection on Goodreads is my own.

I've got quite eclectic tastes as you will see from my shelves but main interests are WW2, particularly eastern europe.

I look forward to contributing.

[happy]

Mcrmilhist

Welcome, Welcome - I look forward to your comments and recommendations

['Aussie Rick', Moderator]

Welcome Mcrmilhist, I hope you find a few things of interest here in the group & l look forward to chatting with you further about some good books.

[Colin]

Lilo wrote: "@ Sarah: I haven't read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", but I have seen the TV documentation. I found it very informative, but the statement at the end that the general German public must h..."

Read my book out next March, and also read our book The Star of Africa, about how German officers were learning of this.

[[deleted user]]

happy wrote: "I want to add my welcome to all the new members - take a couple of days off and this just explodes:)

Stephanie, Derek, Liza and Sarah - Welcome

If I missed anyone - Welcome also :)

@Lilo - thank..."

Thanks happy:) I've already learned a lot reading through the threads here. The conversations around here are extremely interesting & informative.

[Lilo]

@ Travelin:

I just went to the links you gave. Once again, I am shocked. Imagine, you had parents missing in the Holocaust. You, of course, wouldn't have any illusions about their fate, but you would definitely want to know what precisely had happened to them. The information is in some archives, and they don't let you get to them. UNBELIEVABLE!

Part of it may be bureaucracy, but I am sure that there is more behind hit. Germans have the saying "You don't spit in your own nest." I suppose whoever was responsible for preventing these archives being opened regarded opening them as "spitting in Germany's own nest".

I am glad these archives are open now. But they were opened too late, much too late.

In order not to create any confusion for people fairly new to the subject, I would like to state that the fact of the Holocaust became known to German people immediately after the war, and I never heard anybody deny that it had happened. (First time I heard that anybody denied the Holocaust was when that ruler of Iran, Assar ...jad [gimme a break, I could never say his name and less spell it] said all this nonsense, a good number of years ago.)

I cannot imagine anybody in Germany, in their right minds, denying the Holocaust, no matter how much they would like to. The facts were known right after the war. These archives only contain details -- details that cannot make any difference about the fact that the Holocaust happened, but details highly important to relatives who had lost loved ones.

[Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces]

Welcome Mcrmilhist and please feel free to join.

[Charles]

Read an interesting book recently on offshore tax havens, the issue of Jewish descendants of Holocaust victims came up. According to the book, a Congressional investigation in the US was told how the daughter of one victim went to a Swiss bank in the 1970s to look into getting access to the funds. She was told that as there was no death certificate, they wouldn't allow it. Wonder how much of that has changed now the Germans have opened up access to the archives...

by Nicholas Shaxson

[Travis]

Hi all. I am just joining the group and WWII is my preferred area of history to study. I am really looking forward to talking to people about the subject and reading more books.

['Aussie Rick', Moderator]

Good to see you here Travis, I hope you find a few things of interest and please don't hesitate to join in or ask any questions.

[Lilo]

happy wrote: "When I went (twice - once in 8th grade and then again in 10th), most of the admin building were still there and had been turned into a museum. The prisoner area was an open field with one recontru..."

Thanks for the info, Happy. I meanwhile bought Alex Kershaw's book.