It's very powerful how you walk up into the memorial, and the rough rock walls separate you from the rest of the cemetery (which is gorgeous, and rolls across several hills). You find yourself faced with a black stone block that contains the ashes from a mass grave in Dachau, and those six towering torches which represent the six million Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust. It's amazing, beautiful, and very emotional.

Wow. That is something. One of these days I will get up the nerve to go to this place.

When i saw these in your pics i was wondering why Atlanta.

i remember when the human soap and lampshade stories were being publicly contested in the 90s, and while it made sense that these were terror tactics that didn't even have to be real, it was far too touchy a subject to bring up. It still is. With survivors dying off, there is always that fear that the few screwy Holocaust protesters will get some toehold.

History is so easily miswritten.

You are exactly right, eth.

Finding out that certain specific atrocities might not have happened doesn't even TOUCH the atrocity of six million murdered people, but people do get hung up on it. I sure don't blame anyone from the day for thinking the Nazis were making soap out of people... insanity was the rule of the day. People were being exterminated. Madness.

The fact that the Nazis harvested gold fillings from the teeth of their victims appears to be true... fucking eww.

i have so much to say on this but i gotta run out for a bit again.
brb.
Btw, why Atlanta? Just someone with the means?

This memorial was built because 100 Holocaust survivors here in Atlanta pooled their money and asked architects to submit their designs. So it was 100 people, not just one patron.

I forget where I read this, but if you Google around you'll find it... it's been in the news a lot because of the National Register stuff.

I had no idea that there was a Holocaust memorial in Atlanta. Thanks for the pix.

Oh, i remember now. i've seen pieces on it on, 60 Minutes, Sunday Morning and docu bits. i remember thinking every time it comes up, Atlanta?
And about the 90s incidents, i made the absentminded mistake of bring it up in front of a Jewish professor. Not a professor of Jewish but a professor who is Jewish, which is far worse. A friend and nice guy, but not a topic to bring out in the "have you heard" department.

All anyone has to say about atrocities is Mengele.
People joke about Hitler, but you can't joke about Mengele.

A reason i find valid for the soap and lampshades being terror hype is that its unreasonable, unproductive excess, like the Agincourt finger cutting: Why mutilate a prisoner when you could just kill him? Why would that much effort go into such industry? It's not like they didn't have other things to force people to do, even when the point was just dehumanizing.
Even depraved experiments like sewing a live puppy to a live dog had a fucked up purpose. It wasn't all "Hey look at what we can do!"

But it is still a potent symbol.
In the 80s there were a lot of comics and media about Nazi atrocities, and it was both horrifying and compelling. (Spandau Ballet?)
The last piece if of anything i've seen having to do with it was Bent, which made me cry for days, and i haven't been brought back to the subject since, since i'd been surrounded by so much of it since i was young.

I'd never heard of Bent, eth, but that looks like an intense movie. (And what do you know, today is Ian McKellan's birthday!)

i love him so much.

The movie i warn you of; i was devastated for almost a week. i'd remembered hearing a little something about it because of Mick Jagger. Years later when i saw it-- it is definitely worth it, probably an amazing play, but one of those movies i don't know if i could ever watch again.

Lothaire Bluteau, probably best known for Jésus de Montréal, is amazing in Bent.