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Likewise. I get very frustrated by all the people who will refuse to acknowledge that our ancestors did some atrocious things to people. People will just throug
by noneeeed 4y ago
Likewise. I get very frustrated by all the people who will refuse to acknowledge that our ancestors did some atrocious things to people. People will just through some extrodinary hoops to rationalise why it either wasn't so terrible, or it was somehow justified in a way that other people's atrocities were not.
- boffinAudio 4y agoAs an Australian, visiting Mauthausen - or indeed any of the preserved concentration camps of the past - was particularly humbling. It really highlighted to me that a society that gets honest with itself, improves - and those who don't, just continue to commit the same atrocities. We Australians don't have the courage that Austrians do, when it comes to acknowledging the criminal actions of our past society. Alas, the struggle for acknowledgement is real. A lot of it has to do with the fact that Australias concentration camps and genocide programs were performed in seriously remote locations, far far away from any civil population - so its a lot easier to hide. The camp at Mauthausen can be seen from the local countryside and is clearly maintained to be a visible reminder of extremist totalitarian/authoritarianism to the children who visit it, regularly, as part of their education. That courage is something for which the Austrian people should be proud.
- smcl 4y agoSorry if it's not clear, I'm a UK national. And while it's true that we shouldn't really distinguish between atrocities (after all, they're all bad), I think being from the UK you're always going to feel a bit more connected to or somehow complicit in things that were done during the days of the British Empire even if you weren't yet born when they happened. Sort of a lingering, inherited shame. If that makes sense :)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]