Dutch Holocaust Survivors
November 27, 2006 Monday 3PM CT
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Seventy Dutch Holocaust survivors went to Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany for a memorial service recently, and they had surprising responses after sixty-one years. This hour on Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders, Jean Feraca talks with the journalist who accompanied the group.
Guest
- Jonathan Groubert, producer/presenter of Euroquest, Radio Netherlands' weekly magazine of Europe for non-Europeans
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Listener Comments
- John 11/27/06: "Thank you for a very interesting discussion about a very sad period of history. I believe I was next after Julie with a couple of comparison points on the show's comments. (1) A recent article in the Financial Times compared Holocaust survivors in the Netherlands with Denmark. NL has been more vociferous at the help they gave the Jewish popn. DK less so. However more Jews actually survived in DK than the NL. The hypothesis was that in the NL there is more of an emphasis to conform. The Jews they helped were maybe helped more because they were seen to be Dutch rather than Jewish. In DK it was mentioned they are more into keeping unique aspects of cultural groups and were more willing to save these people as Jewish people who were Danish citizens. (2)Summing up the show I recall a famous quote that has the gist of, 'first they came for the politicians and no one complained, then they came for the gypsies and no one complained, then they came for the Jews and noone complained, then they came for me and there was no one left to complain.' Very sad we feel this was a concequence of a 'man' made disaster more alarming that there have been repeats situations and sadly a strong chance of more in the future. The key as Jonathan had mentioned was to collectively strive for cooperation cross culturally and maintain as much hamony through talking and not fighting."
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