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(And there are those who are insane enough tell you this is all some hoax)
With the recent events at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and the insanity of those denying the Holocaust ever happened, I ran across this report from the BBC recorded just after the concentration camp at Belsen was liberated by British troops. It's one of many reports broadcast during those last months of the War, as camp after camp was liberated and the true ghastly horrors came to light.
In a strange way, I can see how some would like to deny this ever happened. I think there are times the mind finds it impossible to conceptualize one human being this capable of such cruelty to another - people just don't do that to each other. And the answer is, yes they do. And, for the most part they are still doing it. Look at Darfur (as many choose not to). Look at Rwanda-Burundi. Look at the recent past of the former Yugoslavia. Horrible events, so impossible to conceive. Yet, it's true - all of it. Yet there are some sick enough to deny any of this has been and is still going on - some passing themselves off as scholars and people with supposed proof and a public forum.
So here, from the program London Calling via the BBC in London on May 23, 1945 is a report from Belsen.
This hasn't gotten too much coverage in the blogosphere, but I just want to note her that at her doctor's request, actress Mia Farrow has just ended a 12-day fast undertaken to draw attention to the plight of Darfur.
She's right, what's happening in Darfur is so massively horrendous, and the response of the Western world so inadequate, it seems to call for some sort of large gesture. I'm only sorry people seem so very disinterested:
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 (Reuters) - Actress Mia Farrow, ailing after almost two weeks on a hunger strike, announced on Friday that British billionaire Richard Branson would take over her protest in solidarity with people in Sudan's Darfur region.
A Farrow spokesman said her health had deteriorated in the past few days and her doctor requested that she end the liquids-only fast she began 12 days ago to protest at Khartoum's expulsion of more than a dozen aid agencies from Darfur.
Farrow asked Branson to take over the fast, her statement said, adding that the British entrepreneur had accepted and would begin a three-day hunger strike on Friday.
"I'm honoured to be taking over the fast for the next three days," the founder of the Virgin Group said in a statement on his blog.
"We cannot stand and watch as 1 million people suffer. We all need to stand up and demand that international aid is restored and that the people of Darfur are protected and given the chance to live in peace."
Farrow's spokesman said last month that her doctor expected the slightly built actress could not fast for more than three weeks.
Farrow, who was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF in 2000, has been campaigning for years to raise funds for children in conflict zones such as Darfur, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Chad and Nigeria.
The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in March, charging him with masterminding mass killings and deportations in Darfur in western Sudan.
Since then, Sudan has expelled 13 foreign and three domestic humanitarian aid agencies, accusing them of collaborating with the Hague-based ICC.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his latest report on the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, that the expulsions had put "over 1 million people at life-threatening risk" in Darfur.
