I was reading up on some internet drama, related to a subject I’d rather not get into here, and I saw this comment, the heart of which I will quote here. This was spoken by an Auschwitz survivor, presumably near the end of his life.

“People get angry when you mention Hitler, but. think of this – he did not go straight to slaughtering [people], who would have stood for that?

He said that criminal were bad, and people not working and contributing [to society], people agreed. Then he said that crazy people and crippled people were not good. I hear that from politician now, in here and America. Difference is that Germans did not know like us, that these illness cannot be helped, not blamed on the victims. They just had no money and were hungry, and saw these people not working either, so they agreed.

He made people hungry and tired, then they believe anything they’re told, a good trick. After that it was too easy to blame the hard times on Jews, on people opposing him, gypsy, Russian, women, writers.

All their fault, shut them up, make them pay. That country was deranged, but remember it all started with words, by saying how people were different. That’s clever. Split people, ignore that we’re all the same with little differences. Make the differences big, make the same small… Then the rest is easy”

There’s really nothing I can add to this. I just wanted those words here.