The Not-So-Strange Case of Oskar Groening – Part Two

Paul Eisen — pauleisen.blogspot April 21, 2015

I noticed my post from December 2012 the strange case of Oskar Groening was getting a lot of attention and this story in the Daily Mail has told me why.

It seems that the 93 year-old Oskar Groening has been put on trial because, as a very young man, he was an administrator at Auschwitz. Oskar seems quite chirpy as he confirms to the waiting world that Auschwitz was exactly what they’ve been told it was but still he claims that since he only witnessed the genocide but did not take part in it, he is morally but not criminally responsible.

Well, first and foremost and just to get it out the way, how come the powers that be hold the doddery old Zionist Greville Janner unfit to stand trial but utters not a word when the equally old and doddery Nazi Oskar Groening has to do the same?

Then there also the question that since we now believe there were no homicidal gassings at Auschwitz, how come Oskar says he saw one? Well. I’ve dealt with that in my 2012 post mentioned above. Basically, when faced with what these defeated Nazis were faced with, and given the choices they had to make and given the frailties of human nature – especially in those facing their final end, it would not surprise me one bit if Oskar Groening confessed to masterminding the Fall of Man.

Oskar Groening may well be found guilty of complicity in genocide but I’ve a hunch he’ll still walk out that courtroom a free man and if he does, he’ll be happy in the knowledge that saying what he was asked to say and doing what he was told to do was a small price to pay for what’s left of his life.

But there’s something else. Take a look at that Daily Mail piece. Notice the choice and slant of the images. Also take note of the fact that, in the UK at least, this story is big, big news. Then reflect on the notion that in this business, often what matters is more what they don’t say rather than what they do say. Then perhaps you’ll join me in wondering if, like you and me, the Daily Mail, the BBC and in fact pretty much the whole world is getting fed up to the back teeth with this nonsense.

Source

Footnote — April 22, 2015

There is a telling contrast between the way the courts have pursued Oskar Groenig — nicknamed the “Holocaust bookkeeper” because he was an accountant at Auschwitz — and the way British courts deemed serial sex abuser Greville Janner unfit to stand trial.

Both were decrepit old men in their nineties but while Groenig stood in the dock, supported by his walker, Janner didn’t even have to attend court.

There is however an even more telling contrast with another bookkeeper at Auschwitz, one Kasimierz Smolen.

Apart from being an inmate at Auschwitz and a bookkeeper in the camp’s Political Section, Smolen also worked as a Kapo. Hated by other inmates the Kapos helped SS guards supervise prisoners and in return they were accorded special privileges and were exempt from hard labour.

Smolen must has liked being a Kapo because as the Red Army approached Auschwitz he left with one of the last groups to leave for Mauthausen camp, Austria, where he was liberated by the Americans.

Unlike Groenig however, Smolen never had to account for his time at the camp or his duties as a Kapo. When recalling his time at Auschwitz in later years he ommitted  to mention being a Kapo. But then Smolen probably thought it better not to mention that because he went onto become a director of the Auschwitz museum from 1955 to 1991.

What does that say about the so-called “Holocaust Industry”? When a former assistant to the camp’s SS guards is never asked to account for his time as a Kapo but instead goes onto to become the director of the Auschwitz Mueseum?