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   Martin Seeger (masek@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 16:25:19 JST Martin Seeger

   I didn't know

   When I learned about the holocaust as teenager in Germany, many people from the Nazi era were still alive and lived all around me. Being the curious person I always was, I asked them about what happened and their role in it.

   "I didn't know" was the boilerplate answer. And as they were relatives and friends, I believed them at first.

   Then in 1981 we got a new teacher for history and he exposed the lie. Or more precise: he got us exposing those lies.

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     Martin Seeger (masek@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 16:25:48 JST Martin Seeger

     in reply to

     We started out in school by analysing the murder of Friedrich Schumm on April 1st 1933. He was a jewish lawyer born in #Kiel and where his parents still lived. On the day of a visit at home due to the marriage of his little sister, the SS was enforcing a boycott of the shop his father was operating.

     He wanted to the enter the shop of his father but was hindered by the SS picket. A short fight ensued, a shot rang out and a man from the SS was seriously injured. Schumm fled, presented himself at a police station and was arrested.

     Later that day, a lynch mob compromised of members of the SA/SS formed. The ransacked the shop of his father and with the help of Nazi politicians they entered the prison and his cell. They shot him 30 times.

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     Martin Seeger (masek@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 16:25:48 JST Martin Seeger

     in reply to

     This didn't happen in secret. We went to the archive of the local newspaper and got articles about the event from back then. And it was all in there. The newspaper (which still exists today) stumbled over his own feet in order to justify the lynching. I couldn't believe what I was reading: "We strongly condemn any lynching but this case was clearly justified". The newspaper argued against any prosecution of the lynch mob. They said that "gesundes Volksempfinden" (healthy popular sentiment) made the event inevitable.

     It was a huge story back then that dominated the news for quite so time. It was not hidden on the second page, but the top news of the month. There were quotes from local Nazi politicians who claimed to be proud of the deed. All was there in broad daylight. The SS wasn't even attempting to hide it.

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     Martin Seeger (masek@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 16:26:35 JST Martin Seeger

     in reply to

     So knowing what we knew, we went out to ask people who were adults at the time of the deed. We asked them where they were living and which newspaper they had back then. After establishing that, we started asking about the murder.

     And again we got the famous "I didn't know" again and again. We had copies of the newspaper from the incident and confronted them with it. They stuck to it. Nobody knew anything at all. The thing happened, became top news and nobody ever even heard of it.

     They became angry at us for asking. Sometimes we were chased away. This was because we clearly noticed that they were lyiing and being teenager, we were not good at hiding the fact that we knew.

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     Martin Seeger (masek@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 16:27:01 JST Martin Seeger

     in reply to

     The frustrating thing about history is: When you study it, you see it all happening again. When one day the grandchildren of the young adults in the U.S. today will ask "Why didn't you say something when they deported innocent people to camps in El Salvador?" I can already tell their answer today "I didn't know."

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     Tony Mullen (tonymullen@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 16:46:46 JST Tony Mullen

     in reply to

     @masek we toured Dachau recently. We were informed that prisoners were unloaded from the trains day after day, marched in their hundreds from the Dachau railway station to the concentration camp in broad daylight. The number of bodies removed from the camp caused a problem for the cemeteries in the Munich area so more gruesome arrangements needed to be created. The locals knew alright.

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     Martin Seeger (masek@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 19:42:12 JST Martin Seeger

     in reply to

     • Su_G

     @Su_G One of the safest ways of resistance is taking notes and remembering things.

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     Su_G (su_g@aus.social)'s status on Monday, 21-Apr-2025 19:42:13 JST Su_G

     in reply to

     @masek

     Thank you for sharing your story about how many (almost all) claimed later not to have known about the odious things that happened then. It’s important - even if we don’t know what to do about it. 😐

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     Just Boby (boby_biq@toot.community)'s status on Tuesday, 22-Apr-2025 00:18:31 JST Just Boby

     in reply to

     @masek And additionally: