Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-24694044-20140321201817/@comment-25326117-20150630215415

BobTheMob wrote: For me there have been two things: 1 I saw on TV and the other I experienced in person:

Richard Kuklinski, contract killer called "The Iceman" during hs reign of terror (he froze his victims, making time and method of death difficult to determine) was recorded in an interview about his crimes.

He was so disturbing to watch, since throughout the interview, he had no expression: no guilt, no remorse, not even any kind of sick pride in what he did--just spoke in a flat, even keel; especially unnerving was him saying "I beat them to death for the exercise."

The thing I saw in person--and I advise any who are not of strong stomachs to turn back now--I had been in Germany with my youth group. And one of the places we went was the remains of one of the Nazi's death camps...I'm shaking even recalling it, after more than a decade:

I saw some of the still-standing cremation ovens...and I felt like I was going to be sick. My legs turned to jelly beneath me.

And it was especially horrific for me in that I'm of both Polish and Slovack descent--both nationalities of which were targeted: there was an all-too-real chance that ancestors of mine who hadn't come here to America could've been in the ashes... You probably wouldn't do well with reading 'Night.'  That book was just horrific, especially since it was the author's personal experience with the concentration camps. I remember having this strong terror from this book, it was on my school's reading list and my God, I couldn't imagine going through that.

One thing I heard about Nazi Germany was that the idea of a perfect race might have had some connection with segregation in the United States, eugentics in the United States and the apartheid and genocide of South Africa. Just the idea that the US could have inspired the tactics used by the Nazis is...SCARY! I am lucky that my mom's father's adoptive father and his family, who happen to be German came over to New York during the 1890s.

If I had lived during the time of WWII, I would probably be sterilized by the United States or Germany, Adolf Hitler didn't take to kindly to the disabled. I heard he had something terrible done to his own niece.

The American South wasn't too kind to anybody with a disability. I remember my mom's grandfather being kicked out of school due to having a seizure, the teachers thought he was possessed by a demon. And, my stepdad was pretty forced to write right handed, because there was some belief about left-handed people being associated with Satan or something.