Life On the Rocks

New Auschwitz Photo Album is Found

While these young people were laughing and gay, the largest mass murder in human history was taking place all around them. The experts on the Holocaust are studying the psychology of how seemingly normal people could be led to commit such horrific atrocities and yet look like normal people, happy and celebrating. I'm sure it is a complex study with many factors to explain how and why this massive crime took place. But I think I can add one interesting observation from my own experience.

I lived very near the epicenter of the Northridge earthquake, a 6.9 quake, whose destructive power was massive and terrifying. When the quake hit, it sounded like a bomb going off and our whole apartment building rocked so much that you couldn't run a straight line down the reeling and upheaving hallways to escape. Shelves poured out their contents, shattering dishes, walls cracked spraying a fog of plaster dust, and people were screaming. We had lost complete control of our whole world. Once outside in the parking lot, safer, suddenly and bizarrely, everyone began laughing hysterically. I'll never forget it. It was so odd. Survivor relief, yes, but also an emotional release of the terror we felt at our total helplessness as everything we knew was falling down around us.

In these photos, could it be that these low level Nazis experienced the same kind of hysterical fear resulting in their strangely grotesque hilarity? Could anyone remain normal as they watched and participated in the slaughter of millions? Can you be so close to such wanton destruction of all normal morality standards and not feel total helplessness and hysteria? Just a thought. Not an excuse or an exoneration. But clearly, madmen had complete power over the world these Nazi's lived in and knew. 

Here is the link to the video referenced above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUvcmGbtHWA