Today is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Birkenau was where the mass gassings were done.

The liberating servicemen … gathered Germans from surrounding towns and villages and forced them to walk around the camp and look at the human misery and cruelty that their people were responsible for. The Germans protested that they knew nothing about it. “Wir haben doch nicht gewust.” Of course living around the concentration camp with all the atrocities and smell from the crematorium, they must have known about this situation. – Joseph Aleksander, extermination camp survivor.

Of course they knew. Every German knew.

The German “Resistance”, like the French, has grown bigger every year since World War Two ended. Unlike the French which started with a real if small number, the German grew from zero.

Zero on day zero – this day 70 years ago.

A few brave individuals (most of them are probably known) dared to defy the regime or protest. Otherwise, Germany as a nation was guilty.

And must the Germans bear guilt for all time?

No, not guilt. Only those who commit a crime and those who connive at it are guilty of it.

But shame, yes. If Germans want to be proud of the good in their history, they must in all consistency be ashamed of the evil.

The chamber, which was divided by two compartments, could admit 800 people at a time, and if the need arose considerably more were crammed in. … After the doors were shut, bolted and screwed fast, specially trained SS disinfection experts introduced the gas Zyklon B in the form of small lumps of diatomite soaked in prussic acid. Death of the people inside the gas chamber occurred after a few minutes as a result of internal suffocation caused by the prussic acid halting the exchange of oxygen between the blood and tissues. … Most of the corpses were found near the door through which the victims had tried to escape from the spreading gas. The corpses, which covered the entire floor of the gas chamber, had their knees half bent, and were often cloven together. The bodies were smeared with excrement, vomit and blood. The skin assumed a pink hue. … We reached an open place which resembled a courtyard, in the middle of which stood a thatched–roof house … used as an undressing room for those on their way to the pyre. It was here that they deposited their shabby clothes, their glasses, and their shoes. Behind the house enormous columns of smoke rose skyward, diffusing the odour of broiled flesh and burning hair.  – Witness’s testimony, Holocaust Research Project.