Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

This is the sequel of already posted article "Ich bin ein Berliner." My trip in Europe last month. After I enjoyed my 2 day stay in Berlin, I flew to Krakow, the old capital of Poland. From the city, I went to one of the famous World Heritage sites. It took 1 and a half hour to get to Auschwitz Museum by car. It was clear and sunny day. The place looked strangely beautiful although what happend there was so scary. At first I went to the second part of the former concentration camp, Birkenau.

Over 1 million people were said to be murdered there. The below photo is the bombed gas chamber. Nazis bombed the chamber when they left that place to destroy the evidence. It looked like Roman ruin to me.

The below is where the prisoners slept and their toilet.

Also the below is the site of forced labour in the ditch.

The below is the freight train car used for deportation of the prisoners. No seats in it. They had to stand up inside for days without food.

Then I went to the Auschwitz. That is me in front of the famous gate "ARBEIT MACHT FREI. (Labor makes you free.)" But the prisoners never became free. 90% of them died inside the camp.

Between 9 and 12 of July, I was staying in Berlin, Deutschland (Germany).

It was a beautiful and interesting city. The purpose of visiting there was to learn history of holocaust and the Cold War era.

The first place I visited was Holocaust Memorial. It is Wave of Stones.

The memorial for 6 million Jewish victims. The place was near Brandenburger Gate and the Parliament Building.

On one downtown street, I found small memorial plates. It is called "Stolperstein. (Hitting stones)" One of 1600-1700 existed on Berlin streets to mourn holocaust victims.

I also visited some history museums. One of the most impressive ones was German History Museum. I saw below postar for Anti-Jew proganda, which depicts Jews as greedy and communist.

The same museum exhibited part of former Berlin Wall.  

I went to Checkpoint Charlie, the former checkpoint between West and East Berlin. That now became tourist spot.

The below photo is memorial for Border Crosser who failed and then being killed.

Berlin experienced very dramatic history. I really felt that by being there.  

I've made video clip of my stay in Berlin. See this you tube clip.

On 12 of July I left Berlin for Krakow to see one of the famous World Heritage designated by UNESCO.

I will talk about that later.  

Danke schonn!

I've bought a DVD of that show a few years ago. I've watched it many times. I highly recommend all the people on the earth to watch it.

The show was produced amid the fear of coming war in Iraq by Alliance Atlantis. It caused controversy because the show featured Hitler as living man not just as evil guy.

Maybe the producer was worried about the atmosphere in the U.S. after 911 was like the one in Nazi-Germany.

Focal point of the film is indifference of ordinary people of that time. People did not want to care about politics because they were too tired of hearing serious news.

But the result of such indifference was Auschwitz.

In the show, there was a journalist who became counterpart of Hitler. His name was Fritz Gerich. He established the newspaper "Straight Path" to criticize Hitler's Nazism. But at the end, he was murdered in Dahau concentration camp after Nazi regime took over all the authorities of Germany.

Fritz wrote letter to his wife, it said "Urge others to speak up even what they say is unpopular."

That impressed me a lot. That may be most difficult thing on the earth but necessary to change things better.

The other thing that impress me was a leader of Storm Troops, Rohm was gay. Rohm was Hitler's long time comrade and Hitler knew Rohm was gay. Interestingly enough, Nazi murdered hundreds of thousands of gays in concetration camp along with Jews and Roma (Gyspsies).

I will visit Berlin and Auschwitz soon. I will telll you what I feel about the sights and their histories.

The Austraian government made an official apology to the Aboriginal people. The Prime Minister said "sorry" to the Stolen generation who were taken away from their families to concentration camps to be assimilated to white values.

I've seen the movie "Rabbit Proof Fence." Three Aboriginal girls forced to live in the camp apart from their parents escaped from the camp to go back their home by tracking down the rabbit proof fence. That was based on a true story. What a terrible thing whites did to them. This Aborigines' sad history was mentioned in the You Tube Video about whaling issue. Some scenes of the video showed Aborinial people and subtitles "Australians treated Aborigines inhumanely." The video was viewed by the Australia's foreign minister. It is now removed. But it was very interesting. The theme was Australians' anti-whaling is racist sentiment against Japanese.

Now we feel like Aborigines who were taken away their identity and culture. What is wrong with hunting whales and eating the meat? You are not only protesting whaling because of the extinction issue. You think whales are special animal that even there were plenty of it in the ocean, anyone should not hunt even one of them.

Your government showed the photos of captured whales being transported to the fleet from the ocean by the anchor. Cruel? Haven't you ever seen the photos of the meat factories? See this video.   

Are you extracting meat from cows, pigs and kangaroos without killing them? Are you living in the Disney fantazy? Learn the history of your people, there were Australian whaler ships in the past.

I shall stop eating Australian beef because cows are cute and intelligent. That is how you think.

I do not think your country is civilized nation. You might poison the beef like what Chinese did to us.

It is just fair to decide not to eat the meat imported from the people who criticize what we eat.  

The photo of whalemeat sashimi served in a restaurant in Tokyo.