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You may have heard or read the story Nazi Guard Who Wed Holocaust Survivor Deported about an 83-year old San Francisco woman who was sent back to Germany after it was discovered she worked as a guard at the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. I found this interesting in the story:
Rinkel's husband, a German Jew whom she married after coming to the U.S., died in 2004. He had fled the country to escape Nazi oppression.
This seems to suggest that she didn't subscribe to Nazi ideology. And it brings me to two questions I'd like to hear discussed:1) If her Jewish husband was still alive, do you think they still would have sent her back? Assuming he acted in her defense, do you think that the fact that he was a holocaust survivor would have given her a special protection from deportation?2) Do you think it's right that the U.S. (or perhaps any Western nation) still deports people who acted for the Nazis during World War II? Or are we simply patting ourselves on the back at the expense of senior citizens who either made a mistake decades ago or were pressured into helping the Nazis at the time?
I hope I dont cause an uproar here, but all nazi's were not war criminals. It's a good bet that a good portion were not aware of the horrible things Hitler and the higher ups were doing. It is possible someone from that era coul very well change and feel remorse, especially if they were not aware of the tragedy perpatrted by the nazi elite and found out later on.
But don't you think that in order to be a Nazi you had to subscribe to party ideology? I know that there were German soldiers fighting with the Nazis who I do no think were part of the Nazi party. These soldiers were likely just fighting for their homeland and had no real choice about the matter. In the articles, it is stated that the woman was not a Nazi.
I am not real familiar with all the party's statutes, but again I believe that sometimes “lower” members arnt privy to all that goes on behind closed doors.
I hope I dont cause an uproar here, but all nazi's were not war criminals. It's a good bet that a good portion were not aware of the horrible things Hitler and the higher ups were doing. It is possible someone from that era coul very well change and feel remorse, especially if they were not aware of the tragedy perpatrted by the nazi elite and found out later on.
Absolutely!Hitler was elected by 1/3 of the voters, later more than 90% of Germans joined the NSDAP, not out of conviction, but because there were disadvantages and discrimination if you weren't, my granfather lost his (medium management) job and income at the local admin because he refused to join the party. But then, a concentration camp guard not being aware of what was going on?The redeeming feature is the marriage with a jew, this guard was no hard-core Nazi!
