Woman, 83, Is Deported Because of Her SS Guard Duty

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nazi20sep20,0,4349466.story?coll=la-home-headlines

She lived alone in a tiny, top-floor apartment in one of the tougher sections of San Francisco. At 83, she was short and a bit stout. Diabetes took the sight in one of her eyes; arthritis left her leaning heavily on a cane. For long trips, she took a taxi.

Her husband had died. He was the love of her long life, a short, dapper man who had worked as a bartender and waiter at some of the city's larger hotels and was active in Jewish activities. They buried him in a Jewish cemetery outside the city.

He had been gone just a short while when the two officials from the Justice Department in Washington knocked on her door. They confronted her with a terrible secret that all these years she had managed to keep from him.

In Germany during World War II, a much younger, still-single Elfriede Lina Rinkel, the girl with the blue eyes and the striking red hair, had worked as an SS guard at one of the Nazi regime's infamous concentration camps. Called Ravensbruck, it was a slave labor prison for women, and during the year she worked there with a trained attack dog more than 10,000 women died.

[davidinalameda]

1. better late than never

[INDIA]

5. incredible story

I don't know how to feel about this. Is it better to forgive or does that dishonor the lives of innocents she helped to snuff out? You obviously think its justified, I wish I had an opinion either way.

[tuvor]

7. Would you be as uncertain if she were a hale 'n' hearty 30-yr-old male?

Evil is evil, even if it's in the form of a kindly old woman who went on as if her past actions hadn't ever taken place.

[BlueIris]

74. That's what I say. nt

[Ferret Annica]

84. Bull

She is being deported is that she lied on her visa application, something that thousands of others have done in America over the years with no consequences. She was not proven guilty of committing any Holocaust crimes. She was not even a member of the Nazi Party. There was no evidence that she contributed to genocide. Admittedly she performed a very disagreeable job during a time when her country was at war. That her job has been "criminalized" by the lobbying efforts of the Holocaust Industry, using Dr. Norman Finkelstein's phrase, is a separate issue. What our own airmen did during Dresden and Hiroshima in my opinion are far more reprehensible actions during the war, but their actions are applauded, they probably won medals for their acts against humanity. What our airmen did were considerably more despicable actions killing civilian people at far greater scale than what this lady did as a guard walking the perimeter of a concentration camp.

I read the comments of her lawyer today in the SF Chronicle. Her lawyer said that the woman applied for a job that offered better pay than her old job. After she went to apply for the job and discovered what it entailed ( being a C.C. guard) she could not refuse it because if she did she would be shot on the spot or sent to the concentration camp herself. Her choice was self- preservation - would you do anything differently than she did?

In terms of lying to her husband, it was omission of fact rather than lying as I understand it. Even her brother did not realize what her job during the war was. He did not find out until he read the press reports.

This lady carried a secret from her only brother as well as her husband because of shame and the horrors she witnessed in a job she could not refuse due to the threat of death.

If every person living in America who had committed crimes against humanity were deported, I'd be OK with it. But when people like Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz are allowed to live in America after the grotesque evil they have consciously wrought on our young GIs and innocent Iraqi civilians, I find deporting this 83 year old concentration camp guard highly hypocritical when there are bigger criminal fish to fry living prosperously in our midst.

[LeftyMom]

2. Good.

Some things are not forgivable. The shocking thing to me is the hubris in a former camp guard contracting for a burial plot in a jewish cemetary. Can you imagine if she'd died and later somebody discovered who was buried next to thier grandma?

[KatyMan]

26. Hubris is a word

often used to describe Nazis and the Germans of the time in general...

[reprobate]

54. This word could also be applied to the Fascist regime in America today.

[wickerwoman]

29. I think it's because her husband was Jewish.

It says he was active in Jewish events and was buried in the cemetary.

[cspanlovr]

3. The long arm of the law.

[qwertyMike]

Good Riddance

Set the dogs on her

[KDLarsen]

35. Wow... just.. wow..

.. and DU is the place where people tend to mock the "compassionate conservative"?

[truebrit71]

50. So you're suggesting she should get a pass?

That, to me, is even more unbelievable...

This woman took part in one of the greatest crimes in human history, but because she's 83 she gets to walk? I don't think so...

[KDLarsen]

58. That's not for me to decide

However, suggesting that she be attacked by dogs is, by my & hopefully also by most of the civilised worlds standards, an outrageous suggestion.

My home country Denmark is precently in the middle of a case of the same sorts, involving a former Danish SS officer wanted for the murder of a newspaper editor during the war. He's currently 85 years old and living in Germany, and last month the Danish authorities requested that he be extradited by Germany.

[truebrit71]

63. I hope the Danish authorities get their request fulfilled....

...

[KDLarsen]

86. He was arrested yesterday..

So now it's just a matter of Germany handing him over to the Danish authorities via the European extradition-agreement.

[Matariki]

68. Thank you for being able to see things in other than just black and white

some people here can't and it saddens me.

[Kutjara]

4. Our current crop of war criminals should take careful note.

People have long memories about this kind of thing. And they don't forgive.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

69. Good point n/t

[tuvor]

6. Never too late.

Glad to hear it.

[IndianaGreen]

8. We are still wasting taxpayers' money in chasing ghosts from the past?

Good Gawd! Monsters like Eichman were caught and properly executed while others like Mengele escaped justice. The war ended 61 years ago. Anyone old enough to have played a part in it, would be either dead or in their 80s. Elfriede was deported to Germany. What kind of punishment is that? She will get better medical care there than she would here.

[Jed Dilligan]

9. Kutjara has a good answer above.

Why are we still wasting exponentially more taxpayers' money enforcing really really stupid drug laws?

[tuvor]

10. This "ghost" you speak of is still living and breathing.

And up until recently, was enjoying freedoms to which she has no right.

The tax dollars "wasted" here pale compared to those funneled to corporations in Iraq.

[IndianaGreen]

11. There was no inquiry as to whether she had committed crimes

and being deported to Germany is not a punishment.

[tuvor]

12. These two points you have just made have nothing at all to do with...

your post questioning "chasing ghosts".

[LeftyMom]

14. It was verified that she lied on her application for admittance to the

country. That's generally reason enough to kick somebody out, and apparently she didn't fight it.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Compare her fate to that of the terrorist Posada Carriles

He isn't being deported to Venezuela to face justice for the downing of an airliner, instead he is here walking as a free man.

[Behind the Aegis]

21. and? Therefore, she should be given a "pass?"

She should have been deported, better yet, hauled off to jail.

[The Stranger]

57. I don't think this is a story because someone lied on their application.

[papau]

32. Gettin into the US w/o disclosing Nazi past is illegal- deportation is the

punishment.

[Bridget Burke]

45. But well known Nazis like Von Braun were given special treatment...

Slave labor built the V-2's. But that was just fine with Our Government.

Perhaps deportation was the right thing to do. But let's hope her case is examined before further punishment is meted out. I'm sure some kindly grandmas & grandpas who stayed in Germany did worse than she.

[LostinVA]

48. Actually, slave labor from Ravensbruck inmates built much of the V-2

Which makes this even more ironic.

[0007]

37. Kind of like that Iran/Contra convict 'eh?


The Death Squad master working for a better America!

[bhikkhu]

13. I suppose I can see the reason behind all of the above posts...

but I agree with this one in particular. Shouldn't some statute of limitations apply? From the state's perspective deportation is expensive non-punishment. Perhaps the disgrace involved will inspire her to do some good openly in the short remainder of life.

[AlienGirl]

19. There is no statute of limitations on ordinary murder

Why should there be one on genocide?

Tucker

[bhikkhu]

23. I tend to view state sponsored violence and genocide as similar

at least in the minds of the individual participants, and both are not nearly rare enough. I suppose I would wish to believe that those involved are capable of change.

[AlienGirl]

25. Capable of change, sure! But no longer legally culpable?

I strongly believe in redemption, and believe this woman may well have done all the things necessary to be forgiven of her actions. She may no longer be culpable in a moral or ethical sense.

However, should a person's redemption make them legally immune? If a guy goes on a killing spree, and two months later reforms his life, makes restitution of some sort, and becomes a counselor who heals crime victims, should he be off the hook? What if it's two years later? Ten years? Twenty years? At what point should the law decide the criminal is no longer to be punished?

Eichmann, by all accounts, lived an unexceptional life in South America for a long time. He had a family and worked a regular job. Should he have been let off? What if he had lived until now (he'd be 100)--would he then be no longer guilty?

This actually gets more complex, because the issue is her lying on papers to get into the US, and that is the actual reason she is being deported. Also, as far as I know, she isn't being charged, just deported to Germany, which isn't considered a punishment by the law.

Tucker

[LostinVA]

40. Sociopaths can't change -- plus, she lied on her application

Didn't want to stick around Germany...

[LostinVA]

39. Bingo -- and, as I stated above, Ravensbruck was INFAMOUS

Way worse than the non-crematorium part of Auschwitz.

[truebrit71]

51. She worked in a Nazi death camp. There should NEVER be any statutory....

...limits that protects the guilty from some form of justice.


NEVER.

[davidinalameda]

20. tell that to those families who lost loved ones in the camps

I'm sure that they'll just forget about it as well

[KatyMan]

24. This is why:

during the year she worked there with a trained attack dog more than 10,000 women died.
Some succumbed to starvation and disease. Others were gassed. More died after cruel medical experiments. Some perished from sheer exhaustion.

You don't get a pass from prosecution for being old when your crime involves the deaths of 10,000 people. Not shot, bombed etc, but gassed and subjected to gruesome medical experiments (read up on what those experiments entailed and you might feel different).

She offered no remorse, and said she didn't tell her husband because "all these years she was totally embarrassed". Embarrassed. Oopsie,honey, I was a guard at a camp that probably killed a dozen or so of your female relatives...pass the potatoes please....

Every last living SS camp guard should be chased, hounded, caught and prosecuted, whether they're 70 or 80 or 90 or on their death bed. Even if they spend one day in prison and die that day, then let them spend that day in prison and die there. Alone with their victims' ghosts. These aren't run of the mill Wermacht soldiers tossed into battle (or even Hitler Youth, who also had no choice but to join--yes I'm talking about you know who), this is the SS. They gave no quarter and deserve none.

It's wrong to say 'get over it' or 'it's in the past' about something like the Holocaust, it belittles and dismisses an event that should never be forgotten. Indeed, I think high school kids should spend a semester when they're sophomores or juniors studying it, and the climate that caused it. Genocide has occurred since mankind began, more than we know I'm sure, but the difference is that this is one genocidal event that we know about, have extensive records from the perpetrators regarding, can study the causes of, and hopefully prevent in the future.

[LostinVA]

41. Even more so: Ravensbruck held MANY "political criminals"

Including those who hide Jews. Corrie Ten Boom of "The Hiding Place" fame, and her sister were imprisoned there. Two middle aged and elderly women worked worse than any poor draft horse, starved, beaten, humilkiated.... her elderly sister died there. And, this is just one story out of so many thousands.

[aquart]

27. Germany bred her. Let Germany feed her.

I don't have a problem with this.

She had more years than her victims.

[PCIntern]

31. Hey Indiana: Why don't you ask them

if she can come live with you?

[951-Riverside]

15. Seems like we deport everyone who isn't from South of the Border

...God bless ass backwards America. :patriot:

[tuvor]

16. You're not really comparing ex-SS with illegal Mex. immigrants, are you?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

22. The illegals I know are very hard working people.

I'd rather have some illegal Mexicans around over a Nazi, and that is not ass backwards to any reasonable person.

[chaplainM]

18. Any word yet from Patrick Buchanan? nt

[RFKHumphreyObama]

28. I have to agree with the deportation

There is a place for forgiveness and redemption but that should not come at the expense of accountability. I strongly believe that you must be prepared to be held accountable for the pain and suffering you inflicted on others and to be truly remorseful for your crimes and your role in destroying people’s lives and their families and you must be prepared to accept the consequences of your action.

The reality is that this woman brazenly lied on her immigration form to enter the United States and showed no remorse or sorrow for her actions –even when she was deported so many years later. She flouted and violated immigration laws and expected to get away with a free pass for all the pain, misery and suffering she inflicted on countless people. She may have done some good things later on in her life but she still has to accept the consequences for her earlier actions. This isn’t just some minor crime she participated in, it is genocide and murder most vile and reprehensible. If the United States is prepared to deport foreigners for much lesser crimes and for much lesser immigration violations, it should show no exception for her

She’s just being deported. I know it may be hard to resettle in another country after living most of your life in one country and at such an old age in declining health but that is the price that she has to pay for her actions.

[saigon68]

30. Too Bad she didn't have rocket making skills

Like Von Braun EH?

[LostinVA]

42. I thought of that when I read the article

Von Braun and all the other Mercury/Apollo, H-Bomb NAZIS. Operation Paperclip.... ugh.

[Hobarticus]

55. Indeed...only useful Nazis need apply, thank you n/t

[bleedingheart]

33. I wonder what will happen with Americans who now comply with Bush

and who commit atrocities in "secret" prisons?

[KatyMan]

36. I understand what your saying

But the crimes are nowhere near the magnitude or severity, and the sheer number of murders that occured in Europe during the war.

But, I would say that those that commit atrocities in secret prisons should be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

[bleedingheart]

43. Bush isn't finished yet...

he has invaded one country for no reason, has set his sights on another and he is looking to make torture acceptable...which is one step past the Nazis...he is trying to make what he wants to do legal to avoid a Nuremburg...I only hope the US people wake up before they end up being a party to something awful...

What this woman did was horrid...she deserved a prison sentence for her actions.

[SquireJons]

34. Ilsa, she wolf of the SS revealed at last! n/t

[LostinVA]

38. Ravensbruck was really, really bad

And, the commandant and guards were notorious for their sadism... many, such as Irma Grese, were sent to Auschwitz because of this. Oi. A tough one... mainly because her husband was Jewish. A sign of atonement and redemption? I don't know... can a sociopath change? No.

[bleedingheart]

44. I wonder if she married the Jewish fellow in order to "hide" herself

...sounds awful but I think she spent her entire life hiding from her crimes and her lack of remorse seems to bolster the idea (for me at least) that her supposed "atonement" was nothing more than a way to shield herself.

If she really had wanted to atone...she would have stepped to the plate 60 years ago, admitted her mistakes and crimes and worked for good in the open...

[LostinVA]

46. That's what I was wondering...

Being an SS guard at Ravensbruck was quite a badge of honor for these people...

[truebrit71]

49. I agree....

.."If she really had wanted to atone...she would have stepped to the plate 60 years ago, admitted her mistakes and crimes and worked for good in the open..."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Glad to see that at least SOME haven't forgotten the past...

[calico1]

47. Good.

I don't care how old she is or what she did afterward. I don't feel sorry for her. Good riddance.

[Javaman]

52. The past always catches up...

She will now go to that special place in hell.

Those bastards never change. After everything she did to hide her past and try to start anew, this is the line that got me, "Washington officials, however, said she coldly offered no expression of remorse about her past and did not fight the deportation".

After examining all of the nazi's at the Nuremberg trials, the psychologists stated the definition of what a monster; a person without empathy.

One more monster bites the dust.

good riddance to bad rubbish.

[happyslug]

53. Born 1922, in 1945 she was 23 years old.

She only started to work at the camp in 1944, at a time where Germany was restricting where women could work (Nazi Propaganda encouraged women to have children at that time, even out of wedlock). While she was NOT in the same situation as Tokyo Rose (A single American in Japan where women DID NOT WORK outside the home), Elfriede Lina Rinkel was in a tight spot when it came to finding employment.

On the other hand, Germany during WWII, like the US, had agencies to get workers to where workers were needed. Thus it is possible she went to such an agency and requested employment and they sent her to the Camp. Elfriede Lina Rinkel said she worked with a dog at the Camp, but only on the outside perimeter. She left in 1945 when the Camp fell to the Allies.

My first concern did she VOLUNTEER for this assignment (and not volunteer because she was given the choice this job or none)? If she truly volunteered then deport her, but it does not sound like she did (Most people who liked this type of work joined the Nazi party and then the SS, neither of which Elfriede Lina Rinkel was a member of).

My Second concern is did she participate in any excess brutality? Again no record of this even from Survivors (At least in this story). She seems not to be some sort of Ivan the Terrible.

My Third Concern was she someone in charge of the treatment of the Prisoners? No evidence and her own statements indict otherwise?

My Fourth Concern was she is a position to minimize suffering? Again nothing in this article, but as a perimeter Guard they is not much she could do. (Werner Von Braun for example could have threaten to stop working on his rockets if the prisoners where not treated better, he choose not to, could Elfriede Lina Rinkel REFUSED to walk the perimeter do to treatment of the prisoners? I doubt it).

One of the problem with going after Nazis today is that the real leaders are long dead. The people who both benefited, organized and lead the Camp are long dead. The people who could fill any of the above four situations tend to be order then a 23 year old, and tend to be male more than female (With the exception of actual abuse of prisoners which is NOT alleged by anyone in this case).

A close analogy would be going after a 83 year women who drove a car for her then employer while the employer rob someone and used her car as a getaway car. She did not know of the robbery till it has already occurred and just did as her employer told her to do. Her best defense is that she did not know of what she was guarding till she arrived at the camp and by that time she was much of a prisoner as the camp inmates (Through treated a lot better). In both cases she would have FOUND THE JOB THROUGH A GOVERNMENT AGENCY. She was just hired to drive the car, she did not know her employer plans to commit a crime till he had done so. Now 60 years later where both the employment agency records are long gone and her employer and fellow employees are are dead how can she defend herself? This lack of defense is cause by the Government inaction for the decades she was in this Country (And the primary reason for the inaction was if the Government had brought this action in the 1950s, she could have cited the treatment of the German Rocket Scientist as showing what she did was Government ENCOURAGED).

I am sorry, the German Rocket Scientists where in the position to do something about the slave laborers working for them, but did not to say or do anything about the condition of the Slave laborers. On the other hand, Elfriede Lina Rinkel was in no position to do anything about what was happening in this camp. Apparently she did not even go with the Women Slave Laborers to their place of employment, she was just a perimeter guard. To treat Elfriede Lina Rinkel HARSHER than the German Rocket Scientist (who died on Government Pension in the US) is a crime in itself.

One last comment, Ravensbruck was a concentration camp where Political Prisoners and slave laborers were kept, not a Death Camp like Auschwitz. Death was high in Ravensbruck but it was do to neglect. lack of food and overwork as opposed to being sent straight to the gas chambers:

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Visual___Artistic_Resources/Women_of_Ravensbruck/women_of_ravensbruck.html
http://www.edwardvictor.com/Holocaust/Ravensbruck.htm
http://individual.utoronto.ca/jarekg/Ravensbruck/
http://motlc.learningcenter.wiesenthal.org/pages/t064/t06417.html
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-ravens-early.htm

[IndianaGreen]

56. Excellent points, happyslug

She was never accused, and no evidence was ever presented, that she was involved in any crimes. She was deported to a friendly prosperous country on the basis of a technicality. The United States, not to mention the Vatican, gave shelter and assistance to many Nazi war criminals many of which ended up on the US payroll. A butcher like Klaus Barbie was even used by the CIA in its anti-Soviet activities. All of this makes the "case" against this women seem peculiar and hypocritical.

Even Israel did not express an interest in prosecuting her.

[LostinVA]

59. She was SS -- she certainly DID volunteer

And, have her background, beliefs, etc. investigated and tested. You make her sound like an innocent secretary or something. She was an SS guard at one of THE most notorious concentration camps out of many notorious concentration camps. She was 23, not a 11-year-old in the HJ. "Just a perimeter guard"? This statement shows your ignorance concerning the SS, and those who feverishly joined it -- and how they were chosen. This snit a case of "Just" a Wehrmacht soldier. IT WAS THE FRIGGING SS.

This wasn't some "government agency" job placement situation.

And, making EXCUSES for Ravensbruck? OMG. People WERE exterminated at Ravensbruck. Wikipedia actually has a very decent entry on it. Read it. Read Corrie Ten Boom's books.

And, Auschwitz also wasn't a death camp -- that was Sobibor, Treblinka, etc.

Good grief. This post kinda really, really shocks me. You can have your own opinions on this, but not your own facts, and that's what you're doing -- twisting them like a pretzel.

And, your analogy of her as a driver whose employer is a robber really does make me feel rather ill.

[happyslug]

65. By 1944 almost anyone could get into the SS

In fact the Waffen SS was taking in ANYONE, including Poles, Czechs, Russians and anyone else the SS could dragoon into their units.

Now prior to WWII, the Waffen SS and the Guards on the Camps were one and the same (And the personnel went from one to the other on a rotational schedule), but this ended at the start of the War (and no rotation seems to have occurred at all from 1941 onward when the Death camps were set up).

As you can see my the cite I put at the end of my post I am familiar with Ravensbruck, my point was simply Ravensbruck was NOT a Death Camp, where people were transported to and then Killed. Ravensbruck Was a Concentration camp and slave camp, not a death camp. The difference is minor to those who died in each, but significant in how the camps were run. The death Camps were factories of death, the Slave Labor Camps were aimed to providing labor at the lowest possible costs.

Remember in 1944 the Allies were bombing most of Germany, The Red Army would reach and take Warsaw and the allies would land and reach the Rhine. Germany's supply of oil would become almost non-existent, do to the lost of the Romanian Oil Fields and the lost of oil being smuggled from Spain. In simply terms things were getting bad in Germany. This increased after the July 20th plot to kill Hitler, all opposition was killed off and anyone who opposed Hitler or the Nazi, in any way, were shot. In that Claimant I can not say that any act during that period was Voluntary (In fact the movements of Jews to the Death Camps ended toward the end of 1944 do to how bad things were).

Anyway my concern is NOT the peons, like this woman, who were cogs in the system, but the people in position to STOP or at least minimize the holocaust. From the Article I can see NOTHING that suggest she is such a person, just a person doing what she was told. She did NOT direct anyone to their deaths, nor did she kill anyone (Through her presence prevented anyone from escaping).

My complaint is like a lot of others on this board, why are we going after low level people like this woman, only after the death of high ranking Nazi members who just happened to be able to help either the CIA or our rocket research? I have no problem going after the people who were in Charge, even if they are in the 80s and 90s, but why people who were NOT in any position to STOP the Holocaust.

[GeorgiaDem69]

60. I don't give a damn what she did at Ravensbruck

and can't believe that a single Democrat, American, or decent human being would object to the United States deporting a former Nazi prison camp guard, regardless of whether that person worked at a slave labor camp or death camp.

It's embbarrasing that anyone on this web site would DEFEND A NAZI!

[BlueIris]

75. You and me both, fellow sane poster. As for those defending her...

I think more than a few "fairweather Progressives" on this site are a little uncomfortable with their own lack of significant resistance to modern fascism.

[Nikia]

79. It said that she had been working at a factory

And had the job oppurtunity at the concentration camp which she chose to do. Whether she chose the job at the concentration camp because it paid more, was more prestigious, was not as hard labor, was not as boring, ect I don't know but it sounds like she chose to do it.

[LostinVA]

82. The SS was always volunteer only for women, and for men until 1944

And, volunteers had to pass very, very strict tests of racial and ideology purity -- only zealots tended to make it.

[IA_Seth]

61. This is crazy.

The woman had obviously changed. She married and loved a Jewish man, how many truly evil SS soldiers would do such a thing? Would you all honestly say that every single soldier that served the Nazis in the war was complicit to the crimes committed? Self preservation is a powerful motive, one that shouldnt be held against an obviously reformed eighty year old woman.

[GeorgiaDem69]

62. I also don't give a damn if she "reformed"

Nazi prison guard = guilty of crimes against humanity. Don't use a straw man -- she wasn't a "soldier," she was a prison guard at a slave labor camp.

[LeftyMom]

64. And as a woman nobody'd have batted an eyelash if she hadn't done it

She was there by choice, in a society where the default was for women not to work at all.

[Name removed]

66. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LostinVA]

77. She was SS, not Whermacht, not working in a munitions factory

[Generator]

67. She was probably one of the nice guards

You know, in her heart of hearts, she secretly kinda liked the Jews. It was just a JOB, people.

I think it's hilarious though-these damn Nazi always live to be a zillion years old-she's half blind and had diabetes but she's still kicking! Oh vey-such sweet Karma-I love the idea that they are never ever free from their past, that they never ever know if this time-no matter old, the knock on the door is for THEM.

It's so against the p.c. new age, let's heal, Dr. Phil of our society.

Tough titties, Elfie.

[calico1]

70. Yeah, she was just a young kid.

I wonder how many young Jewish women and children died under her watch. When the Hell did anyone on DU start defending Nazis? :eyes:

[upi402]

71. lock the scum up!

[Strawman]

72. Sad story, but it's certainly not my place to give her a pass

She is lucky really. Lucky that she was able to share such a wonderful long life with her husband and shed the hateful prejudice that darkened her soul. I feel bad for him that he will not be able to be laid to rest beside the person he loved.

But mostly I feel bad for the people that died in that prison who did not get the opportunity to take strolls with their partners in their old age. They didn't get a chances to be one of those cute older couples. If I were her victim I might make the decision to forgive her. I can't say for certain. But the bottom line is that I'm not. It's not my place to say she's a nice old lady who changed and now should get a pass for working at a prison where people were systematically murdered. Deporting an old lady won't undo anything, but those victims deserve something too. She had a nice long life that, in a just world, she did not deserve. All the victims can ever get is the justice of having people like her be deported. I think she has nothing to complain about. What a small price she is paying in comparison.

[mainegreen]

73. Wow, the armchair critics are out in force today.

Without proof you can't say she was a murderer.
Without being there in Nazi Germany you can't say how much "choice" she had in her life.

Should she be deported? Sure, she lied on her visa application. But I find the hypocrisy here in DU about immigration to be stunning.

Personally I suggest everyone spend more time reading history before flinging around accusations about how 'evil' she was without proof and a sound historical perspective. I think a great many people here would have joined facing the alternatives of starvation or death.

[bhikkhu]

76. I would second that.

Not knowing her, I would make no apologies for her. But I would also not roast her on a spit. It is easy from our distant perspective to speak as if all Nazis should have been lined up and shot after the war. Those who suffered at the time and those who risked all to overthrow them were saner, and seemed to have been satisfied to follow the legal process in bringing up charges and just punishments based on evidences of individual conduct.

[LostinVA]

80. I know all about history, specifically WW II, specifically

the SS and the lager system. She had a choice not to join the SS. I know what the SS was, and I know who VOLUNTEERED for it.. and I know how only the most fanatical, purest Nazis were accepted... this wasn't trying to survive, this was trying to ascend to the Aryan Godhead.

Sickening that people here are defending her actions.

Perhaps you should study the SS, Ravensbruck, etc. better.

ASl;l of that is moot anyway: she lied on her application.

[Doremus]

87. As another poster already pointed out, by '44 the SS was taking anyone. nt

[Nihil]

85. Thank you MaineGreen

You have summed it up beautifully:

> Without proof you can't say she was a murderer.
> Without being there in Nazi Germany you can't say how
> much "choice" she had in her life.
> Should she be deported? Sure, she lied on her visa application.
> But I find the hypocrisy here in DU about immigration to be stunning.

Happyslug has posted yet another of his (?) factually correct and
very informative explanations in .65 ... I wish some of the other
self-appointed historians round here would pay as much attention
to the facts as to their own holier-than-thou judgements on a
complete stranger based on a media report.

Most of this thread is the sort of blood-lust that you read about
in conjunction with the burning of "witches", with the lynching of
negroes, with the hanging of papists and yes, even with the blaming
of Jews for any perceived problem over the centuries.

The only crime that she is indisputably guilty of is falsification
of immigration forms. That is why she is being deported.

Everything else is conjecture ... unless you have given up with
the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" ...?

[dsc]

78. I wonder if in 2060

if some liberals will argue that Matthew Shepard's killers should be released because it was so long ago. This woman made a horrible choice back then and deserves to pay for it now. Just like Matthew's killers did and should.

[LostinVA]

83. Good analogy

[mitchum]

81. Auf wiedersehen!