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10. januar 2005
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A Nazi guard remembers the Holocaust
When some Holocaust deniers started to preach revisionist propaganda to Oskar Gröning, he was forced to take a stand and be open about what had happened in Auschwitz 50 years earlier. Gröning had been an SS guard at the extermination camp, and had personally witnessed the industrial killing of Jews.
But Gröning knew very well it had happened - for he was posted to Auschwitz in September 1942, as a 22-year-old member of the SS. Almost immediately he witnessed the arrival of Jews at the camp. "I was standing at the ramp," he says, "and my task was to be part of the group supervising the luggage from an incoming transport." He watched while SS doctors first separated men from women and children, and then selected who was fit to work and who would be gassed immediately. "Sick people were lifted on to lorries. Red Cross lorries - they [the SS] always tried to create the impression that people had nothing to fear." Gröning estimates that 80-90% of those on the first transport he witnessed were selected to be murdered at once.
It's not pleasant reading, but it is important reading. I have often been shocked at the extent of Holocaust denial today, but the murder of millions of Jews in German concentration camps is an undeniable fact of history.
12:12:45 PM 
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Buckle up!
Nebraskan Derek Kieper was an ardent opponent of mandatory seat belt laws. In tragic irony, he was recently killed in a car accident when he was thrown out of a car when it rolled into a ditch. He alone did not wear a seat belt..The other two people in the car had seat belts on, and survived.
11:14:57 AM
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Ignored in mainstream media, part 8
Good news from Afghanistan. If the Chinese salutes the developments there, why can't western media?
7:54:34 AM
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Norse religion
MacRaven, of course, links to a short and good introduction to Asatru (I reserve the right to spell it Åsatru, though). The article gives a good overview of the modern, popularised version of Norse religion that most people in this part of the world knows. The problem is that all written sources, for example the writings of Snorri Sturluson, were written after Christianity took over, and scholars have debated vigorously to what degree later beliefs were written into ancient Norse religion.
For example, the primer gives this information about Asatru afterlife beliefs:
After death, those who died in battle are transported to Valhalla by the Valkyries, where they can eat and drink with the Gods. Those who did not die in battle, but lived good lives go to a peaceful place called Hel, and those who were evil go to Hifhel, a place of torment. The Christian concept of Hell is supposedly derived from these terms.
Hardly the concept, but undoubtedly the words we use in e.g. English and Norwegian. The problem is that many scholars believe there were no such afterlife beliefs in ancient Norse religions, but these were inspired by Christianity and added to popular lore as the new religion gradually took over. This question will probably never be really resolved, but I tend to side with those who believe Norse religion didn't really have a "hell," and that the "Valhalla" concept sounds a bit too fantastic to have been a true reflection of common people's ideas of an afterlife.
One of the best online articles on Norse mythology can be found in the Wikipedia. It pays particular attention to the source problems.
6:55:12 AM
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UN sex-for-food scandal
Let's not forget that only the United Nations has moral authority:
The report by the UN watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, investigated abuse allegations in the north-east Congolese town of Bunia.
The probe found a pattern of sexual exploitation of women and children, which it said was continuing.
Head of UN peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said he was outraged and angered by the abuse.
The report said many of the victims were under 18, with some as young as 13.
They were usually given food or small sums of money in return for sex.
The UN cannot itself punish wrongdoers among the blue helmets. That is up to their home countries.
6:11:55 AM
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Abbas won Palestinian election
To absolutely nobody's surprise, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) today won the presidential election in the Palestinian territories. The official result is not in yet, but the exit polls have a strong victory.
One exit poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research has given Mr Abbas 66% of the vote and with Mr Barghouti, polling 19.7%.
A second by An Najah University gives Mr Abbas 69.5% and Mr Barghouti 24.5%.
The turnout was around 66%, which is definately good. Hames and Islamic Jihad had announced a boycott of the election.
But it's now the trouble starts. As Charles Krauthammer says, rhetoric against the "Zionist entity", language we normally associate with Iran or Hamas, and promises never to crack down on militants does not bode well.
However, it's hardly anything to lose by engaging "moderate" Abbas in dialogue now. Israel want to talk to him, and president Bush has promised him support. I think that's the right decision.
The tragic mistake, however, would be to accept the reign of Arafat II and continue to appease Palestinian terrorism. Let's give Mahmoud Abbas a chance, by all means, but not another decade worth of them.
6:08:56 AM
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Children's testimonies about abuse
I just watched "Dangerous Testimonies" (Farlige Forklaringer), a Danish documentary about two men who were initially convicted for sexual abuse based on the testimonies of their young children. The programme placed a lot of emphasis on witness studies conducted by psychologist Yvonne Thomsen, the first of its kind in Denmark.
In the study, a group of kindergarten children were filmed as a female doctor visited them, showing and explaining to them about the human body. At no time did she touch any of the children. Then, Thomsen interviewed all the children separately on three different occasions, asking about this visit. She asked direct, somewhat leading questions, if the doctor had touched them (in a non-intrusive way). Already in the first interview some of the young children remembered, somewhat reluctantly, that the doctor had touched their arms. In the third interview, fully 54% of the children told openly that the doctor had touched their arms, sometimes their chests and backs, and made this into their own story about the doctor's visit to the kindergarten. Even when the children were later showed footage of the actual visit, some children were extremely reluctant to let go of the memory, now fully their own, that the doctor had touched them.
Especially dangerous were repeated yes/no questions, where the children apparently perceived what the interviewer wanted them to tell. In the first interview, the memories were mostly their own. When later interviews repeated the same question ("some children told me the doctor touched their arms. Did she do that to you?") the children started to change the story.
The documentary showed how this was very similar to the way social workers continuously asked questions to the children of a suspected abuser. When the children much later were officially interviewed by the police, they told a story about abuse that they had initially denied. And this was the interview that was videoed and showed in court.
Both men discussed in this programme were convicted in court, based solely on these statements that a number of psychologists found highly dubious. In the Danish legal system, it is prohibited by law to bring in defence expert testimonies challenging the credibility of the alleged victims. One of the cases were later overturned and the father was cleared, but even he was prohibited from seeing his children again.
As I've written in the past, memory is a quite fragile thing and not as trustworthy as we like to believe. That is doubly true for children. Undoubtedly, there are countless innocent men in prisons around the world because the court and social systems are inept in questioning children, and also because medical and psychological knowledge about children have been very much lacking.
12:19:10 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.02.2005; 02:16:51.
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