06 Dec 09 Be careful what you see, it can change you. You can feel “smaller & colder” and it may not go away…

Got up early this morning. Hank the Pug & I were 1st out at 4:15 am. Cold and clear, not too bad. Deciding if I should try to go back to sleep or have a cup of leftover warmed up coffee & just stay up. Gator household so last night wasn’t a festive evening.
Was planning on writing a post for my blog, tweeting a bit on Twitter and posting a bit on Facebook as I am now.
Ended up on YouTube for about 2 hours. Searching and watching quietly the clips. Funny how you can wind your way from a starting point and end up in a strange place. I don’t even remember the sequence of how, but I found myself watching the video clips of the WWII film footage of the liberation of the Nazi Death Camps. About seven or eight clips all together. The longest 10 minutes. One clip I watched and stopped twice, but went back to finish watching the third time. I was going to post on the blog, even embed the video. But I erased the embedded video (twice). It effected me. Don’t know if it would have effected all like it did me, but I feel a bit small after viewing a few minutes of “Mankind” at it’s absolute worst. It changes you. I think I will post something, but not with the video embedded.
Humans are interesting. Sometimes we see something wonderful and we can’t wait to share it. Sometimes something wonderful is hidden, intentionally. Yet the same two extremes (share/hide) exist with things that we encounter that are terrible. Part wants to share the terrible part of the World’s History; even though the ghastly story has been told many times. Another part of me wishes I hadn’t surfed to the cache of War Films at all, I am sorry I have seen them. Then you reflect. You start to wonder how many other things such as this took place?
The capacity we have to do evil seems to know no limit. We do also have the many moments of goodness and even greatness; but looking back at just a “Blink” of what took place and realizing that this was duplicated all over a third of the World for years is staggering. How many times in History we as one people have done such evil to other people. Further you then realize that each face, each life that was tortured and snuffed out has it’s own complete story. Each face suffered and struggled to survive. The whole horror was made up of millions of individual atrocities each somewhat unique, but to be sure each carrying the same message of pain.
I am sure I will shake off some of the effect of viewing the images on the 1945 (and earlier) footage; but not completely. I will be changed to a certain degree forever. I didn’t think that was possible 10 minutes before I saw those clips.
I rambled here bit, but it’s all honest.

I was not going to post any links to what I viewed but I rethought the position and decided to. Of course I warn not to view if you are of a sensitive nature. Conversely if you wish to see more of what I watched seek out the rest of the results of a You Tube search for Nazi Death Camps.