football player, Holocaust survivor

[Earl]

I have copied and pasted the text of my Holocaust tale from the topic entitled "A tax on fat people?!!??!" because I felt that this compelling story deserved to be featured in a separate topic of its own. The original copy has been deleted. Ever since the pharmacy clerk told me what her brother had gone through during the war, I have often thought about what happened to him in Nazi Germany. For those of you who have already read this, please excuse the duplication.
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When I first learned about the Holocaust (as a high-school sophomore in the late summer of 1966), a particular question immediately arose in my mind; and that was, during our nationâ??s participation in World War II, were those of our Jewish servicemen fighting in Europe at risk of becoming casualties of the Holocaust? As I learned years later from a history book on this subject, the answer was most definitely. Although the number is very small compared to the numbers of native Jews killed in European countries and territories occupied by the Nazis, the Holocaust did claim the lives of several hundred American Jews. I don't remember the exact figure. Many of them just happened to be visiting certain countries in Europe either conducting business or visiting relatives back in â??the old countryâ? when they were stranded there by military invasion. Their U.S. citizenship did not protect them. They were rounded up with the native Jews.

During the early 1980s (when I had just been married for only a few years), there was a pharmacy near our home that I frequently patronized before it eventually closed down. I was making a purchase there one day, and was chatting with the lady behind the cash register, who was old enough to be of my parentsâ?? generation. This was the only time I happened to see her at the pharmacy. She told me that she had a brother who was a World War II veteran who had served in Europe, where he was captured by German troops. She told me that he was incarcerated in a concentration camp. I responded by saying, â??You mean a prisoner of war camp, donâ??t you?â? She replied, â??No, a concentration camp.â? I donâ??t know why, but I didnâ??t think to ask her if her family were Jewish. I have no doubt that they were, though. Years later a member of my congregation told me that he personally knew a Jewish World War II veteran who had spent time in a Nazi concentration camp. I assume that this veteran was this pharmacy clerkâ??s brother.

When her brother departed this country for Nazi-occupied Europe, he was in top shape physically and had a powerful physique. She told me that he had been an athlete in high school. Iâ??m assuming that he had played football. (You know how crazy Texans are about football.) Fortunately, the concentration camp where he had been incarcerated was liberated; and he was flown back to the U.S. The members of his family were shocked at his condition. He was emaciated. Just the expression on his face revealed that he had been traumatized. He had been deliberately starved and possibly had been subjected to other forms of torture as well. I didnâ??t have the heart to ask his sister for more details. As he was starving in the Nazi concentration camp, his body cannibalized muscle tissue from his well-developed physique. If he had entered the camp with a slender build, he would have died. He no doubt had enjoyed the popularity of being a football player in high school, only a year or so later to be threatened with death in a concentration camp as a Jew despised by the Nazis.

For about a year and a half, he could not talk to anyone about his experiences in the concentration camp and how he had been mistreated. He started drinking heavily and developed a drinking problem. Fortunately, he realized that he was hurting himself and stopped drinking. Then he was finally able to tell his parents and sister what had happened to him in the camp.

[Polite24]

Earl, they don't care. Don't you get it? He played sports so he must have been a bad person anyway!!!111!!

[Earl]

I waited a while before responding to your post because I wanted to give other members a chance to respond. Your comment made me sad. Not because I thought you were out of line. I didn't think you were out of line at all. I detected perhaps a slight tinge of hurt in your comment. That's why I was sad. You had every right to say what you said. I cannot presume to speak for the other members, but perhaps the reason why there has been no other response posted is because the other members don't know what to say. Perhaps they are afraid that they would come off sounding cheap. What could they say? "Gee, that's a terrible thing that happened to that poor kid"? When you consider the horrible trauma that he was subjected to, the words just come off cheap. On the other hand, anyone not touched by this story would have to have a heart of stone; and anyone who would say that he was a bad person anyway because he participated in sports would be a colossal jerk, if not worse. The story is more haunting when one considers the fact that most Americans would never have such an experience that is so horribly bizarre and historically unique for most Americans, and to think that this happened to someone who was young. Yes, I know he was a soldier; but from my own standpoint as a 59-year-old man, he was just a kid. I was personally touched and outraged by the fact that his great physique wasted away from deliberate starvation to which he was subjected by totalitarian thugs. Now, I realize that his first thought was that there was a very strong likelihood that he was going to die there far from home and his family, that nothing else mattered in comparison; but as a man who started working on a bodybuilding program two years ago, I know that he spent a lot of time and effort building up his physique, only to be reduced to an emaciated state. Don't mean to sound vain. It's just that I could identify with that particular loss alone.

[i_like_1981]

Earl, they don't care. Don't you get it? He played sports so he must have been a bad person anyway!!!111!!

Polite24, you should have shown a bit more respect to Earl's story in your response. It is an emotional account of how a football player had his life and dreams broken down and destroyed because of his religion and you did not make any reference at all to that. You have instead used this topic as a vehicle to insult all the members on this site saying that they do not care about how a person has been severely scarred in both a mental and physical way. I'm sure anyone would feel sorry for this person - I do not like players of rough contact sport such as football but when they work hard to gain a good physique through years of physical activity and hard work and have this taken away from them due to the intolerant, hateful beliefs of a group of people who shall remain detested by humanity for the remainder of man's existence is when they should be given respect and shown sympathy and not just subjected to the same old sports hating figure of speech. I find it important to recognise the acceptable limits of what I should say, otherwise I may cause offence. When you work at something for years, enjoy the passion and enjoyment it brings you and accept it as a big part of your life, you become dependent on that thing, whatever it be. For this person it was football, and his dreams were destroyed because of his religion. Just torn apart by the Nazis, a person's whole life and hopes, because of his religion. Sickening. You should have at least given us your thoughts on this story. I was very much shocked by this story, and I am a hater of sports. Do not presume that just because people on this site dislike sports they truly believe that all sports players deserve to be taken away, worn down into an emaciated state and left to develop drinking problems feeling that they may never be able to do the things they love again without a strong body to play their sports with. I certainly don't feel he deserved this just because he liked sports. I can understand why you might have said that but Earl has already proved to you that there are members on here who can accept and understand the feelings of those who play sports. Yet from a person who has frequently claimed himself to be mature, a voice of reason, and us to be ignorant and wrong, I'm a bit surprised to see a response like that from you when a member has already expressed sympathy for a sports player and their tragic tale. As you sports fans say to us, don't tar us all with the same brush.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

I do understand Polite24's point of view. (Incidentally, he may have left us for good now.) And thanks for expressing your reaction to my post, i_like_1981. It's a story I'll never forget. Just to add a happy note, though, the World War II veteran's sister told me that once he was able to tell his family how he had been mistreated in the concentration camp, he did recover; and he also may have managed to build back his physique. But the memories never go away.

[i_like_1981]

I do understand Polite24's point of view. (Incidentally, he may have left us for good now.) And thanks for expressing your reaction to my post, i_like_1981. It's a story I'll never forget. Just to add a happy note, though, the World War II veteran's sister told me that once he was able to tell his family how he had been mistreated in the concentration camp, he did recover; and he also may have managed to build back his physique. But the memories never go away.

I felt obliged to give your story a response. It's a shame nobody else expressed their thoughts although as you say, they may have felt they would come off sounding cheap and that's not a nice feeling to have when responding to a story like that one.
Perhaps it is "for good" that Polite24 left. I never got chance to talk to him but reading through his posts they all seemed to get mocked and their points disregarded and I think that is what eventually made him start taking the irritated tone he did towards the end. He had nothing to gain from coming here; he had no way of being able to get through to some people. These thoughts of sports hate have rooted themselves in people's minds to the extent where they don't want to have a word off anyone who dares voice an interest in them. I can identify with these people although when a sports fan comes on here with the intention of acting in a civilised manner that shows a willingness to understand the opposing side's beliefs then it is only fair they are treated with some respect. Polite24 wasn't that bad. Some of his posts were a little blunt but he did have reason to be like that. But it was probably his persistancy that made people lose their temper. And it was the constant avalanche of crap given to him in response to said persistancy that made him lose HIS temper and eventually leave. Can't blame either side, really.
I'm not here to preach to people about why they have to accept the sports fans though; I'm a newbie here, just expressing his standing on the debate. We're all different people who've been shaped by different experiences and can't be expected to think the same. Expecting everybody to think in the same way is the psychology of an intolerant jock.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

Polite24 wasn't a bad kid. (I call him a kid because he was a teenager when he started posting at this website and I'm a middle-aged man old enough to be his father.) In fact, even though I did not necessarily agree with every single statement that he made, I'd say that he was a nice guy. He agreed with the need to reform P.E. so that instead of being humiliated and subjected to even worse treatment, nonathletic kids would have a choice of wellness activities instead of being forced to participate in competititive team sports. (I really appreciate my neice's P.E. instructor in Austin, Texas, who gives those girls in her classes who don't want to play basketball and other games like that the choice of just walking around the gym, which may be a little boring but sure is a lot better than the alternative. I'll take my Russian fur hat off to her whenever the weather gets cold enough.) I had several friendly PM exchanges with Polite24 that indicated that he was a far cry from the sort of abusive poster represented by You-Know-Who . He was mystified by the hostility he sometimes encountered.

I agree that those of us who support this website are not all going to have the same views, nor should we. I don't take myself too seriously, except when I lose my temper.

[Fat Man]

Good evening Earl.

I'm sorry I didn't to respond to this topic sooner.

I have had so many other issues on my mind with the recent legal problems I'm having at the present time.

What happened to this young Jewish soldier was tragic. Nobody should be subjected to this kind of torture.

The fact that he was a football player makes no difference here. It was still tragic.

You know, my mother was in her late teens and early 20s during World War II and she had mentioned to me that back in those days, one could not be on a football team or a basketball team unless their academic grades were high enough. That was school policy back in those days.

Back then, when my mother was in high school, a friend of her's was dating a football player. He was kicked off the team because his other academic grades were too low. Her friend wasn't doing so well in her classes herself while my mother was a good student, and she asked my mother for a favor to help out her boy friend to get his grades up.

So, my mother gave him some private tutoring to help out another student. She helped with him with his math homework and homework assignments in other classes to get his grades up to par. His grades went up from a D to a C+ and B- in all of his academic classes.

When he began passing in all of his other academic subjects then he was allowed to get back on the football team again.

That's how it was in high school back in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Also, there wasn't this problem with bullying from the athletes back then. At least not to the same extent as it was when I went to school in the 1960s, and now it's even worse.

Perhaps if I had been a high school student back in the 1930s or 1940s I would not have developed the prejudice that I now have against jocks.

Back in those days, anyone on a football team or basketball team in high school had to be making good grades in their other academic subjects, perhaps not as high grades as most students, but high enough at least to make passing grades. Also there wasn't this [jocks vs nerds and geek thing] like there is in our schools today. At least not that I know of.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, there has always been bullying in our schools, but it wasn't tolerated as much as it is now, at least this was so in the school my mother attended.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, if I had been going to school back in those days, I would not have been suspended from school because I failed to climb a rope in the gym during PE class because of my crippled left knee. I would have mad a D or an F in PE, and flunked PE, but I don't believe I would have been suspended, especially if I was making passing grades in all of my other subjects.

Oh, but school was still not a bed of roses for some students.

My mother was left-handed, and she had this one math teacher who smacked her on her left hand with the hard edge of a wooden ruler.

I'm also left handed, so I know I would have been punished as well.

So, our schools have always punished kids for being different in some way.

Back in the so called "good ol' days" children were punished just for being left-handed.

Then when I went to school in the 1960s children were no longer punished in most schools for being left-handed, except in some parochial schools like Catholic schools.

But students like myself were punished for failing in PE.

So, our society has "advanced" from, no longer punishing left-handed children, to punishing children who are not good at sports and bullying kids around for being fat.

Yeah! We have come a long way! Haven't we?

OK, I guess I'm getting off topic here.

Anyway . . .

What happened to this young man in the concentration camp was a horrible tragedy.

I don't know what more I can say.

[Earl]

Thank you very much for your post. It was well-written and interesting from a historical standpoint. I wonder if my older daughter would have had an easier time working as a teacher when your mother was in high school. If I remember correctly, both of my daughters are left-handed. I know for sure that my older daughter is left-handed. Each generation has its failings, some generations more than others. I think you expressed yourself well and said all that you could say about this Holocaust survivor. I knew that you had been preoccupied with pressing concerns. I really wasn't concerned that no one else had responded to this topic. I certainly didn't expect much of a response, if any. I mean, what can you say? Sometimes words just sound cheap. Thanks again.

[Fat Man]

OK, I know this is off topic.

I'm sorry that Polite 24 has left us.

Yeah, he wasn't a bad kid, but he kind of brought it on himself.

Every time he attempted to post statistics concerning percentages of the number of athletes involved in crimes, or the percentages of sport fans who are not obnoxious bores, he would always come up with unrealistic numbers, for example: claiming that 99% percent of all sports fans are not obnoxious bores or that only 0.0000001% percent of football players have committed rape.

Then, I would use the data he provides, and do my calculations, and based on the data he gave, there would have to be over 2 trillion football players coming from 369 different planets who are NOT rapists, and the small percentages of football players who are rapists, the percentages given by Polite 24 would amount to a fingernail clipping from one football player that is responsible for the rapes. Then after he revised his data upward a little bit more, I ran the calculations again, and the number of football players who have raped would be equal to only one football player, a 2 foot dwarf weighing only 25 pounds!

And so, every time he attempted to post statistics with the ridicules numbers that he must have pulled out of his ass, I would do the calculations, and I'm sorry if I only ended up ripping him apart with my calculations.

I had three years of college and I passed most of my math courses with a B+ average.

It's obvious that with Polite 24 math is not one of his strong points.

But it's really not his fault. He can't help it.

That's because they don't teach science and math anymore in our high schools.

They only teach how to play Charades and fold paper footballs!

[i_like_1981]

I never got chance to talk with Polite24 but looking at his posts I see he was quite a reasonable person. There's not much I could really fault him on, and I don't particularly hold it against him that he may have used the odd fake statistic to draw attention to his points. One thing I will say about him though is that he did seem somewhat unwilling to accept the fact that some of the members had a damn good reason to hate sports. I think he may have misinterpreted some of the people as just whiners, which is true for me, but I don't think he was fully aware of what some people have had to go through in the name of Physical "Education". He was a bit persistant from what I saw, but perhaps he liked coming here for the odd debate. Being able to find enjoyment in exchanges with people who you know dislike you yet you still find time for anyway is the sign of a good debater. One who will not be forced away easily; one who will stand their ground even on the most threatening of turf. A point I would know about when I entered into a somewhat aggressive exchange with Cycloptichorn. I would not let him force me into respecting and worshipping something I've never cared for in my life but I had to let him stop me from throwing out the usual jock and idiot insults. I don't know about that guy, really. He did become more friendly and thoughtful towards my feelings in the end but the way he reacted to my dislike of sports fans equated to that of racism, which is somewhat extreme. There is a difference between slandering a whole nation of people who would be diverse and of many different lifestyles, and just moaning at sports fans who all share many similar characteristics and are therefore just a TYPE of people, not a race - the boorish attitude towards rival sports fans and sports haters, the over-reliance on their teams to make them happy. You know what I'm getting at. Disliking sports fans and racism are two completely different things. And I don't like people who try and equate them in the hope of intimidating and trying to incite a feeling of shame in us sports haters.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Polite24]

I stopped coming for a while for the exact reasons Earl described. Debates would just be pointless because everytime I made a decent point it was countered by something off the wall or an insult.

[Agent 47]

Hey POLUTE 66766 - a.k.a. "SESAME STREET BOY" - don't forget - if you take off your shoes and socks, you can count up to 20.

[Earl]

*sigh*

[i_like_1981]

Hey POLUTE 66766 - a.k.a. "SESAME STREET BOY" - don't forget - if you take off your shoes and socks, you can count up to 20.

Are you forgetting about your own avatar there? That's a bit like me saying, "Hey Eighties boy get with the times man!"

I stopped coming for a while for the exact reasons Earl described. Debates would just be pointless because everytime I made a decent point it was countered by something off the wall or an insult.

Hate to say it, but although you make decent arguments and try your best not to lose your temper despite all the insults, I don't think what you say is going to change the thoughts of anyone here. But I'm sure that's not your purpose. Perhaps you like debating and trying to bring some opposite voice to the forum, which is fine in my book. What use is a forum like this when you have nothing to argue about or nothing to exchange different viewpoints on? I don't plan on becoming a sports fan anytime soon and will not allow myself to be changed by any sports fan regardless of how obnoxious or even pleasant and justified they may seem, but I know the difference between a decent fan of sports who is worth listening and talking to and some rabid extreme nerd-hater like Samdaman who deserves nothing more than insults and sarcasm like he gives. I give what I get. Nothing very unfair about that. Your conduct towards me shall determine the way I respond to you.

*sigh*

I know Earl. It must be pretty hard having to try and keep control over all of the things that go off on this board, but you do it damn well.

Best regards,
i_like_1981