To See, or not to See

naziglassesfromAuschwitz

Personal effects taken from the prisoners at Auschwitz before they were taken to the gas chamber. These belongings were found after liberation, in warehouses at the camp.—US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Philip Vock

After the fall of Hitler, piles of personal belongings were found, all being stockpiled to be used or sold later. China apparently has done the same thing with their victims, many of whom might have been teachers who were rounded up by the millions by Red Guards in The Great Leap Forward and incarcerated and or killed, or they could be from one of the millions of people who starved to death in widespread famine that resulted from poor government policies of trying to industrialize the countryside. A list of mass killings that are known to have occurred during the Cultural Revolution, and even today China has the highest number of known executions of any country in the world every year, though the real numbers remain a state secret. Also Laogai prisons that believe in “reform through labor” (really a form of enslavement)- currently house over one million known people doing forced labor in over 1,000 detention facilities across China, and often harvest organs from their detainees.

Though things are just things, it is what they represent and the story they tell about people that is important. The reason why China would sell a Tibetan child’s used silver cuff bracelets that were used as brand new is the same as why they would harvest a prisoner’s organs to sell to others. Same reason.

glassesga

Apparently these sellers may have ran out of their stock of these clear glasses, though I’ve checked on Ebay for several months now (05/2017), there are no longer at least a pair being auctioned off every week like before, though sunglasses are still being sold by the same sellers. The sunglasses might have been a prerequisite for any opium smoker, and thus were confiscated in greater numbers? We don’t really know and can only speculate. Another possibility is that maybe less pairs of the clear ones were sold to begin with, so there were just fewer out there that were subsequently confiscated by the government and then sold.

glassesab

 

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