MK forum

Boy, from the various posts, we are getting the idea.

There was a notorious prison that had the words Arbeit Macht Frei above it's gate.

The people who went there were almost entirely innocent souls and the few that came out alive bore a number on their arm which reminded them where they had been and why. 69 years to this very day that prison was liberated by Soviet troops and the world learned the full horror of what had taken place in the name of the Master Race.

Numonohi was to some a prison, for me personally it felt that way. I knew I just had to survive and then I could be free. But a little bit of it will always be tattooed upon my soul. And 3 decades on, I feel a mix of emotions:

Disgust at those who preyed on innocent children.
Abhorrence for those who attempted to cover the crimes up.
Some sorrow that it has cost me any resemblance of a normal family.
A bit of thankfulness that I survived and survived well.
Gratefulness for the brave few who have fought for justice.
Relief that it was not just a figment of my imagination and that I was right all along.
Predominantly laughter instead of anger at the stupidity of propaganda and those who believed it hook, line and sinker.
A little annoyed that the my teenage years were ones of isolation and being shunned, of being told I was not good enough.

"Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work will make you free) was a lie. And "The Work" did not make far to many free either.

Here's a Monday "amen" for that post, Bemused.

They built a big fence at Numonohi to keep the bad natives out! And we threw candy and Jesus over the fence on Sunday and said to ourselves that we were good missionaries and MKs. We should have opened the gates and run the perverts and their protectors out. We should have marched them to the police station in Goroka and demanded they be imprisoned or deported.
Numonohi was opulent in the midst of poverty and the fence was built to keep it that way.
Tear down all the walls of NTM and lets see what is really being covered up and protected! If there is nothing to hide, where is the objection?

Do it before another monster ruins another innocent kids life!!!!!!

I remember when the idea was put forward that MKs at Numonohi should teach Sunday School in the surrounding villages and so off many went to do such.
By that time I'd begun to question what I was being taught and it was making less and less sense to me, so I never participated. I couldn't share/preach something that I wasn't that convinced of. Not so much that it was bad, but what was going on around me was a severe discredit to it.

But the locals were not welcome on the base at Numonohi, that was made very clear. They were allowed to work and trade only. And when one listened to the racial views of some of those in charge, it was easy to see why this policy was in place.

The question I would like to know the answer to is how on earth did these people end up as missionaries? Was it because on the mission field, they were far from prying eyes of those who would not tolerate what they were up to and they knew they lived in an environment that would tolerate their behaviour as long as they were useful and said the right things?

NTM took any one who would accept their way of thinking. There was always a job that could be found, no matter how unsuitable to be a missionary the person was. Look at how many missionaries managed one term when we were kids and then went home and never came back!!!!!!!!!!! That is how so many strange people ended up on the field and sometime the weirder you were the more spiritual you appeared.
Hells bells, some of those at Numonohi were seriously disturbed and if they were back home would have been in a padded cell waiting therapy. Is it any wonder so many MKs got damaged by being associated with such a concentration of devout nutbars!!!!!!!!

O.k. so I'm not exactly sane either, but at least I've got an excuse. I was an MK and I'm on night shift .

Now that is interesting. Alex Haley was also a sailor who visited the shores of "Downunder" and apparently it was while down here that his interest in writing developed. He started by writing letters home for sailors who had difficulty putting words together. He went on to write his family history in the well known classic "Roots".

And in case any one wonders, vegemite sandwiches are still popular Downunder (a line from the Men at Work classic song), possibly even more so now as research indicates that there is a link between Vegemite (and Marmite) and a lessening of the incidence of alzheimers.
Insomnia is not good for alzheimers, so I shall go make myself a vegemite sandwich, get back to sleep and stop rambling on about . . . .