More than 2,000 survivors and relatives gathered in Paris on a recent day, in front of the Shoah Memorial Monument, to commemorate the memory of the 76,000 members of the French Jewish community sent to concentration camps during World War II.
The same weekend a group of Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht regulars were trying to take over Fort Washita, Oklahoma, from the GIs defending the place, another group of reenactors.

Reenacting has always been popular in the United States, from groups recreating battles from antiquity, to the ones specializing in the War of Independence or the Civil War. But a growing segment of reenactors' organizations are the ones specializing in World War II, which include Allies and Axis troops. When asked about the motivation to recreate units belonging to a corps associated with atrocities and massacres, the participants all have a standard answer along these lines: "We maintain a strict non-political orientation, we are interested in History and preserving the history of World War II." So for the participants, it is a hobby, not a political statement. *FULL TEXT AVAILABLE ON DEMAND*