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Auschwitz and other mass murder
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Subject: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Steve Parkes Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:46 AM It's difficult to make this point without sounding as though I'm detracting from the horror and revulsion of the Nazi extermination programme, but believe me when I say I don't mean to do that. What I want to say is: don't let us forget all the other horrors that have gone on in our lifetimes. The Nazis killed ten million non-jews (I think -- the numbers don't matter, it's the fact that's important); Stalin killed similar numbers of Russians; I can think of the civil wars in Biafra, Rwanda, Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia and more ... mass murders are still taking place today. I suppose the particular horror of Hitler's works is the enormous organisation that was created to make it happen. Please don't forget -- it's not history, it's happening NOW. It will happen again, and I can easily believe it could happen on the same scale as before. I wish I could say something constructive now, But I can't. Steve |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Once Famous Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:49 AM To us Jews, please believe that the numbers DO matter. all of it is horrific. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Steve Parkes Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:58 AM Sorry Martin -- I meant the precise number is less significant than the intention to commit murder on such a scale. Maybe that's the same thing after all. Steve |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Amos Date: 28 Jan 05 - 12:02 PM I don't think it was ever done with as much technology, organization and institutionalized evil mechanism as it was in Germany -- it was as if every ability of the human mind from organizational know how to chermistry to logistiocs and engineering were all suddenly bent to a hugely destructive intent; that is why it epitomizes the worst that humans can become -- not just waves of destructive power and passion, but organized and knowledgeable and calculatingly evil. A |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: The Shambles Date: 28 Jan 05 - 01:04 PM Possibly the biggest factor was that intelligent and educated men of the law changed the laws of a civilised land - and first made all of it perfectly legal. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST,Chief Chaos Date: 28 Jan 05 - 01:19 PM Lets not forget the "Trail of Tears" and the Spain conquering South America. From what I've read their were a few million aztec that died from just the diseases the conquistadors brought with them. Not to mention the actual "war". And they say there is no need for Environmental Impact Statements! Anybody whose interested, there's a good holocaust museum in D.C. next to the mint. Light a candle and pray that it all stops! |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Bill D Date: 28 Jan 05 - 01:34 PM unless you are in the candle business, I'd think that education and voting would be more productive. If prayer could have stopped this evil, it would be just a rumor by now. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: The Shambles Date: 28 Jan 05 - 01:55 PM This site reviews a fine TV film called Conspiracy. This was based on the surviving minutes of the meeting (mainly of lawers and ex-lawyers) - which coldly decided the fate of so many. http://hem.passagen.se/lmw/conspiracy3.html |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Raedwulf Date: 28 Jan 05 - 02:12 PM Amos - Think again. Stalin did it, & did it better. I believe the standard estimate is something like 20 million. I'm not entirely sure what the proportion of Jews was, but a vague memory says Stalin killed more than Hitler did (perhaps only because he started with more). |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Once Famous Date: 28 Jan 05 - 02:45 PM raedwulf, Stalin did it but not better. Who was the Dr. Josef Mengele type that reported to Stalin? Please read the article at this URL: http://remember.org/imagine/doctors.html There is only one Holocaust that towers above all other atrocities. Especially of so called educated men. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Raedwulf Date: 28 Jan 05 - 04:36 PM So what are you saying Martin? All those people that Stlin killed are less important than the Jews that Hitler slaughtered? "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just a statistic" as Stalin (more or less, I don't have the exact quote to hand) said... How nice to have your small-minded, ego-centric, Judo-centric view of the world that considers that there has only ever been one Holocaust. So presumably Cambodia doesn't matter to you? Or Rwanda? Or... Because lots of people have died at various times, and whilst I've never actually seen any statistics calculated, I would not be at all surprised to find the Holocaust does not come top of the averages of "People massacred / available world population". There have been too many Holocausts, Martin, because it's all too easy to channel human nature in that direction. Oh, & I read your link. Puerile. An essay from a teen with enough intelligence to follow the forms of institutional learning (quoting 'authorities' left, right & centre), but without the background, understanding & knowledge to make any sort of sense of an event that she never experienced. What did you think that link proved exactly? What's worse about Mengele's worthless unscientific experiments, than burning alive several hundred people who sought sanctuary in a church (Rwanda), or working them to death on starvation rations (e.g. Buchenwald or Cambodia in general)? Everyone's dead in the end... If you know history, instead of looking at just the limited set that you can use as a stick to beat everyone else with (which might not be true of you, Martin, but given your general attitude & behaviour on this board over time, you've no grounds for complaint if you're judged by your posting history), the scary thing is that the Hitlers throughout history have not been evil. Just people that were utterly convinced they were right & acting in the best interests of their people... |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Peter K (Fionn) Date: 28 Jan 05 - 04:38 PM Most European countries, including the UK, have been observing Holocaust Day on 27 January for about five years, and not before time. That they do so is due in part to the unstinting efforts of a family near Lincoln whose extraordinary work you will find HERE if you are unable to visit their Holocaust museum and research centre. The family behind this project, are wholly unconnected with the Jewish community. They just thought after visiting Yad Vashem how ridiculous it was that people had to travel to the middle-east to find out about a crime that went on in the heart of Europe. So they put that right in their own home, out in rural countryside, and now world statespeople beat a path to their door. This was well before Shindler's Ark/List, and the exponential growth of the US "Holcaust industry" (as Norman Finkelstein has called it). Much as I applaud their work, I am uneasy about commemorating the Holocaust specifically - not out of any disrespect to its victims but because it tends to let us off the hook by making genocide a specifically German crime when the reality, as I've said here before, is that we all have blood on our hands. I could understand Martin's rage if it was about,say, the way 9/11, is seen in relation to far greater crimes, but in relating one genocide to another I think there is a degree of common ground. Consider Rwanda. This occurred some time after the Smiths had completed their project, with its over-arching aim to help ensure, through education, that "never again" would come to mean just that. How then could they ignore Rwanda? It is a tribute to their tact that they have brought Rwanda and other crimes within their aegis without offending their core supporters (who include just about every Holocaust survivor in the UK). Don't think that Rwanda wasa spontaneous onslaught. It was preceded by extensive use of "hate radio" to dehumanise the Tutsis (and anyone else unaceptable to the Interahamwe youth movement). Within a day, some 690 road blocks were established in the capital, Kigali. That required serious organisation. And after 100 days nearly a million people had been killed, mostly with machetes. Much as comparisons can be invidious, it is worth noting that this rate of slaughter exceeded nearly five-fold the rate at which the Nazis, with their industrialised processes, exterminated Jews (and others). Steve, I think it is probably right to count as genocide the crimes of the Ustashe in Croatia and Bosnia, 1941-45.Most historians put Serb deaths then at 700,000 and of course all the Jews (30,000?) and Roma were murdered apart from those the Ustashe paid the Nazis 30 deutchmarks a head to take away.This was a planned process, announced in advance in chilling detail. Thousands who were not murdered were driven out or forcibly converted to catholicism. It would be stretching a point to class the 1990s crimes in the Balkans as genocide, if that is what you were implying, Steve. All sides were guilty of crimes, and Tudjman (who always counted on much support from the US) is more despised than Milosevic by many Bosnians. The ICTY, largely financed by the US, could hardly be said to have played an even hand. For instance three Croatian officers who admitted their part in serious war crimes, and testified against colleagues, have been largely ignored by successive ICTY prosecutors. Unlike witnesses against Serb crimes, they were put on no protection programme, and at least one of them has since been murdered. At Srebrenica maybe 4,000 people were murdered out of 40,000 in the region of that enclave - this 40,000 being only a small part of the Muslim population in Bosnia. A crime unqestionably, but it was mindless vengeance, not genocide. (Many from the enclave had been involved in trashing some 117 surrounding Serb villages and their populations.) And is it not a strange form of genocide to separate out women and children and murder only the men of fighting age (who were originally singled out to be vetted for war criminals, which was the practice of all the fighting factions)? But from the plight of the Armenians onwards the last century and, alas, this one, are littered with examples that should show us that in other circumstances any one of us might be steered into the depravity that makes these things possible. And the easiest way to manipulate us in that direction is to spread fear through the masses. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Mr Red Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:14 PM Although it doesn't diminish the horror, for the record. Belson was not the same as Auschwitz It is often quoted as a death camp, all the indications were at the time that it was a forced labour camp and in the latter stages of the war the logistics and maybe priorities of getting food to the camp were difficult in the extreme. I have never seen the film but media people who were alive at the time report they saw a film of the surrender/handover of the camp to the British commander who had just arrived with his troops. The German commondant handed over a symbolic leather stick, The Brit apparently took it without any emotion lifted up and brought it hard down on the German. I doubt it went public for at least 20 years. And a court marshal would be extremely difficult to administer. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Once Famous Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:26 PM raedwulf I didn't expect anything less than you diminishing the holocaust you anti-semitic skinhead Nazi. I'm sure your ancestors are smiling in their graves with their swastikas. As for my behavior. Your anti-semitism takes the cake. I wish I could put it in your ignorant face. You haven't got a clue what evil is unless you look at yourself in a mirror. BTW, Peter F. Norman Finkelstein is worthless and is a self-hating Jew. The Jewish community is aware of him and he is ridiculted in the Jewish press. You are also a Jew-hater. One of the biggest ones here. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Megan L Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:27 PM Each life is precious regardless of age sex colour ethnic origin or creed. the wanton destruction of ONE life diminishes us all. To those who have lost, the pain is deep regardless of who or what caused the death. No nation has the monopoly in suffering, all nations cause it and all people bear it. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Wolfgang Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:32 PM There's no equal to Auschwitz regarding planned mass murder. There's no other place of similar size on earth that has seen so may murders. More than 1000 a day were killed and burned to ashes and disposed of amounting to roughly 1,500,000 meticuously planned (you couldn't have three trains arriving at the same time, could you?) murders in less than four years. It saddens me that some arguments I read here (and in other threads) are undistinguishable from arguments by German Neonazis. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Once Famous Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:38 PM Bless you, Wolfgang. I appreciate you coming forward and saying that. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Big Mick Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:44 PM I find the comments linking other mass murders to be troubling also. While I absolutely agree that they are horrific to a degree that is almost undescribable, there are significant differences in the Holocaust. It was financed by a world power, a significant portion of the populace looked away, and the justification for the systematic rooting out and dispossessing of the Jews from their property was seen as legitimate. There is no parallel and when taken in its entirety, it ranks as the worst of crimes ever perpetuated. Mick |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Once Famous Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:46 PM Big Mick. My fedora is off to you, too for coming forward and saying that. Anti-semitism is at an all-time high on Mudcat at this time and I am sure many of you have noticed this. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST,The Shambles Date: 28 Jan 05 - 07:59 PM Insults have no place in this discussion and we have had more than enough senseless hate. We must never forget where this leads us and none of us would really ever wish to go there. All aspects of this sorry subject requires a little respect. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Rapparee Date: 28 Jan 05 - 08:53 PM I have a friend who is a Mennonite. As I'm sure you're aware, the Mennonites are a pacifistic church. Kevin has been nearly disenfellowshipped a couple of times, because Kevin believes that war is not always evil -- that sometimes war is not only justified, but demanded. Kevin told me he learned that when he visited Dachau. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: frogprince Date: 28 Jan 05 - 09:43 PM Please, if you are in D.C., do not miss the Holocost Museum. Many details of the presentation bring the horror of the thing home in an extremely effective way. It never occurred to me think of it as denigrating the tragedy of lives lost in other genocidal incidents. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: M.Ted Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:48 PM It is all to convenient to think that the Holocaust was conceived by madmen and perpetrated by inhuman monsters. It could never have happened without the willing participation and cooperation of millions of reasonable, educated, seemingly moral and law-abiding citizens. The obvious questions that we are encouraged to ask ourselves are, "Would I have recognized what was happening for what it was?" and then,"What would I have done?"--But the real question is, 'When I've witnessed evil, what have I done?' |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:16 PM The Nazis killed ten million non-jews
Give Us a BREAK!
How many Christians had the Jews killed through usery, starvation, and servitude? (Jews are not "kindest" of "God's creatures!)
It appears the universal score was was equalled - Perhaps, we can ALL move forward and stop tabulating questionable numbers. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Bobert Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:26 PM The planet can no long afford the *luxary* of war. It is too interconnected... Time for the US to set the example and create a Department of Peace and fund it accordingly... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Peace Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:34 PM Hey Guest of Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:16 PM : Are you Aryan Nations or American Nazi Party? |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Sorcha Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:44 PM Why is this murder like no other murder? Oh, come on, stop the juvinile crap, OK? |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST,The Shambles Date: 29 Jan 05 - 02:54 AM Statistic are statistics. Murder is murder. It is a crime yes and the best way to look at crime is never through statistics but through the effects of it upon individuals - just like you me and our families. The sex act itself is pretty much just the sex act. What makes the difference with the sex act - is the foreplay (or sometimes lack of it especially when this is in the form of rape). Many crimes other than murder are committed in these cases and especially - I would say, in the case of the events that slowly buit-up to what became the horrors of Auschwitz and other such camps. I feel that it is the foreplay involved in this particular atrocity that does not alone make it worse - or not so bad - as the other terrible genocides - but it is this aspect of it that possibly makes it different and why none of us must ever allow anyone to forget or excuse it. It may well be that (as suggested) it is mainly because we know less about the other events - for many reasons - and if we did find out more details of these - we may view them diffently. But it is unlikely that we will - so this is why always remembering all aspects of the well-documented holocaust is so important. Especially as over time we slowly loose those who survived to tell us their stories and the details - that many would prefer were not given. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: alanabit Date: 29 Jan 05 - 05:51 AM Our "Guest" at 11.16 has just hit a new low on Mudcat. Joe, please remove this despicable post. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Big Mick Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:11 AM Actually, Alan, I am opposed to removing the post of 11:16. I think it is important to let such disgusting people reveal themselves. Anti Semites, in fact all racists, are the most despicable incarnation of the creature known as man. Decent folks, reading that post or worse, hopefully will do some self examination. It's only in asking the questions that M. Ted posted that there is any hope for avoiding a repeat of these horrific atrocities. Who was it who said something on the order of, all it takes for evil to flourish is for one decent person to say or do nothing in the face of it. Mick |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Peace Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:23 AM I like the paraphrase also, Big Mick: All it takes for bad things to happen is for good people to do nothing. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Amos Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:40 AM President Bush and the poster of 11:16 on January 28 are both indicative of a species-wide malaise -- women who are unable, unwilling or too unaware to be good mothers, whatever the reason. Someone took a perfectly good potential human being and trained it crooked somehow. A shame... A |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Jeri Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:50 AM Mick: "all it takes for evil to flourish is for one decent person to say or do nothing in the face of it" It's DO. "Say" doesn't mean jack shit, and especially on the internet it doesn't mean jack shit. The more voices speak out, the more noise there is, the louder the noise, the less apt people are to hear the message and the more apt they are to tune it out. This is what gets me about people that say "Why didn't everyone speak out against that horrible thing?" Because it doesn't do anything except create noise. Powerful Keith Marsden song called "Idlers and Skivers," basically about the government of a certain time period in the UK screwing the poor, but it works for different places, different times, and different types of screwing. The last verse: But you haven't done your duty when you've sung about the poorSo flapping one's metaphorical jaws around the internet version of the office water cooler has absolutely no effect other than easing consciences. Oh, and keeping the jerk spouting the obnoxious stuff feeling significant and involved in the conversation. It's DO. And with regards to removing it, if we remove all the evidence of atrocity, in whatever form the evidence exists, it gets a whole lot easier to say that atrocity never existed, and the perpetrators weren't really as bad as you claim now, were they... |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:51 AM Unlike most lesser mass murders, the Holocaust didn't come from extensive simmering social (and only secondarily "ethnic") tensions. Instead the Nazi genocide was built on weird, largely faked-up racial "theories." Not even the most rabid antisemites before the Nazis openly advocated the slaughter of all of Europe's Jewish men, women, and children. The earlier maniacs, like American black-haters, just wanted them out of the country, or kept "in their place." And as others have noted, the genocidal horror was not created in some benighted backwards tribal society but in one of the most intelectually sophisticated and best educated nations in earth. It's pointless to compare holocausts. Stalin and Mao each probably killed more people than Hitler (though the 30 million other Europeans who died as a result of Hitler's invasion should not be left off his rap sheet). Auschwitz is an appropriate symbol for all of them, because it was the Nazis, after all, who invented the very idea of a "death camp." (At least the Aztecs and Mayas, also mass slaughterers of the innocent, truly believed that was the only way to keep the sun burning. The Nazis knew better.) |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: DMcG Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:58 AM Oddly, the guest of 11:16 clipped a section explicitly about non-Jews and then proceeded to rant as if it said Jews. It is always worth remembering that Hitler's ambitions were by no means restricted to eliminating Jews: some half a million gypsies were also killed in those same camps for equally racist reasons. And I would say that (in the part of the world I live) anti-semitic and most other racist comments are condemned by the majority of people, but such comments against gypsies are largely accepted. (My sister now lives near Bergen-Belsen, and I have not yet visited her without spending at least half a day in silent thought at the camp.) |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:26 AM I should not have omitted the Gypsies (Roma), equally victims of "weird, largely faked-up racial "theories." Had there been more of them, the Nazis would have killed more. In Nazi theory, Gypsies and Jews were considered, literally, not to belong to the human species. By contrast, the vast majority of American scholars during slave days (before the theory of evolution) recognized Blacks as being biologically human beings, though of a presumably "primitive" type. Nobody advocated their extermination. Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and other Slavs, by the way, were regarded by true Nazis as just human enough to be "Aryan" slaves after "final victory." |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Peace Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:36 AM "Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and other Slavs, by the way, were regarded by true Nazis as just human enough to be "Aryan" slaves after "final victory."" And many also helped willingly to exterminate Jews. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Peter K (Fionn) Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:55 AM It's worth keeping in mind that anti-semitism was virulent across most of Europe in the first half of the 20th century. The authorities in France, for instance, unhesitatingly handed over their Jews to the Nazis, though they were under no real pressure to do so. ("Occupied" France was in fact occupied by less than 3,000 German troops for most of the time.) This widespread hatred was an easy thing for the Nazis to exploit, and they had no difficulty getting the German business community on board either. Companies such as I G Farben and Bayer were complicit in the crimes, taking advantage of the ready supply of slave labour and human guinea pigs, and helping to design ever more efficient killing and cremation systems etc. And American investors in Nazi Germany, such as IBM and the Rothschilds, could not have been unaware of the intense and systematic persecution of German and Austrian Jews in the 1930s. The only reason anti-semitism was less evident in the UK (but still a strong undercurrent ebbing through the so-called Establishment) was that Britain had killed or driven out most of its Jews in medieval persecutions centuries earlier. Wolfgang, I have no problem with Auschwitz being emblematic of the Holocaust, and indeed of all genocides (thus I would like to see 27 January observed as something wider, such as Genocide Awareness Day) but the numbers game can be misleading. Deaths at Auschwitz are almost universally put at 1.1 to 1.5 million, with most latter-day historians now tending towards the lower estimate. Deaths at Treblinka were 700,000-850,000, but that was achieved in a single year, not five years like Auschwitz. Think what the story might have been if Treblinka had not been destroyed by an uprising of prisoners in August 1943. When I said Holocaust Memorial Day was a recent innovation, I meant to add that Jews have of course been commemorating the Shoah for 50 years or more. (It started to be known as the Holocaust only around 1960 and the Eichmann trial.) Yom HaShoah is observed on 27 of Nissan (which usually falls in March or April I think). I can't remember the significance of the specific date, but I think it might relate to the Warsaw uprising, which would be as appropriate an event as any to relate it to. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: M.Ted Date: 29 Jan 05 - 12:57 PM As long as we are mentioning American investment in the Nazi war machine--let us not forget Senator Prescott Bush, father of one American President, Grandfather of another--ÒBush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951Ó If you read carefully, you will note that he continued to manage Nazi investments well after the beginning of the war, and did not stop until the were seized by the US gov't-- |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Biskit Date: 29 Jan 05 - 01:18 PM Oh My God Bobert! I actually agree with something you've said,...I..I'm feeling light headed... |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Sttaw Legend Date: 29 Jan 05 - 01:19 PM Please cant we remember the poor people murdered at Auschwitz and elsewhere with respect and dignity, and not denigrate into petty arguments. We must never forget these happenings and strive not to allow it to happen again. As has already been mentioned it was educated human beings that were responsible in a very well organised manner. Rest in Peace. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Big Mick Date: 29 Jan 05 - 02:04 PM You know, Jeri, the saying goes with the doing. If one only does one or the other, it diminishes the final impact. One leads by example. But one draws attention by the rhetoric. If the opinion leaders in Germany at the time had said the right things, then led by example they very well could have stopped these folks. That is supposition, of course, but certainly a possibility. Like it or not, it is "around the water cooler" that action starts. Action starts with an idea well expressed. The part of your comment I agree with is that if your activism is confined to "the water cooler" then nothing will happen. But if one takes what is expressed around the water cooler and acts on it, then things happen. I am sure that there are many expressing opinions on this forum who have spent much of their lives to solving problems and causing societal change. Mick |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Jeri Date: 29 Jan 05 - 02:28 PM I don't think the saying typically comes with the doing. I think there are folks who think if they discuss something enough, they've gotten something accomplished. Mostly not. There DOES come a point when doing and saying are the same thing, but not unless you're talking to people who listen. The internet doesn't count, because people don't pay attention. They're often reading a message looking for something to argue with. At the very least, they're thinking about what they want to say, not what they're reading. Speeches, editorials, letters to the editor - these things might fit into the "doing" category. It's fine to talk, to debate, simply for debate's sake. Somebody might discover a question or think about an answer. It's not likely to make the world a better place though. Anyway, on topic... Human beings can and do find enough justification for just about everything, and small things gradually become more acceptable, more 'normal'. Sometimes those small things pile up into one big horror. I'll agree that there's nothing even close to the Holocaust in terms of numbers of people killed. It should be remembered, and it should be studied, if only so we can recognize that particular evil when it comes around again. The problem is that people may not see or admit it's starting because they're too busy making excuses and saying why now is different from then. Auschwitz was the horror it was not because of numbers of victims, but because of everything that had to happen in order for all those people to be murdered. All of the blind eyes turned, all of the rationalizing and excuses made for a charismatic leader, all of the desensitizing, all the lies believed because people wanted to believe, all of the questions left unasked because questioning wasn't patriotic, and all of it starting so small and slow and righteous that people never noticed - never imagined how it would turn out. We have to recognize that process when it starts in order to keep it from happening again, and it could happen again. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Amos Date: 29 Jan 05 - 02:50 PM Could and may be starting to. The answer is to strenuously question authority and reject automatic agreement, know why you decide what you do and double check your premises. Independent thought is a precious commodity in a brainwashed era. A |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST,The Shambles Date: 29 Jan 05 - 03:21 PM The answer is to strenuously question authority and reject automatic agreement, know why you decide what you do and double check your premises. Independent thought is a precious commodity in a brainwashed era. Amen to that..... |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Tannywheeler Date: 29 Jan 05 - 03:22 PM "Inasmuch as ye DO IT unto the least of these, my brethren, ye DO IT unto me." Jesus Christ (KJV, from memory, not looked up) Jeri, you and Keith Marsden are part of a fine chorus of Truth. Thanks for the goose. Tw |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Peter K (Fionn) Date: 29 Jan 05 - 04:27 PM If the opinion leaders in Germany at the time had said the right things - Big Mick. ...education and voting would be more productive (bulwarks against these crimes) - Bill D Unfortunately a big part of the problem was that Hitler and his cronies were saying exactly what people wanted to hear, and not just in Germany - though Germans as a nation tasted more humiliation between the wars than most have faced before or since. Hitler became chancellor perfectly legally, within the rules of Germany's democracy. The only political party large enough to have caused him serious difficulties was one run by the Catholic Church. But the Vatican signed a concordance with Hitler, a condition of which was that the Catholic church would withdraw from all political activity. This was done over the heads of the German hierarchy, among whom were some brave souls who did speak out against this blatant capitulation to the Nazis. The Vatican of course, and in particular Pope Pious XII (Pacelli), never wavered from its Nazi-accommodating stance, and played an active part at the end of the war in spiriting away many Nazi and Ustase suspected war criminals to safe havens in South America. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: Big Mick Date: 29 Jan 05 - 05:08 PM Fair enough, Peter. It is an important distinction to point out that Hitler, and the atrocities of the Nazi's in the name of the German people, didn't just come like a bolt out of the sky. They came over a period of time when the Germans were suffering, when the gap between the richest and poorest was rising, when the Government was struggling with the economy ... in fact, there are a number of lessons to be learned here that are relevant to today. If we isolate the atrocities of the Holocaust, and universally damn them as we should, as the most horrific crime ever perpetuated by mankind, and then examine the whole of the rise of the Nazi's, we will learn things that are relevant to today. I am not...... let me repeat this emphatically.... I am not comparing this country and it's leadership to the Nazi's. But when you examine the conditions that exist, there are some parallels that should be noted. This is not to imply we are headed down the same path. But the German people are no more or less evil than any other group of people. When one examines what led these otherwise decent folks to allow such horror in their names, then we can truly learn and grow. This is one of the reasons why I find jingoistic "we are the greatest nation in history", or the God is on our side, type of language so frightening and distateful. It is this type of philosophy that leads down frightening paths. Mick |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: dianavan Date: 29 Jan 05 - 05:51 PM Big Mick - You said that well. When you leave Dachau, there is plaque that says, Never Again in several languages. That is a way of lulling us into believing that it only happened once. For the Jews it only happened once but for millions of others it has happened before and will happen again. The first recorded case of systematic genocide occurred against the Cathars by the Roman Catholic church. How many North American native people died as a result U.S. govt. policy? How many cultures have been destroyed as a result of slavery. It happens over and over again. Until we wake up to hate mongering and quit closing our eyes to the death and destruction being waged against our 'so-called' enemies, we will continue to be ruled by manipulative politicians. |
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Subject: RE: Auschwitz and other mass murder From: GUEST,Skipy Date: 29 Jan 05 - 05:56 PM Lets just remember that it was only 2 generations ago & that we (the human race) are still very very capable of doing it again, but now we have computers any lots more technology! Oh! & Joe take that 11.16 individual out of the game. Skipy |
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