"Holocaust was a hoax"

[Kyriakos]

All true, except that the House of Commons and Congress have never passed motions to this effect, and these speak for the nation. It's like saying Israel denies the Armenian genocide because Shimon Peres said so, despite plently of politicians acknoledging it.

That is the misleading part i mentioned, that you present the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by all three regional parliaments in Britain, along with 43 of 50 US states as being "like" some israeli politicians recognizing it. It is not "like" that at all. The first are official governing bodies, regional and state, the second is just some individual politicians.

 

[Tahuti]

That is the misleading part i mentioned, that you present the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by all three regional parliaments in Britain, along with 43 of 50 US states as being "like" some israeli politicians recognizing it. It is not "like" that at all. The first are official governing bodies, regional and state, the second is just some individual politicians.

Israel, the USA and Britain all have in common that they do not recognize the Armenian genocide at a national level by the force of legislation they can but choose not to enact. Neither Sub-national governments nor individual politicians may make foreign policy - and god forbid so - and so their opinions are equally irrelevant.

 

[Kyriakos]

Israel, the USA and Britain all have in common that they do not recognize the Armenian genocide at a national level by the force of legislation they can but choose not to enact. Neither Sub-national governments nor individual politicians may make foreign policy - and god forbid so - and so their opinions are equally irrelevant.

That the laws passed by Regional and State governments are as irrelevant as the views of individual politicians is just your own view. Which is, again, why i named your claim as misleading. Moreover, the recognition of a real genocide is by no means reduced to "foreign policy". Such a view was exactly what i feared was gearing your original, misleading to me, statements, so in retrospect it seems this clarification was quite useful.

 

[Domen]

It's hard to stay good friends with Turkey without also tacitly denying that the Armenian genocide took place.

Israel is very good friends with Turkey.

This. And also denying other genocides is a good way to keep your own genocide as something totally unique.

So i do not think the Jewish genocide should be the only one presented as important.

It is so important because it took place relatively recently and in a part of the world which was and is considered as very civilized (compared to for example the Rwandan genocide). Nowadays nobody remembers about the genocide in Baghdad in 1258 commited by Hulagu Khan, for example.

And Baghdad was probably the largest city on Earth at that time.

Synonym of an evil guy nowadays is Hitler, not Hulagu (even though both have something in common - H as the first letter).

 

[Domen]

As for comparisons of Stalin and Mao to Hitler and numbers of their victims, etc.

Please note that Stalin and Mao had much more time to commit crimes than Hitler.

Hitler killed most of his victims between 1941 and 1944 - just over four years.

And absolute majority between 1939 and 1945.

So Hitler most likely had a "better score" of victims / year than Stalin and Mao...

 

[GhostWriter16]

I've had some arguments with them before. They claim that there was no plan of extermination, and that the deaths (which they say are exaggerated) were due to food shortages at the end of the war.

In real life, or only we-know-where?

The people in we-know-where MOSTLY aren't neo-nazis. Even those that do argue this way.

I'd say that criminal responsibility for it's denial is even more idiotic than the denial itself.

"Not disputed" insofar as no legitimate historian would make that claim that Stalin and Mao deliberately killed anything like the number of people who died in the Holocaust, so there is nothing to dispute.

We could claim that the total number of needless deaths under those regimes, as a result of the Ukrainian famine, purges, Great Leap Forward, etc., exceeded those under the Nazi government, but to compare this so directly with the Holocaust would be to suggest that the Holocaust was not a matter of malice or ideology, but simply of incompetence and indifference, something which I would be very wary of suggesting, because it seems a subtle form of Holocaust denial itself.

Who cares if it was "Accidental"? I seriously doubt the tyrants cared how many people they killed.

As for comparisons of Stalin and Mao to Hitler and numbers of their victims, etc.

Please note that Stalin and Mao had much more time to commit crimes than Hitler.

Hitler killed most of his victims between 1941 and 1944 - just over four years.

And absolute majority between 1939 and 1945.

So Hitler most likely had a "better score" of victims / year than Stalin and Mao...

Who cares how LONG it took to commit your genocide? All that matters is that it happened.

 

[Traitorfish]

Nowadays nobody remembers about the genocide in Baghdad in 1258 commited by Hulagu Khan, for example.

And Baghdad was probably the largest city on Earth at that time.

Synonym of an evil guy nowadays is Hitler, not Hulagu (even though both have something in common - H as the first letter).

I don't think the sack of Baghdad can be described as "genocide", as the term is conventionally understood. Baghdad was a cosmopolitan city containing people of many ethnic backgrounds, and the Mongols had no particular grudge against any of them.

"Genocide" doesn't just mean "killed a lot of people", and might well involve killing nobody at all.

Who cares if it was "Accidental"? I seriously doubt the tyrants cared how many people they killed.

Surely you understand the distinction between a death resulting from malice, and a death resulting from negligence?

 

[Tahuti]

Moreover, the recognition of a real genocide is by no means reduced to "foreign policy". Such a view was exactly what i feared was gearing your original, misleading to me, statements, so in retrospect it seems this clarification was quite useful.

It shouldn't be. However, in reality, it is. Denying facts can be politically expedient: Think of the Catholic opposition to Heliocentrism, Neo-Nazi and Arab Holocaust denial and creationism among Christian, Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists. Acknowledging a genocide, however real, or any other fact, is a political maneuver if it involves substantial political powers that take a very strong opinion on the matter.

Sub-national governments do not have to do any foreign policy tasks, so recognizing the Armenian genocide is a matter of concern within the given community, and has barely any consequences compared to when Congress, the Knesset or Westminster recognizes it. The Armenian diaspora and their sympathizers may give a significant pull towards recognition. Turkey and foreign policy interests aligned to it may want to do the opposite, as long as Turkey faces internal pressure to do so. And the national parliaments all take pressure from Turkey; sub-national governments and individual politicians, not necessarily.

 

[Glassfan]

...Nowadays nobody remembers about the genocide in Baghdad in 1258 commited by Hulagu Khan, for example.

And Baghdad was probably the largest city on Earth at that time.

To define our terms (AHD);

A genocide is a systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political or ethnic group.

A massacre is the act or instance of killing a large number of human beings indiscriminately and cruelly.

 

[Kyriakos]

To define our terms (AHD);

A genocide is a systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political or ethnic group.

It does not at all have to be of the entire group. If it was then not even the Jewish genocide would be a genocide.

*i underlined the term "entire" in the quote there, so as to make it easier to showcase what was wrong with it.

 

[Glassfan]

It does not at all have to be of the entire group. If it was then not even the Jewish genocide would be a genocide.

*i underlined the term "entire" in the quote there, so as to make it easier to showcase what was wrong with it.

I'll inform the people at American Heritage of your correction. Though I suppose the Nazi's did intend to exterminate the entirety of Juden within their grasp...

 

[Kyriakos]

I'll inform the people at American Heritage of your correction. Though I suppose the Nazi's did intend to exterminate the entirety of Juden within their grasp...

Sorry, i regret not being aware that "American heritage" (a dictionary?) is the final source of knowledge on the term genocide. It seems to me to be not in contention that a genocide does not have to be about the entirety of the group harmed in that extreme way. Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide) does refer to the 1948 UN resolution on the definition of Genocide, which again does not have to be about the entirety of a group being attacked thus.
However maybe to some the UN definition of Genocide is largely arbitrary, at least next to the one of "American heritage"

 

[Domen]

Recently I have been reading a book "Historia miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce" ("History of urbanization and townsmen in Poland") and an article "Grabieże szwedzkie w Polsce" ("Swedish pillage of Poland") written by NIMOZ (National Institute of Museums and Protection of Collections).

I must say that after reading about the scale of destruction inflicted upon Poland-Lithuania during the Second Northern War, I would call that a genocide. The scale of material and human losses was enormous - in terms of percentage they were bigger than Poland's losses in WW2.

Also the loss in culture was tremendous - 67 libraries, 17 archives completely annihilated. Etc., etc.

Urban population suffered much more than population in the countryside - this bactracked the level of urbanization to the 14th century.

Large cities suffered huge material and population losses but survived, while many smaller towns vanished completely or transformed into villages.

Some examples:

The town of Augustów had a population of 1770 people in 1616 and only 240 people remained there in 1662.

The population of 15 exemplary towns in the region of Podlasie in 1662 was only 38% of the population level from 1616.

In the town of Trembowla there were 345 dwelling houses in the 1630s and only 24 in the 1660s.

In the town of Kamionka there were 500 dwelling houses in the 1630s and only 90 in the 1660s.

In further 36 exemplary small towns the total number of dwelling houses was reduced from 6513 (100%) to 1797 (27.6%).

In the town of Gniezno (the first historical capital of Poland) only 7 dwelling houses existed in the 1660s.

 

[Kyriakos]

I was not familiar with the Second Northern War. I tried finding information on a genocide related to it, but although this was not easily possible for me i did read a wiki article about it in which among other things the following is claimed:

During the wars the Commonwealth <of Poland-Lithuania> lost an estimated 40% of its population as well as its status as a Great Power

I would be interested in getting this wiki claim verified if possible. Does seem quite extensive as losses for a single conflict, in which moreover the entire Poland-Lithuania was occupied (by Sweden and Russia).

Wiki article is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(history)

 

[Traitorfish]

Recently I have been reading a book "Historia miast i mieszcza&#324;stwa w Polsce" ("History of urbanization and townsmen in Poland") and an article "Grabie&#380;e szwedzkie w Polsce" ("Swedish pillage of Poland") written by NIMOZ (National Institute of Museums and Protection of Collections).

I must say that after reading about the scale of destruction inflicted upon Poland-Lithuania during the Second Northern War, I would call that a genocide. The scale of material and human losses was enormous - in terms of percentage they were bigger than Poland's losses in WW2.

Also the loss in culture was tremendous - 67 libraries, 17 archives completely annihilated. Etc., etc.

Urban population suffered much more than population in the countryside - this bactracked the level of urbanization to the 14th century.

Large cities suffered huge material and population losses but survived, while many smaller towns vanished completely or transformed into villages.

Some examples:

The town of Augustów had a population of 1770 people in 1616 and only 240 people remained there in 1662.

The population of 15 exemplary towns in the region of Podlasie in 1662 was only 38% of the population level from 1616.

In the town of Trembowla there were 345 dwelling houses in the 1630s and only 24 in the 1660s.

In the town of Kamionka there were 500 dwelling houses in the 1630s and only 90 in the 1660s.

In further 36 exemplary small towns the total number of dwelling houses was reduced from 6513 (100%) to 1797 (27.6%).

In the town of Gniezno (the first historical capital of Poland) only 7 dwelling houses existed in the 1660s.

Pretty long-winded way of saying that you don't know what "genocide" means.

It does not at all have to be of the entire group. If it was then not even the Jewish genocide would be a genocide.

*i underlined the term "entire" in the quote there, so as to make it easier to showcase what was wrong with it.

The ethnic group does not have to be successfully destroyed, but by definition the intent must be its destruction, or at least its destruction within a given territory. For example, the Nazis fully intended to destroy the Jews as a people in Europe, and ideally to destroy the Jews in their entirety. We call it a "genocide" not simply because it was an example of anti-Semitic violence (if that were so, any pogrom would be "genocide"), but because that intention was, for a time, seriously viable, and in many localities pretty much achieved.

 

[Evie]

Under current international definitions of genocide, and legal interpretation (ICTY and ICTR especially), your actions must aim at the partial or total destruction of a group, and "partial" means a significant portion of the overall group, enough that their loss would have an impact on the survival of the group as a whole.

The notion that any killing of a large number of people constitute genocide is laughably wrong in international law. It can constitute plenty of forms of war crimes and crimes against mankind, but genocide is absolutely contingent on the deliberate intent of wiping out a specific national, cultural, religious, etchnic, etc group, either a part of it or all of it.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Surely you understand the distinction between a death resulting from malice, and a death resulting from negligence?

At a micro level, yes. I don't believe someone who gets into an accident while driving drunk which leads to the death of an innocent person is morally equivalent to pulling out a pistol and shooting them in the head for fun.

When you have a monopoly on the right to use force, and when you "Accidentally" do it 20 million times, I don't really see the same distinction.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

In real life, or only we-know-where?

The people in we-know-where MOSTLY aren't neo-nazis. Even those that do argue this way.

We know where.

 

[GhostWriter16]

We know where.

I really, REALLY hope we're the only ones who know where, but probably not

We should tell them they're making the rest of us, and their movement, look bad.

Even if, hypothetically (And yeah, I know the odds of this are about as likely as finding Klingons on Mars) they were correct, they're still making us appear to be anti-Semites and they're gaining nothing... and I mean, NOTHING, for us by doing it.

That should be the end of it...

 

[Traitorfish]

At a micro level, yes. I don't believe someone who gets into an accident while driving drunk which leads to the death of an innocent person is morally equivalent to pulling out a pistol and shooting them in the head for fun.

When you have a monopoly on the right to use force, and when you "Accidentally" do it 20 million times, I don't really see the same distinction.

Why not?