What do you know about the holocaust?

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

What do I know of it...far to much to take it as lightly or to stupidly compare it to today's problems.

Europe has been activly anti-semtic for centuries, and it still is.

Nazis wern't lunatic fringe madmen, but everyday Germans expressing what a lot of them always felt.

Hitler was able to rise on a anti-Jew platform because many Germans felt the same way he did.

The Nuremberg laws passed without protest in Germany, because it was only Jews, so nobody cared.

When the Bad Wanassee conference decided on the "final solution of the Jewish question", this information was sumggled to the Vatican, yet the holy see refused to accept it and supressed it, having made deals with Hitler.

The west refused to believe the proof of the EinstatzGruppen, the death squads that followed the German army in to Russia to exterminate jews and commisars in the new east.

As the war went against Germany, Hitler deverted more and more resources to the extermination of the jews, so if he lost, at least his legacy would endure.

6 million Jews and 5.5 million others were liquidated between 41-45, many in Polish camps, camps the Polish underground reported to British intelligence, yet the reports were not believed.

In fact, many US officals and military personel were completly ignorant of it till they started over-running camps in Germany.

Germany carried out many "medical experiments" on Jews and other "undisirables" to test things like hypothermia and resistance to desease.

Average Germans denied knowledge of the goings on, but only a fool would have missed it, they knew, but it didn't matter to them.

Europe is still the same, even today, Jews are attacked for fighting for their lives, and terrorists are praised by Europe.

Thank god for the USA, we won't let Hitler's spirtual decendents finish the job.

No how, no way.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Flatlander Fox
Back to topic: I have been to Dachau, AND Auschwitz.

Dachau was a concentration camp, not an extermination camp.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
Approximately 6-7 millions perished from Nazi genocides and purges in Europe. The largest target group by numbers was Jews. Some other groups such as Romani (Gypsies), German mental patients, and german freemasons, surrfer more proportionally. The first group to be slaughtered was mental patients.

Thank-you for posting this. People forget too often that the Nazi policies were directed at any ethnic group or social group that they considered inferior, and you and AofA are the only people to mention others in this thread. But curiously, I didn't see any mention of Stalin's policies.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by Pellaken
will you also admit that the US and Germany started the war? if so, then we agree 100%.

Well, no, I don't agree. The various republics seceded for a reason. I don't think it makes the slightest bit of difference that the US and Germany supported them, because the reasons were good ones. If there had been a civil war in Canada in 1980 because the PQ won the election, would you blame De Gaulle or France for the war that followed?

R.III

 

[God]

Good one Bigbird. But you have to remember the Israelis are smarter than the Nazis. They are slowling killing all the Palestinians. Call them all terrorists, fire your bombs, accidentely hit the houses with the kids, take all the men away, torture them, don't give them food, and let the elders rot away so there won't be more Palestinians. Also not letting the doctors through to help the injured just to insure that they die. Just proves how cold-blooded some Israelis are. Not even letting the medical personel through. Now that is inhumane and how the Israelis are torturing their detainees. Not feeding them.

What do i know about the holocaust? Well the same stuff as everybody and i also read "Night" by Elie Wiesel as my own choice, because i wanted to read it. A scary book. Quite horrible some of those officers.

I also know that we are forced to learn about it in school and have to read books every year about it. And ofcourse we don't mention all the other people that were killed by the Nazis. They aren't important enough, apparently.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by ainwood
Thank-you for posting this. People forget too often that the Nazi policies were directed at any ethnic group or social group that they considered inferior, and you and AofA are the only people to mention others in this thread.

I'm sorry, I suppose I was so longwinded that you didn't bother to actually read my comments...

R.III

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Richard III
...Approx. 6,000,000 jews and roughly 1,000,000 gypsies, homosexuals and others deemed "undesirable" by the Nazi state were thus killed...

Sorry - right you are.

 

[Daaraa]

We had a former Nazi army private come and speak at our school.
It was a few years ago, but I told his story that he deserted and fled to the Canadian troops in Italy or Sicily. I think he was from Romania or Bulgaria and he spoke German.
He was Jewish but had "joined" another religion to hid the fact that he was Jewish. And to further hid the fact he joined the German army as a means to hide himself and protect his family and warn them of any danger.
He knew a little bit about the concentration camps through relatives, friends, rumors etc but that was it. He said he was mever in A group of other soldiers in his unit suspected that he was Jewish and teased him about it. However, he was well liked by the Sergent and Major attached to his group because he had saved thier lives from something. (I can't rememeber all the details but I'm trying)
The sergent warned him that the "bullies" were going to tell of thier suspicion to the gestapo. The private decided to desert that night. He said it took a few days (He couldn't remember) but he hooked up with a Canadian unit and left the German army.
Although he had never seen the camps, he had many friends and relatives who "disappeared" over the previous couple of years.
His father told him that in the case of danger he was to leave the best way he could but that he was to survive. (He said something about being the only son on his lineage or something like that.) He found out at the end of the war that his parents were killed as a result of him leaving the army but he knows for sure that all of them would have been killed if he had stayed.

In school we devoted a day to the victims and a day to the nazis. However, our teacher included all the "undesireables" as part of the victims teaching the holocaust as a crime against humanity. The nazis the teacher portrayed as soul-less and blinded.
We then spent the next few days talking about other genocidal acts in the past and present (bosnia).

There is a critic of the holocaust that lives in the area saying the numbers are exaggerated and that it was a plot by the jews for sympathy or something like that.
Our teacher said that the numbers probably are not all correct, but even if it were a hundred, ( I think he quoted from the Bible about the story of abraham trying to save a city his brother was in if God found 20 good people would God destroy it) it would still be genocide and the numbers do not dimish from the crime.

 

[Flatlander Fox]

The question is about the holocaust, not about Stalin.

I know about the "other" groups that were exterminated also, but focused my answer on the Jews that were killed there. A good point made, as many other people forget this also.

As for the extermination vs. concentration camp thing, which would you have rather been in? Was there a BIG difference? Let me know.


Once again for those slow of wit: Israel is not exterminating the Palistineans. Not slowly, not at all. But...

If they are doing it slowly, there are really mucking it up by allowing the Palistinean population to grow in the last 50 years.

Good point about the war vs. peace situation Richard, and you have shown excellent restraint in your Mid-East promise. Perhaps with BigBird and God's vision of a Palistinean Holocaust, there won't be any problem there in 6 months.

But somehow I doubt it.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Flatlander Fox
The question is about the holocaust, not about Stalin.

Other people touched on other cases of genocide. I was making the observation that this is a pretty big case of genocide, missing.

As for the extermination vs. concentration camp thing, which would you have rather been in? Was there a BIG difference? Let me know.

Yes. 1.) The 'worst' thing for inmates at concentration camps was the hopelessness of the situation. Those that still held hope could keep themselves alive; those that gave up died. In the extermination camps, there was no hope. 2.) In concentration camps, in the early part (early 1930's) some inmates were actually released. Didn't happen in extermination camps.

 

[Flatlander Fox]

Originally posted by ainwood
Other people touched on other cases of genocide. I was making the observation that this is a pretty big case of genocide, missing.

Yes. 1.) The 'worst' thing for inmates at concentration camps was the hopelessness of the situation. Those that still held hope could keep themselves alive; those that gave up died. In the extermination camps, there was no hope. 2.) In concentration camps, in the early part (early 1930's) some inmates were actually released. Didn't happen in extermination camps.

I agree on the first point entirely.

On the second point:

That's why the Dachau camp had those Zyklon showers? To keep up hope? Or to get rid of the ones who had no hope?

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by ainwood


Dachau was a concentration camp, not an extermination camp.

What's the difference??? Daschau and Auschwitz both equal terror.

Anyway, I know enough about the Holocaust to know that none of us can begin to imagine what it was like for the Jews that lived it.

I know enough about it to know that it could happen again.....anywhere. It is up to you and me to make sure it doesn't happen again. How many Germans turned away because they considered themselves 'patriots'. Or because they didn't want to be thought of as unpatriotic?

I thought the post by BigBird was thought provoking at the very least. There certainly are some ironic comparisons to be made. Obviously the mistreatment was to vastly different degrees. And the threat to Israelis is far less 'imagined'. Still, I must say, "Hhhmmm....".

 

[pavelsu]

Average Germans denied knowledge of the goings on, but only a fool would have missed it, they knew, but it didn't matter to them.

Europe is still the same, even today, Jews are attacked for fighting for their lives, and terrorists are praised by Europe.

Thank god for the USA, we won't let Hitler's spirtual decendents finish the job.

No how, no way

What stupid!

 

[knowltok2]

Originally posted by pavelsu

What stupid!

Eloquent.

Concentration v. Extermination: Yes, there was a difference. Not much of one, and the distinction doesn't have much of a bearing on the discussion.

Perhaps with BigBird and God's vision of a Palistinean Holocaust, there won't be any problem there in 6 months.

Peace in our time.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Flatlander Fox


I agree on the first point entirely.

On the second point:

That's why the Dachau camp had those Zyklon showers? To keep up hope? Or to get rid of the ones who had no hope?

The Zyklon showers were installed but never used. The feeling was that they were too close to the German Guards' accomodation, and they were worried about the gas drifting over to their families.

Note that very few jews were actually sent to Dachau anyway - it was mainly political prisoners, and other undesirables.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by VoodooAce
What's the difference??? Daschau and Auschwitz both equal terror.

One was set up specifically to murder people. The other was set up to imprison and provide a source of forced labor.

Anyway, I know enough about the Holocaust to know that none of us can begin to imagine what it was like for the Jews that lived it.

And the other prisoners.

 

[cleopatra143]

I agree with the earlier post about American's being taught about the war. WE even teach our children about the "bad" things that Americans have done to Indians and the Japanese during WWII. I know for a fact that most European countries don't teach things they don't think are fundamental to their nationalism.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Originally posted by pavelsu

What stupid!

Best explain, sonny.

And if it's an insult my way, you are gone.

 

[Padma]

I have long been a student of history, and WWII has been a 'favorite' era. Suffice it to say I know much of the Holocaust; the millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other "undesirables" who were killed.

I know I received some of this knowledge from school, but that was 30 - 40 years ago, so how much came from that and how much on my own I don't know. But WWII was much closer then, and most of us had parents who fought in the war, making the whole subject that much more intense.

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
Europe is still the same, even today, Jews are attacked for fighting for their lives, and terrorists are praised by Europe.

Thank god for the USA, we won't let Hitler's spirtual decendents finish the job.

Pavelsu called that 'What stupid', which may not be eloquent, but he has a point. Still I don't mean to insult you, but you obviously don't have such problems. So todays Europeans are 'Hitler's spiritual descendants'?
I'm really annoyed of this habit that people critisizing Israel are called antisemites. That is nothing but stupid and ignorant, and shows every sign of opressive propaganda!
I mean, there are people (also Jews) in Israel who critizise Sharon, are they antisemites too???

Of course there is anti-semitism in Europe, denying that would be a big mistake. No question that it has to be fought. But let's put it in perspective!
1. There's much more hatred towards Arabs in Europe than antisemitism, at least in those countries where there are both Arab and Jewish minorities. So Europe is hardly pro-Arab.
2. 'Thank God for the USA'...
Do you have the slightest idea about the amount of antisemites in the U.S.? The US is the main base for Neo-Nazis today. Things like 'The Jews own Hollywooda and the media' or 'The Jew Media' are far more common in some places than they are in Europe.

Hitler was able to rise on a anti-Jew platform because many Germans felt the same way he did.

Check a history book, Hitler did not 'rise on a anti-Jew platform', other issues were far more important, besides that he not even had a majority. That doesn't mean there was no widespread antisemitism but you're overexaggerate the importance of it for the people.

The Nuremberg laws passed without protest in Germany, because it was only Jews, so nobody cared.

That, as Goldhagen's 'Willing Exucutioners' title, is an insult for the thousands of people who died for 'caring'.
Sure it weren't enough, but does that mean the ones who cared were worthless?

Average Germans denied knowledge of the goings on, but only a fool would have missed it, they knew, but it didn't matter to them.

This is a far too complex issue to give a judgement in one sentence, not every single person knew about it, many did of course, but as with the other things you are generalizing too much for my taste.