Hey Shady!

[Jack Weber]

I disagree. He murdered 10-12 million people in the course of essentially 3 years. The holocaust in terms of the actual murder of Jews, Gypsys, Homosexuals etc. didn't start until 1942. Then, you have to look at intent. Did Stalin mean to starve the Ukraine which was easily the #1 cause of death under his regime? Did Mao mean to starve people in the great leap forward? There are good arguments for both sides. What cannot be argued against is that Hitler absolutely had the intention to murder those people. To me, that makes it worse. Numbers aren't everything.

I went on a holocaust trip and one of the people on it was Professor Robert Jan Van Pelt who is the world's foremost expert on Auschwitz. He made an incredibly poignant argument that the crematoria there are the most important buildings ever built in human history. They showed how low the human race could go. The buildings had no other purpose than the mass extermination of human life. I've never heard of any such similar buildings created in either China or the Soviet Union.

I'm not going to deny that Adolph Hitler,if given the opportunity,would have would have murdered far more than Stalin or Mao...

In Stalin's case,The Holodomor was a planned and managed famine because the Ukrainian farmers would not acquiece to his demands for the land and be forced onto state run communes...That famine was completely orchestrated by Stalin from Moscow.

I would say that Mao was simply a lunatic...I don't think he planned on killing as many people,but I also don't think he really cared...Sympathizers have always used the weak "means to an end" arguement...

As far as there being no edifices of industrialized murder in the Soviet Union goes,that's incorrect...The Molotov-Ribbentrop meetings were not just about non-agression pacts...They were also about the Soviets learning how to get rid of "undesirables" more efficiently and effectively...

I'll try to find it,but I've seen a map of where all the concentration/death camps in the Soviet Union were...It dwarfs the NAZI maps I've seen...

[Jack Weber]

http://www.gulagmaps.org

An interesting,if not chilling site...

NAZI Concentration camps and Extermination camps..

http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blmap.htm

Edited August 28, 2010 by Jack Weber

[nicky10013]

I'm not going to deny that Adolph Hitler,if given the opportunity,would have would have murdered far more than Stalin or Mao...

In Stalin's case,The Holodomor was a planned and managed famine because the Ukrainian farmers would not acquiece to his demands for the land and be forced onto state run communes...That famine was completely orchestrated by Stalin from Moscow.

While you certainly could be right, the problem is there isn't any documentary proof that it was an orchestrated famine. This from a guy who unlike Hitler actually signed documents for things like purges in the mid 30s.

I would say that Mao was simply a lunatic...I don't think he planned on killing as many people,but I also don't think he really cared...Sympathizers have always used the weak "means to an end" arguement...

All dictators don't care. If they do, they're in the wrong line of work.

As far as there being no edifices of industrialized murder in the Soviet Union goes,that's incorrect...The Molotov-Ribbentrop meetings were not just about non-agression pacts...They were also about the Soviets learning how to get rid of "undesirables" more efficiently and effectively...

I'll try to find it,but I've seen a map of where all the concentration/death camps in the Soviet Union were...It dwarfs the NAZI maps I've seen...

The Soviets purged people but never in the same manner or on the same scale as Hitler. Death camps were merely death camps because people were worked to death. They didn't arrive to be executed immediately. It's awful either way but I personally see a difference.

[bloodyminded]

Well...It was brought upon becuase the Jews were actually Communist aparatchiks,and that's the reason they were exterminated...

Exactly. First of all, there wasn't six million, but 280 000.

Second, since the Jews were a bunch of foreign-minded commies, it was an understandable reaction by the misunderstood Fuhrer.

This would be common knowlege, if it weren't for the cabal controlling Hollywood, who have conducted the most staggeringly successful propaganda campaign in history.

[Jack Weber]

Exactly. First of all, there wasn't six million, but 280 000.

Second, since the Jews were a bunch of foreign-minded commies, it was an understandable reaction by the misunderstood Fuhrer.

This would be common knowlege, if it weren't for the cabal controlling Hollywood, who have conducted the most staggeringly successful propaganda campaign in history.

It's all there in Mein Kampf if the rest of the world would have the intelligence to decipher the words of the Great Fuehrer...

It's also in that great book "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"....

[bush_cheney2004]

....This would be common knowlege, if it weren't for the cabal controlling Hollywood, who have conducted the most staggeringly successful propaganda campaign in history.

Uh-oh...I think he means...gulp...Jews! What is it that attracts so many to this tawdry sport?

[Yesterday]

As far as books go,and if you want to know how the rise of the NAZI party began,rose, and fell,Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is the best source,IMHO...

I would also read Mein Kampf just to try to get your head around what Adolph Hitler was trying to say...

As far as the mass executions go,I would say that their are some schools of thought that say that the NAZI's tried to kill the Jews to cover up their horrendous treatment of them,vis avis things like the Warsaw Ghetto.Others suggest that it was always part of the plan,but only gained real favour after Adolph Eichmann proposed the infamous "Final solution to the Jewish question" and the military failings in Russia,such as Stalingrad...

Bloodyminded: One of the elemental classics (which, fair warning, I've never read...but it's more or less universally acclaimed) is Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews.

This is the book that really started the whole field we are here talking about.

Thanks you two...

[Sir Bandelot]

there were other parts of Europe that were more anti-semitic than Germany, but free of any murderous policies.

I think this is not quite fair to say. Some years ago I studied the question and found considerable evidence that all countries in Europe were involved in the holocaust. Exterminations camps were largely built in Germany, but there were some in other countries as well. And the Jewish people were shipped out from those other countries by train to the concentration camps. There is considerable evidence that many countries cooperated willingly to arrest and send off the jewish people, taking advantage of the German extermination system to solve the "problem".

I'm saying, many were NOT forced by the end of a gun barrel to cooperate. The list includes Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, Ukraine, Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, The Vatcan. Then there was passive complicity, abandonment of the Jews by Canada, Great Britain, The International Red Cross and the United States.

"Prime Minister Mackenzie King refused to allow 4,000 Jewish school children to come to Canada just prior to Hitler's march into France. All of those children became Holocaust victims."

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20050125/holocaust_poll_050124/

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/24372/romania-faces-facts-about-holocaust-complicity/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-German_cooperation_with_Nazis_during_World_War_II

http://www.forward.com/articles/10385/

http://www.wake-up-america.net/Remembering%20Ukraine%27s%20Unknown%20Holocaust.htm

http://www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/021906Freiberga.shtml#JP3

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/legacy/chap-4b.asp#chap4-11

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/57JMGA

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601555.html

[nicky10013]

I think this is not quite fair to say. Some years ago I studied the question and found considerable evidence that all countries in Europe were involved in the holocaust. Exterminations camps were largely built in Germany, but there were some in other countries as well. And the Jewish people were shipped out from those other countries by train to the concentration camps. There is considerable evidence that many countries cooperated willingly to arrest and send off the jewish people, taking advantage of the German extermination system to solve the "problem".

I'm saying, many were NOT forced by the end of a gun barrel to cooperate. The list includes Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, Ukraine, Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, The Vatcan. Then there was passive complicity, abandonment of the Jews by Canada, Great Britain, The International Red Cross and the United States.

"Prime Minister Mackenzie King refused to allow 4,000 Jewish school children to come to Canada just prior to Hitler's march into France. All of those children became Holocaust victims."

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20050125/holocaust_poll_050124/

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/24372/romania-faces-facts-about-holocaust-complicity/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-German_cooperation_with_Nazis_during_World_War_II

http://www.forward.com/articles/10385/

http://www.wake-up-america.net/Remembering%20Ukraine%27s%20Unknown%20Holocaust.htm

http://www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/021906Freiberga.shtml#JP3

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/legacy/chap-4b.asp#chap4-11

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/57JMGA

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601555.html

I recommend Saul Friedländer's: Nazi Germany and the Jews. It's a two volume history of the holocaust.

Firstly, the extermination camps of Operation Reinhardt, named after Reinhard Heydrich who designed the Final Solution were located solely in Poland. Poland was also a bastion of anti-semitism. However, underlying anti-semitism was present in all countries in Europe. Some of the countries you mentioned very much were forced by the gun barrel. The Vatican didn't actively participate though, and neither did Switzerland. Both didn't do much of anything for fear of Nazi backlash which was certainly something to worry about. A high school just opened up down the street from me. St. Maximilian Kolbe is the name of it. He's the patront saint of among other things, amateur radio and political prisoners. He printed pamphlets and used amateur radio against the Nazis. He was arrested and murdered in Auschwitz. One person escaped from the work detail so a bunch of men were selected to be executed as a warning to other would be escapees. A man who was chosen had a family so Kolbe volunteered himself rather than the other man. He was thrown into Block 11 (one of the most vile places I've ever been) where he was to be starved to death. After 3-4 weeks, he hadn't died while all the others had. Finally, the SS gave him a lethal injection.

As for countries abandoning the Jews, I think this is a matter of "hindsight is 20/20." Ships like the St. Louis were turned away and then there was the Evian Conference which declined more Jewish immigration, however, when thinking about those decisions I find it hard to look through the prism of being able to know what would happen in 1944. The holocaust didn't start in 1933. It happened in stages of escalation. There was no indication of a pending genocide at the time of those decisions. It's especially prescient to look at the fact that the US, a would be major destination of Jews which pretty much shut it's doors, had a system of segregation which at that time was similar to the policies put in place against the Jews in Germany. Furthermore, it was the middle of the great depression and economic nationalism reigned as much as anti-semitism did. Nobody wanted immigration of any kind.

Then there's the question of why didn't the Allies bomb the railways leading into the camps. THe problem is there is no way the bombs could be accurate enough to destroy a single set of railway tracks into the camps. Second, they were afraid of casualties. Third, they wanted to use the bombs to destroy German industry, which would've won them the war quicker and end the slaughter quicker. Was it the right decision? That will be argued forever. However, given the circumstances at the time I don't find those reasons to be non-believable.

[bloodyminded]

Uh-oh...I think he means...gulp...Jews!

You think?

Was it not an obvious enough allusion?

What is it that attracts so many to this tawdry sport?

People have theorized, but I have yet to hear a reason that seems satisfying. It would appear, ultimately, to remain a truly elusive-to-understanding phenomenon.

Edited August 28, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Yesterday]

Thanks for the book reference Nicky10013

[bush_cheney2004]

You think?

Was it not an obvious enough allusion?

Yes, a very poor substitute for the courage to actually be direct about your bigotry.

People have theorized, but I have yet to hear a reason that seems satisfying. It would appear, ultimately, to remain a truly elusive-to-understanding phenomenon.

Has always fascinated me....this relentless obsession with "Jews" compared to any other organized religion or group. Lots of other member examples here at MLW. Where does that come from?

[nicky10013]

Thanks for the book reference Nicky10013

Not a problem. The first is Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, the second is ibid: The Years of Extermination. The second won the pullitzer prize for non-fiction books. Excellent works.

[bloodyminded]

Yes, a very poor substitute for the courage to actually be direct about your bigotry.

So literal?

My post made reference to our Lictor-Redux poster's number of "280 000" Jews killed...a number magically inflated by godzilla knows what sort of magic.

Then I said the Jews were "commies" and so deserved to die.

Finally saying everyone was fooled because (ah, that old favourite!) "Jews control Hollywood" and had committed themselves to the biggest propaganda scam of all time.

And....you suppose that I've become a right-wing anti-semite, using the classic tropes, including railing against "commies"?

In the same post where I've recommended the great Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg as reading material?

Ah, well...at least Jack Weber understood, instantly and intuitively--not being a stupid dummy prone to embarrassing himself--that I was stating the literal opposite of my stance in a little sarcasm-post.

Has always fascinated me....this relentless obsession with "Jews" compared to any other organized religion or group. Lots of other member examples here at MLW. Where does that come from?

That's a good question; I'm not sure why you'd ask it twice.

Pehaps the lady doth protest too much; perhaps you don't much like the Jewish people? Think on it before you answer, lest you expose yourself.

Edited August 28, 2010 by bloodyminded

[bush_cheney2004]

....Ah, well...at least Jack Weber understood, instantly and intuitively--not being a stupid dummy prone to embarrassing himself--that I was stating the literal opposite of my stance in a little sarcasm-post.

And I was stating your reinforcement of a stereotype and Hollywood for whatever purpose. Frankly, I don't know how you would survive with America. LOL!

That's a good question; I'm not sure why you'd ask it twice.

Because I never get a good answer more than twice.

Pehaps the lady doth protest too much; perhaps you don't much like the Jewish people? Think on it before you answer, lest you expose yourself.

I don't think about "Jewish people" much at all...they are just people...except to you?

Edited August 28, 2010 by bush_cheney2004

[Bonam]

People have theorized, but I have yet to hear a reason that seems satisfying. It would appear, ultimately, to remain a truly elusive-to-understanding phenomenon.

Probably because they are one of the only (perhaps the only) historical minority group among Europeans that actually does well for themselves and often exceeds the achievements of other Europeans on average. Whereas other minority groups are reassuringly seen as incompetent, underachievers, etc, and thus can simply be ignored without concern, Jews are successful enough to elicit fear, jealousy, and hatred among people prone to thinking along such lines.

Edited August 28, 2010 by Bonam

[BubberMiley]

Has always fascinated me....this relentless obsession with "Jews" compared to any other organized religion or group. Lots of other member examples here at MLW. Where does that come from?

Good point. You never hear anyone on MLW talk about muslims. I wonder why that is.

[bush_cheney2004]

Good point. You never hear anyone on MLW talk about muslims. I wonder why that is.

Muslims in Hollywood...the Great Cabal! LOL!

[ToadBrother]

Probably because they are one of the only (perhaps the only) historical minority group among Europeans that actually does well for themselves and often exceeds the achievements of other Europeans on average. Whereas other minority groups are reassuringly seen as incompetent, underachievers, etc, and thus can simply be ignored without concern, Jews are successful enough to elicit fear, jealousy, and hatred among people prone to thinking along such lines.

That's pretty stereotypical. There were plenty of Jews in Europe who were hardly super successes, whatever the period. The two constants I can think of are, firstly, that the Jews, like the Roma/Gypsies (another target for widespread bigotry in Europe), tended to stick closer together in cloistered communities, thus being viewed as outsiders by a lot Europeans (and, of course, it is a primeval truism the world over that an outsider represents dangers guessed, half-guessed and unknown). Secondly, in a lot of places Jews were not permitted to own land or partake of the normal economic situations where they lived, and were thus essentially forced into mercantile and money-lending occupations (this feeds back into the first point).

Anti-semitism actually predates Christianity. The Greeks were the first people to seemingly take a dislike of Jews simply because they were Jews (I'd argue that the earlier empires like the Babylonians and Persians, had no particular dislike for Jews, but just wanted to hold a territory that since prehistoric times has been the highway between three continents). There were riots against Jews while Christianity was still a fledgling Jewish cult in places like Alexandria. That's pretty ironic, considering the profound effect Hellenic thought had on Judaism (and, by extension on Christianity).

Christianity, of course, added a new element to the seeming Mediterranean dislike/distrust of Jews, and the Gospels didn't really help, though I'd argue that these did not involve anti-Semitism in any way it existed afterwards, but more of a sectarian struggle between what still amounted to a small group of Jews trying, even by fallacious and prejudicial means to make their point that Christianity was Judaism 2.0, new and improved, and only rotten people like Pharisees would want to keep to the old ways. But however it happened, at some point the Church became predominantly Greek and Roman, and I think a lot of those people brought their own prejudices with them, reinterpreting these theological struggles to be found in the Gospels as denouncements of Jewry in general. Of course, as Christianity spreads into Europe and is picked up by the Germanic and Slavic peoples, the prejudices followed as well.

There's also the basic idea that the Jews have long been useful scapegoats. A prince who was having money troubles might raise up anti-Jewish sentiment to chase out a Jewish lender to which he was indebted (though often it was the unique position of the Jewish lender that forced Christian princes to save their hides). Attacks on Jews were clearly orchestrated on occasion, but other times seemed to just spontaneously combust. Behind it all was this backdrop of fear and distrust. If there was troubles in your neighborhood, maybe it was that damned Jew that had been selling silk in the town square.

Of course, then you enter the 19th century, the vast explosion of science also brought along a vast explosion in pseudo-scientific quackery. The two millennia-old anti-Jewish sentiment got wrapped in the vast and complicated Victorian racial theory; the stereotypes given the weight of seeming scientific pronouncement; Africans were sub-humans, somewhere between ape and man, the Oriental distant and strange, the European the apex of human development, and of course, the Jew, the greedy creature counting his coin, pulling strings, the villainous puppet master. It's directly out of this, fostered all over Europe, but in a major way in places like Russia (which is where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion came from) and among a new wave of European intelligentsia in Germany and France (and yes, Britain, who produced no small number of venomous Jew haters).

I view the Holocaust as the ultimate culmination of these forces. It wasn't the first time a European power had tried to get rid of its Jewry (Edward I booted them out of England and Ferdinand and Isabella forced them out of Spain, not to mention the riots and pogroms that had haunted European Jewry for centuries). I've long argued that if Edward I or Ferdinand and Isabella had had Zyklon-B at their disposal, the history of European Jewry would have come to an end a long time ago.

[Jack Weber]

So literal?

My post made reference to our Lictor-Redux poster's number of "280 000" Jews killed...a number magically inflated by godzilla knows what sort of magic.

Then I said the Jews were "commies" and so deserved to die.

Finally saying everyone was fooled because (ah, that old favourite!) "Jews control Hollywood" and had committed themselves to the biggest propaganda scam of all time.

And....you suppose that I've become a right-wing anti-semite, using the classic tropes, including railing against "commies"?

In the same post where I've recommended the great Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg as reading material?

Ah, well...at least Jack Weber understood, instantly and intuitively--not being a stupid dummy prone to embarrassing himself--that I was stating the literal opposite of my stance in a little sarcasm-post.

That's a good question; I'm not sure why you'd ask it twice.

Pehaps the lady doth protest too much; perhaps you don't much like the Jewish people? Think on it before you answer, lest you expose yourself.

Methinks Miss Regina's grasp of the not so cryptically sardonic is a little weak...

Perhaps a Gallagher,or better yet Bob Sagget,bit is more her speed?

[Jack Weber]

That's pretty stereotypical. There were plenty of Jews in Europe who were hardly super successes, whatever the period. The two constants I can think of are, firstly, that the Jews, like the Roma/Gypsies (another target for widespread bigotry in Europe), tended to stick closer together in cloistered communities, thus being viewed as outsiders by a lot Europeans (and, of course, it is a primeval truism the world over that an outsider represents dangers guessed, half-guessed and unknown). Secondly, in a lot of places Jews were not permitted to own land or partake of the normal economic situations where they lived, and were thus essentially forced into mercantile and money-lending occupations (this feeds back into the first point).

Anti-semitism actually predates Christianity. The Greeks were the first people to seemingly take a dislike of Jews simply because they were Jews (I'd argue that the earlier empires like the Babylonians and Persians, had no particular dislike for Jews, but just wanted to hold a territory that since prehistoric times has been the highway between three continents). There were riots against Jews while Christianity was still a fledgling Jewish cult in places like Alexandria. That's pretty ironic, considering the profound effect Hellenic thought had on Judaism (and, by extension on Christianity).

Christianity, of course, added a new element to the seeming Mediterranean dislike/distrust of Jews, and the Gospels didn't really help, though I'd argue that these did not involve anti-Semitism in any way it existed afterwards, but more of a sectarian struggle between what still amounted to a small group of Jews trying, even by fallacious and prejudicial means to make their point that Christianity was Judaism 2.0, new and improved, and only rotten people like Pharisees would want to keep to the old ways. But however it happened, at some point the Church became predominantly Greek and Roman, and I think a lot of those people brought their own prejudices with them, reinterpreting these theological struggles to be found in the Gospels as denouncements of Jewry in general. Of course, as Christianity spreads into Europe and is picked up by the Germanic and Slavic peoples, the prejudices followed as well.

There's also the basic idea that the Jews have long been useful scapegoats. A prince who was having money troubles might raise up anti-Jewish sentiment to chase out a Jewish lender to which he was indebted (though often it was the unique position of the Jewish lender that forced Christian princes to save their hides). Attacks on Jews were clearly orchestrated on occasion, but other times seemed to just spontaneously combust. Behind it all was this backdrop of fear and distrust. If there was troubles in your neighborhood, maybe it was that damned Jew that had been selling silk in the town square.

Of course, then you enter the 19th century, the vast explosion of science also brought along a vast explosion in pseudo-scientific quackery. The two millennia-old anti-Jewish sentiment got wrapped in the vast and complicated Victorian racial theory; the stereotypes given the weight of seeming scientific pronouncement; Africans were sub-humans, somewhere between ape and man, the Oriental distant and strange, the European the apex of human development, and of course, the Jew, the greedy creature counting his coin, pulling strings, the villainous puppet master. It's directly out of this, fostered all over Europe, but in a major way in places like Russia (which is where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion came from) and among a new wave of European intelligentsia in Germany and France (and yes, Britain, who produced no small number of venomous Jew haters).

I view the Holocaust as the ultimate culmination of these forces. It wasn't the first time a European power had tried to get rid of its Jewry (Edward I booted them out of England and Ferdinand and Isabella forced them out of Spain, not to mention the riots and pogroms that had haunted European Jewry for centuries). I've long argued that if Edward I or Ferdinand and Isabella had had Zyklon-B at their disposal, the history of European Jewry would have come to an end a long time ago.

Absolutely...

If the Grand Inquisitor Tomas De Torquemada had got his way,Judaism would have been repudiated and wiped out as being "wicked"...

What else can be inferred from confessing the "sin" of being a Jew,and either be forcibly converted to Christianity or executed?

[season331]

You look like a young Eric Idle!

Brings to mind oddles of wacky roles. Neighbors, buddies, maybe an over protective dad in a teen romantic comedy!

John Karyus

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004030/

http://tookuspookus.com/

____________________________________________

pyramid | fun word game

[bloodyminded]

Of course, then you enter the 19th century, the vast explosion of science also brought along a vast explosion in pseudo-scientific quackery. The two millennia-old anti-Jewish sentiment got wrapped in the vast and complicated Victorian racial theory; the stereotypes given the weight of seeming scientific pronouncement; Africans were sub-humans, somewhere between ape and man, the Oriental distant and strange, the European the apex of human development, and of course, the Jew, the greedy creature counting his coin, pulling strings, the villainous puppet master.

An excellent point in an excellent post, TB.

I highlight this portion of it because it aligns so well with exactly what I noticed while perusing some racist discussions on another political board (which I have linked to, since I cruelly wished others to view the remarkable and absurd poison that is the contemporary White Supremacist movement). The Jews, in a way, are given a sort of grudging respect--the WP movement sees Jews as profoundly, globally powerful, after all, and this movement respects nothing if not Power. The Jews are certainly evil (I should probably use scare quotes, so that geniuses like bush_cheney2004 don't unironically take this as my personal view)...but they're not at the subhuman level of the "two thirds human" blacks.

Edited September 3, 2010 by bloodyminded

[bloodyminded]

Methinks Miss Regina's grasp of the not so cryptically sardonic is a little weak...

Perhaps a Gallagher,or better yet Bob Sagget,bit is more her speed?

Not the stand-up Bob Saget, but the earnest "Full House" character.

[Jack Weber]

Not the stand-up Bob Saget, but the earnest "Full House" character.

Wow...

The Bob Saget stand up is bad,but the Full House Bob Saget is just dreadful...