Jews and Germans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So strange to judge a current population for the sins of their past. I understand that the Holocaust was horrific. But, there are many people now that had no role in that. Germany is also far from the only country who has committed atrocities (we don't have to look much further than the U.S. where we all reside? Do you have the same views about the U.S.?)

One of my very best friends is Jewish. We've talked about this and she won't go to Germany, won't buy German cars, etc. I just think this is odd. One thing to harbor such feelings toward an actual nazi/nazi sympathizer. This is something I just don't get.

But they are still very racist and xenophobic. I don't blame your friend. I swore I would never by a Benz or BMW as a child. And I'm an AA... Of course then I moved to Arlington.

Germans are not more racist and xenophobic than the rest of Europe. You are a bigot.

If there were another WW, Europe would probably crack down hard on Muslims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hitler was pretty brilliant. If he had gone in and swiftly started to execute Jews then he would have been stopped right away. Instead he started to slowly alienate the Jews and slowly strip away their freedoms.

When people say they don't care of the NSA is listening to their calls, because they have nothing to hide, I always think of Hitler and his tactics. It's the same with more and more cameras going up to watch for crime and traffic. It's the government monitoring our movements. Stores are tracing our shopping habits by tracking our smart phones in their stores. Ever so slowly we are being tracked more and more.

If conditions are right, there's a charismatic enough leader, and the transitions are done slowly, it can happen anywhere.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

Alienation and limiting freedom is the MO of an abuser. Also, the slow creep into the area of citizens rights is what gun advocates proclaim to be worried about.

That doesn't make it less valid and I say that as someone who is not a gun nut. I don't own one and I wouldn't own one unless I moved to rural Alaska.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not justifying what they did but thought that most people did not know what the Germans were doing until after the war was over. Then they found out about the real purpose of the concentration camps and the ovens.

Well, no. Many Germans may not have known everything. But if there was a German who didn't know anything, it was only because they willfully refused to know.

The killing camps were not in Germany but in Poland and Ukraine (were much of Europe's Jewish population lived). What happened in these camps became widely known only after WWII. Germans could or even should have noticed the disappearance of Jewish neighbors and colleagues, especially in cities with sizeable Jewish populations. But many Jews also emigrated (forced), and unless one was familiar with their circumstances, it may not always have been clear why someone wasn't there any more.

I don't have any patience with this argument, really. Most Germans did not know all of the details. But they definitely knew that something bad was going on. People disappeared into the East and never came back. And soldiers came home from the East and told people what was happening.

They surely knew "something bad" was going on. There was the Kristallnacht, Jews were removed from government service and liberal professions, Jewish shops closed, Jewish properties were sold off by Nazis, and the former owners were not there no more.

The broad population did not know though that Jews went to killing camps. This was a revelation to the German civilian public as much as to the allied secret services after WWII. German soldiers had little to do with the camps; they were run by the Nazi bureaucracy, not the army.

Well to be fair it's almost impossible to say what "everybody" knew or what most people "should" have known. And then to add to that, it can be hard to parse out whether people heard rumors that they later ignored out of disbelief or fear. But there is a great deal of documentary evidence suggesting that various aspects of the Final Solution (the ghettos, the work camps "out East," the fact that the old, very young, and sick were being killed at these camps, the mobilized killing squads on the Eastern front, etc.) were known to a fairly large number of people, including regular Germans AND top officials in our government.

I think what tended to surprise the world at large afterwards was the sheer magnitude of the operation when all of these different pieces were finally put together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesitng thread. A few select comments:

1. Blame/feelings of revenge/forgiveness

I understand fully if people who have been affected personally by the Holocaust - suffered or lost family members - cannot forgive. This is asking too much. I also understand it for the second generation, whose parents have been affected, as most people identify with their parents and their suffering.

When blame and revenge remain predominant sentiments in the third generation and beyond though, things get difficult. The world needs to be able to move on, even from horrors like the Holocaust.

2. Was the holocaust a genuinely German thing

I would want to think "no" and side with those who say that it is primarily circumstance that makes mass murderers. Germany was humilated by military defeat in WWI, hyperinflation and the great depression, and turned to a charasmatic dictator who turned out to be extraordinaly evil. The task is to prevent situations where people are despearate enough that they would be drawn to charismatic dictators.

But it remains a question why, say, the US turned to FDR rather than a dictator, even though it was as badly affected by the great depression as Germany.

3. Jews and German/Palestinians and Israel

Not sure why a discussion about the first issue almost always turns into a discusson of the second. As if the history of Israel/Palestine would in any way reduce the evil of the holocaust or "put it into perspective". It doesn't.

Disagree about the 3rd generation. Listening to your grandmother tell horrible stories about her family being killed, having been told about her own rape, her separation as a young woman from her husband while he was in a work camp...

Yeah, I'm sure I can feel some ill will to the people who did those things to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

Those who have read Santayana's saying are condemned to repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

Those who have read Santayana's saying are condemned to repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it.

Does it make it less true? Absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

Those who have read Santayana's saying are condemned to repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it.

Does it make it less true? Absolutely not.

It does become a replacement for actually thinking, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

Those who have read Santayana's saying are condemned to repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it.

Does it make it less true? Absolutely not.

It does become a replacement for actually thinking, though.

Np. I see what you're saying. It can sometimes come off as a tired cliche if you use a certain phrase too much. However, I don't think it's that inappropriate. When the events of the Holocaust became widely known, the world at large "oh my god, how horrible, how could this happen, we'll never forget, we'll never let this happen again" etc. And yet the world community stood by in 94 and let nearly 1 million Rwandans be murdered in 90 days. UN peacekeepers were not allowed to intervene and some of the bodies and scenes of destruction were actually shown on news stations like CNN. There is NO WAY to pretend that we didn't know what was going on at the time. After the disaster in Somalia, it simply suited our president to pretend the massacre was a civil war rather than genocide.

Fortunately, the shame of standing by whole this happened caused Clinton to act in 98 with the Balkans. So I don't really think any lessons about the importance of learning from history are so unrelated to this topic.

[Anonymous]

I have done a lot of research about who knew what was going on. I know of Jews who were in the Warsaw ghetto (and escaped) who did not know what was going on until the end of the war. They had good reason to knw, and they still did not know. There were rumors, but the Nazis did so much to cover up, and scare the --- out of anyone who knew. The Nazis also had the smokescreen of war covering up and confusing the whole thing.

In Germany, many people were clueless. One officer was sent back to Munich on mental health leave. When he saw some of the brutality, he broke down and had to be hospitalized. His wife discretely told a neighbor. That was the kind of information that was spreading in the community.

On the few occaisions that the Allies bombed concentration camps, they bombed the ones that wre actually labor camps. The information was not perfect.

The truth came out with the Vrba report, spring 1944. That is when it was clear to everyone. From then on, action was taken to slow the Holocaust, as with Hungary.

The Nazis put half of their effort into the coverup, and for the most part, they were successful with that. I am of the opinion that the war was fought to provide the screen and get access to the Jews. Secondary gains like land, gold, and slave labor from all non Germans were less important.
Please pardon the typos.

[Anonymous]

My grandmother told me she remembers lots of stores being closed after Kristallnacht. The common sentiment was 'as long as it isn't me or my family' so people looked the other way. People should also remember that the Nazis went after everyone that appeared to be a "Jew symphasizer." There was a lot of fear and focus on personal survival. Generally, my grandfathers (who served in WWII) would shake their heads and not want to talk about their experiences. My grandmothers remembered the hunger after the war more than anything.

I stayed with a jewish family when I did a highschool exchange year. When telling my grandparents about this they seemed nervous. I did not follow up on this because, growing up, we had never heard a single bad thing about jewish people. In fact, when Schindlers List came out, we all got the day off from school to see this movie.

Today, many Germans reject any guilt/responsibility because they were not alive when this happened but I don't take that position. It is hard and uncomfortable, however, to talk to my jewish friends about this because what can I really say? I don't know if this is perceived correctly but I have made it a habit to learn about jewish culture and customs to have a basis for building a connection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have done a lot of research about who knew what was going on. I know of Jews who were in the Warsaw ghetto (and escaped) who did not know what was going on until the end of the war. They had good reason to knw, and they still did not know. There were rumors, but the Nazis did so much to cover up, and scare the --- out of anyone who knew. The Nazis also had the smokescreen of war covering up and confusing the whole thing.

In Germany, many people were clueless. One officer was sent back to Munich on mental health leave. When he saw some of the brutality, he broke down and had to be hospitalized. His wife discretely told a neighbor. That was the kind of information that was spreading in the community.

On the few occaisions that the Allies bombed concentration camps, they bombed the ones that wre actually labor camps. The information was not perfect.

The truth came out with the Vrba report, spring 1944. That is when it was clear to everyone. From then on, action was taken to slow the Holocaust, as with Hungary.

The Nazis put half of their effort into the coverup, and for the most part, they were successful with that. I am of the opinion that the war was fought to provide the screen and get access to the Jews. Secondary gains like land, gold, and slave labor from all non Germans were less important.
Please pardon the typos.

No way! Nooo, Hitler had that much animosity towards Jews that that was the real reason for the war? War is usually about resources. And if you get rid of people you think are your enemies then all the better. Not the other way around, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Ford motor vehicles OK?

ha!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/henryford-antisemitism/

I was in a workshop with a Jewish guy who said a boy he loved touring the Ford plant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The Nazis put half of their effort into the coverup, and for the most part, they were successful with that. I am of the opinion that the war was fought to provide the screen and get access to the Jews. Secondary gains like land, gold, and slave labor from all non Germans were less important.
Please pardon the typos.

No way! Nooo, Hitler had that much animosity towards Jews that that was the real reason for the war? War is usually about resources. And if you get rid of people you think are your enemies then all the better. Not the other way around, right?

Countries do not always go to war for rational reasons. True fact!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother told me she remembers lots of stores being closed after Kristallnacht. The common sentiment was 'as long as it isn't me or my family' so people looked the other way. People should also remember that the Nazis went after everyone that appeared to be a "Jew symphasizer." There was a lot of fear and focus on personal survival. Generally, my grandfathers (who served in WWII) would shake their heads and not want to talk about their experiences. My grandmothers remembered the hunger after the war more than anything.

I stayed with a jewish family when I did a highschool exchange year. When telling my grandparents about this they seemed nervous. I did not follow up on this because, growing up, we had never heard a single bad thing about jewish people. In fact, when Schindlers List came out, we all got the day off from school to see this movie.

Today, many Germans reject any guilt/responsibility because they were not alive when this happened but I don't take that position. It is hard and uncomfortable, however, to talk to my jewish friends about this because what can I really say? I don't know if this is perceived correctly but I have made it a habit to learn about jewish culture and customs to have a basis for building a connection.

I read that the older generation who lived through WWII are worried about the younger generations because of this. That they fear history could repeat itself. Not just in Germany but also in Japan.

[Anonymous]

I always find it interesting that folks can have a reasonable discussion about the Holocaust, yet get super defensive and combative when slavery is the topic.