tadlette

I don't know what you "intended" to compare. I don't know if you do. The point is that comparing WWII to Iraq is idiotic and tasteless for ANY purpose. Besides, if there ever was genocide in Iraq, it was the result of Saddam's rule and thus ended thanks to the US-led war.

Fortunately, this is as far as I'll be baited on the Iraq shiatfest. So allow me to say as politely as possible: lay off the weed, hippie.

TheGoblinKing

Perhaps we have the same position then: war sucks, but sometimes it is necessary...no?

I'll meet you halfway and agree, however Iraq was not necessary.

The level of lies, propaganda, appeals to patriotism, use of fear on the civilian population that had to acquiesce to the war, threats against allies that stood in the way, manipulation of regulatory bodies such as Congress to force approval through - guys, this was not your finest hour. Anyone still wondering why Jewish people (like Soros) who lived through that war were horrified at this one?

MONKEYBISCUIT

nice login, btw.

As a neo-Christian proud of my Kraut heritage, but absolutely opposed to anti-semitism, I must admit a kind of confusion and intimidation about some of the issues surrounding the history of the Holocaust.

not really sure why the first bit has anything to do with the second bit, but no matter. . . confused? fair enough.

It seems if you ask questions which logically arise, but may threaten the official version of events, you are an automatic antiSemite.

well, this is commonly the knee-jerk reaction because most people who do deny the official story of events are anti-semites, neo-nazis or whatever. However, there do exist the same sort of "if you disagree with me i'm going to slander you instead of prove you wrong" asshats like with any subject. Sort of like "i dont think affirmative action is a good idea" and people shout "RACIST!" or you say "I dont think this iraq war is a good idea" and people shout "WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA HIPPY!" So, yeah, it does exist, but the "official" version has been very well documented and, while not watertight, is good history by this point. The figures have been checked and checked again, and at this point when people call it into question, theres normally an agenda behind it, sorta like those booger-eaters who say evolution didnt happen because of their fundie agenda.

I have no doubt that the Holocaust occurred, but it seems to have been conducted in a way that is unusually chaotic for we Krauts, with our robotic attention to detail.

sort of a silly stereotype, eh? thats like saying "how could the depression happen in the US when we're such good workers?" The holocaust was an enormous thing involving millions of people who died, millions who lived, millions who carried it out.

I don't understand why, if the camps were merely death factories, one of the first men put in would survive the whole war. Surely, if the point was just to kill as many Jews as possible, they would have gotten around to him before they got to all the others that they did kill. Can anyone offer some insight here?

not all camps were death camps, alot of them were work camps. also, if you had a skill that was valuable, you were given more meaningful work that gave you good chances for survival. Some had to survive to keep the camp running, even if it just mean to keep it running to kill more peopel. also, dont forget that interesting thing called statistical anomaly. Yes, its weird this guy lived, most lasted under a year and he lasted 3-4. But then again, it was a statistical anomaly to survive ww1 in a french, english or gemran infantry unit, most of which suffered 200-300% casualties over the course of the war, but yet people did survive the whole war. So those things happen, too, especially when there are huge numbers of people invovled.

Also I'm not understanding why the SS-run camps would let any Jews or any other camp prisoner survive when it became obvious that Hitler's regime was doomed?

this was because of the nazi fatalism that they couldnt order retreats, they couldnt bring themselves to admit that russians were going to be there in a week, they kept thinking they'd counter attack or some miracle would save them and everything would be as before; thus when the order finally did come to leave, the russians were usually right there, only a day or two behind, and there often wasnt time to cover up and massacre everyone. it was this same thinking that kept the germans from ordering evacuations when they had the chance from their eastern provinces, and this led to unnecessary slaughter of german civis in winter 44-45 when they tried to flee e. prussia and pommerania to the west in a hurry before the reds got em.


I am also curious about the numbers of dead. For years, every history class I had said 4 million. Now the standard I hear appears to be 6 million. But I have also heard some nazi-hunters give numbers as high as 10 million. Is this increase the result of improved scholarship, the incorporation of non-Jewish victims into the total or what? Again, helpful historical information would be welcomed and appreciated.

the generally agreed upon number is 6million. I've heard that from US sources, German sources, the polish guide at the Auschwitz camp when i visited said 6million, too.

I don't think the Iraq war was killing innocents. I think it was stopping such a thing from happening. Saddam's idol was, after all, Stalin.

And as I haven't made it clear yet, hats off Mr Ryniak, you had to be one tuff ole bastage!

"The US is NUMBER ONE in absolutely NOTHING except screwing, and killing people."

Lawsuits?

Kot Begemot

The point is that comparing WWII to Iraq is idiotic and tasteless for ANY purpose.

You are wrong and you have no sense of history.

Weaver-I'll keep my eye out for that series. Good 'ole History Channel-makes it worth having a TV.

Stalin made Hitler look like a boyscout.
Couldn't agree more. The weirdest thing for me is hearing my g/f (Ukie) tell me about her grandma bawling her eyes out when Uncle Joe died-after all he did to his people, they still saw him as part of the family.

tadlette

*sighs*

Spare me the patronizing sigh, cutie pie. I'm not a recalcitrant child.

Neither war was necessary, both happened due to a lust for power and glory on behalf of the starters of the wars. Does that make my point more clear?

An overly simplistic evalaluation as to the causes of both wars, and possibly a gross misunderstanding of the causes leading up to WWII. It's arguable that WWII was simply WWI, Pt II., and as such Hitler was merely a particularly horrid catalyst in a set of circumstances that would have resulted in a war anyway.

It's still happening, people.

No shiat. And my point, and the point I suspect Weaver95 was trying to make in his own crude way, was that every now and then, one simply has to drop bombs on the people who instigate these horrors. I agree that doing so with a sense of glee is repugnant, but even a sociopath can be right sometimes.

"The US is NUMBER ONE in absolutely NOTHING except screwing, and killing people."

Lawsuits?

Lawsuits, and per-capita body weight.

HowlingFrog

Lawsuits?

We still do pizza delivery better than anybody else. Neal Stephenson got that part right, at least.

Not that you asked, but I suspect religion, throughout history, has been responsible for more death, destruction and horror on this planet than any other force or idea known to man.

Perhaps it's time to evolve.

If you can survive the camps, you can live through anything life throws at you!

My big concern is that by the absolute demonization of Hitler, we turn him into some kind of cartoon villian, not an elected (sort of) leader who had some really nice-sounding (to Germany) ways of describing his plans for performing unspeakable evils. This guy did not fall from the sky or pop out of a toilet somewhere, and neither did the soldiers and civilians who happily did his dirty work for him.

When we lose sight of the reality of Hitler, or his ideas, we put ourselves in danger of not recognizing his successors that may already be among us. Hitler wasn't the first of his 'type,' there have been several- short, slight guys, with dark hair and cold, hypnotic eyes. They all had that same force of demonic charisma, seemingly boundless energy, and seemingly insatiable desire for others' blood, pain, and death. From at least as far back as Alexander the 'Great' it keeps going on and on. Look at the eyes on a statue of Julius Caesar or Constantine sometime, or Napoleon for that matter. The names change, but the game remains the same. I pray we won't let him deal the cards the next time he comes. But I suspect we'll fall for it again.

JohnnyDanger:

What an odd thing to bring up. However, in response, I'd say the misapplication/misinterpretantion of religion combined with greed have been responsible yada yada yada.

Well, despite his numerous atrocities, Stalin did convert Russia from a backward, medeival collection of villages into a Spacefaring Superpower.

Im wondering if it was worth it or not. One one hand, the millions of graves is atrocious, on the other, they are just dirt now, like everyone else and Russia still exists...

mmm, pizza

Nirvana98R
Yes, it was more important than just a comic book. But Spiegelman was deliberately using the "funny animal" format to contrast with the severity of the story. I actually haven't read Maus in years, I should dig it up and read it again. Perhaps the Poles are portayed more negatively than I remember. But keep in mind also, the scenes with the poles are flashbacks told by the father, who was born and raised as a Polish Jew. Perhaps Spiegelman was illustrating his father's viewpoint, shown in present day scenes to be quite intolerant and racist.

TAD

you know, even as a fellow leftie, what you said above is a really lame analogy. The deliberate murder of an entire society is not the same as Gulf WarII: revenge of the Son. And i'm not saying that as some flag waving nationalist who cant stand the thought of his country ever doing something bad; i'm fully aware of the mistakes as well as the good my country has done.

yes, both wars were "unnecessary" and yes both were the consequence of innocent life, but then if those are the criteria then traffic accidents are like the holocaust, too. The levels where your analogy work are so superficial they're meaningless, and the levels where they would matter, they dont work.

The motivations of Bushcroft, even worst case scenario, are nothing nothing NOTHING compared to what Hitler had in mind if he'd've won. Theres an enormous difference in scope, motive, brutality. . .

Even if all the leftist fears are right and bush is going to plant a flag in baghdad and make it the 51st state and impoverish the country and make iraqis pay taxes to the US and do everything we Lefties are afraid of (which he wont, coz even big bad bush isnt as bad as his cliche), he cant even touch the surface of what went on in Poland and the USSR during ww2.

You've got no case hon. Sorry.

JohnnyDanger

Not that you asked, but I suspect religion, throughout history, has been responsible for more death, destruction and horror on this planet than any other force or idea known to man.

Yeah, religion and its ideal of self-sacrifice are the number-one killers throughout human history. Maybe it's time people started living for themselves instead of living for some hoped-for reward in heaven or for the sake of placating some homicidal maniac in the sky.

Monkeybiscuit

The names change, but the game remains the same. I pray we won't let him deal the cards the next time he comes. But I suspect we'll fall for it again.

Have you ever considered that our civilization is built not on the atrocities of evil men like these, but thier accomplishments. Every one of those demoniac men created (perhaps even indirectly) more than he destroyed.

Im not advocating evil men, I'm just making an observing.

ProgrammerCat
Actually, the idea of many religions is to live for others. But humans are notoriously bad at that.

mome23
you may be right, i haven't read that book in a few years now, but i remember being unimpressed by how poles were portrayed. but i guess thats just how we were/are viewed and i have to deal with it. but thank you for the insight, and Obdicut as well

monkeybiscuit
That's absolutely true.

The guy was a failed painter, with a lot of nationalistic pride. Didn't start out as Evil Incarnate; just wanted to restore pride to a crushed German people.

aaaand... everything turned ugly. And evil.

But your point stands. If a new Hitler were to arise today, would we recognize him?
What if Jesus came back as a hippie?

Father_Jack- Not sure which part of my first bit you meant, but I was trying to get the fact that I am a member of a couple of the cultural groups that are sometimes or frequently, as the case may be, associated with anti-Semitism. Namely my Neo-Christianity and Krautness.

88!

MONKEYBISCUIT

My big concern is that by the absolute demonization of Hitler, we turn him into some kind of cartoon villian, not an elected (sort of) leader who had some really nice-sounding (to Germany) ways of describing his plans for performing unspeakable evils. This guy did not fall from the sky or pop out of a toilet somewhere, and neither did the soldiers and civilians who happily did his dirty work for him.

a very good point. And there are many of these nationalist types right here on fark.

Allow me to quote Hermann Goering:

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

lbn
don't be a douche

El_Swino

And my point... was that every now and then, one simply has to drop bombs on the people who instigate these horrors.

Is that justification for bombing Iraq over the Iran war which the US supported? Or for the attack on the Kurds, who were not sitting quietly in the civilian population when they were gassed but were in the middle of a seperatist civil war and attempting to remove their part of the country from Iraq? It was also a decade old and the Kurds were left alive if under the lash once open rebellion ceased.

That doesn't excuse what he did, but there was an open rebellion going on, it wasn't the same thing as yanking out an ethnic group and exterminating them. It's not a comparable situation as far as unjustified genocide goes.

And you have the hide to imply -I- was being a simplistic generalist?

The sigh wasn't aimed at you btw. Some times I get tired of having to defend myself all the damn time, that's all you were hearing. I guess without context how can you tell.

oh wow just noticed something ironic.

88 is a term meaning "heil hitler!" The germans used to end letters they'd write with "HH!" as an abreviation. H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, so 88 is code for HH code for heil hitler.

Theres alot of 88 stuff in neonazi names, like "Club 88" is a skinhead club or somethin.

Ironic, isnt it, that this guy dies at 88 years old? heh.

monkeybiscuit
What's with the almost apologetic sounding "krautness"?

My name is Karl-Heinz; I was born in Herzogenaurach, a Franconian town near Nurnberg, of German parents.
Nice place.
Means nothing.

Interesting discussion, but alas, I'm tired.

Night, Farkistan.

2004-02-26 01:59:41 AM monkeybiscuit

I don't understand why, if the camps were merely death factories, one of the first men put in would survive the whole war. Surely, if the point was just to kill as many Jews as possible, they would have gotten around to him before they got to all the others that they did kill. Can anyone offer some insight here?

They were death factories, but the first to be killed were sometimes the people least capable of doing work. My great-aunt, who was in Auschwitz but was saved by Schindler, can attest to this. My grandfather's first wife and two baby daughters were not so lucky.

Also I'm not understanding why the SS-run camps would let any Jews or any other camp prisoner survive when it became obvious that Hitler's regime was doomed? For there to have been any survivors, the Nazis would have had to keep feeding the camp prisoners even after a point at which food and supplies for German peasants and soldiers was running critically short. This seems to fly in the face of conventional understanding of the Holocaust and its motives.

Have you seen images of the emaciated camp survivors?? Somehow, I doubt they were being fed anything substantial!

I am also curious about the numbers of dead. For years, every history class I had said 4 million. Now the standard I hear appears to be 6 million. But I have also heard some nazi-hunters give numbers as high as 10 million. Is this increase the result of improved scholarship, the incorporation of non-Jewish victims into the total or what? Again, helpful historical information would be welcomed and appreciated.

At Yad Vashem memorial in Israel, there exists a library filled with millions of death reports. These reports were filed by immediate relatives to report the dead, and they include a picture of the deceased and a description of how he or she died. Hence, this is first-hand, primary, historical evidence documenting the deaths of millions.

It does not add up to 6 million (I think it's 3 or 4 million), but that's hardly surprising. Given the scope of the Holocaust, a very large number of communities were wiped out completely, leaving no more witnesses to file the reports. Others who did survive undoubtedly refused to file a claim, and thus admit their relatives were dead. Still others probably didn't bother to file the report because they didn't know about it.

In any event, the number 6 million is also supported by Nazi documents. More evidence of the scope of Hitler and Nazi atrocities can be found in scholarly books like this one.

As for your thing at the end: I don't know what specific incidents/accusations you are referring to, but as a (somewhat) practicing Jew, I have never met another Jew who seriously gave a shiat about any of the things you mentioned, or tended to fixate on matters separating Jews and Christians. So, we typically _do_ "agree to disagree" with no problems.

But your point stands. If a new Hitler were to arise today, would we recognize him?

And that's an excellent point, BTW. A new Hitler today would not fly the flag of extreme anti-Semitism. That's no longer a pathway to a nation's heart (certain Middle Eastern nations excepted, and I argue here that an anti-Semitic head of state in these countries would be largely irrelevant, at least in terms of the current status quo or their ability to affect things on the world stage.) Thus, the first "warning flag" people might look for may never be flown. What else does one look for when searching for "the next Hitler"? Crappy art skills don't count, if for no other reason than that would make me the next Hitler.

Zed-Zed-Nine-Plural Zed-Alpha??!!

Thats astounding.

Now if I only had a nice cup of really hot tea....

2004-02-26 12:38:01 AM spiro

Boo hoo...some guy died...why should anyone give a crap

Trust us. When its you, we won't.

But believe it or not, some people actually have some purpose to their lives.

monkeybiscuit

Father_Jack- Not sure which part of my first bit you meant, but I was trying to get the fact that I am a member of a couple of the cultural groups that are sometimes or frequently, as the case may be, associated with anti-Semitism. Namely my Neo-Christianity and Krautness.

oooooh i see. gotcha. yeah, i didnt make the connection, so your disclaimer seemed a bit weird.

like saying "well, since i'm an atheist and a cosmetologist, allow me to say a few things about predicting the weather in southern burundi."

Take from these images what you will.

TommyPerfect- The destruction these 'little guys' bring is accompanied by their direct or indirect responsibility for creations of a benign or even beneficial nature. I've noticed this one in the past, too. It scares the crap out of me to think that Nietschze may have been on to something bigger than he understood, because I don't think living in a world run on his ideas would be very fun. But, if he was on to something, we may already be there I guess.

El_Swino
A new Hitler today would not fly the flag of extreme anti-Semitism.

No, he would unite a desparately ailing and deeply polarized nation by concocting a proper, identifiable scapegoat and begin (re)building a vast military/industrial base.

We know it's not gonna be Bush. His mere prescence polarized the world like a doubleheaded magnet :P

Father_Jack

The deliberate murder of an entire society is not the same as Gulf WarII: revenge of the Son...The levels where your analogy work are so superficial they're meaningless, and the levels where they would matter, they dont work.

So you realise I wasn't equating them on the basis of magnitude or intent, which is a start, however the main analogy I was going for was the way each war was started and justified and I think that DOES work. The methods used to get you guys to play along were very much the same. The glorious war ideology triumphed over addressing the reasons it was happening and perhaps trying to achieve those goals other ways. The powers that be wanted war, they made sure you had war.

The motivations of Bushcroft, even worst case scenario, are nothing nothing NOTHING compared to what Hitler had in mind if he'd've won. Theres an enormous difference in scope, motive, brutality. . .

Of COURSE not.

Please still like me :)

To all of you who question the Holocaust and its significance, I urge you to go to Poland and visit some of the camps. Auschwitz is a good starting point, but it is not until you have seen Majdanek, and particularly Belzec, that you realize the true horror.

At Belzec, in 2002, they had taken down the old memorial and were trying to figure out what to do. There was nothing left at that camp, except for ash. Belzec was a death camp, unlike Auschwitz, whose intended purpose was as a work camp. A miniscule number of people survived Belzec (I believe the number is 2 or 3).

And when you kick the forgotten dirt in a field so close to the village that you can see the old houses and wonder how people could live so close to the smell of burning flesh issuing forth day and night from Belzec, you find that you are walking on a mountain of human ash, with bone fragments scattered throughout.

Let this never be forgotten - and let it also not be forgotten that there were those gentiles who had the courage to stand up for what they believed in and did what they could. I have never been to Yad Vashem, but I hear that it is beautiful.

People who can somehow compare Bush and modern US policits with Hitler and German politics of the 20's-40's have not the slightest knowledge of either.

Thats a farkin fact.

Is that justification for bombing Iraq over the Iran war which the US supported? Or for the attack on the Kurds, who were not sitting quietly in the civilian population when they were gassed but were in the middle of a seperatist civil war and attempting to remove their part of the country from Iraq? It was also a decade old and the Kurds were left alive if under the lash once open rebellion ceased.

That doesn't excuse what he did, but there was an open rebellion going on, it wasn't the same thing as yanking out an ethnic group and exterminating them. It's not a comparable situation as far as unjustified genocide goes.

There you go again, wanting to make this an Iraq war thread. You know, Tadlette, I'd really like to discuss this sort of thing with you, as you do seem to have some solid insights on this huge, complex subject. Only not here.

On a side note, please attach a proper noun to your statements every now and then. I got a bit lost trying to track down who the "he's" and "they's" were in this post. It's quite possible that I've managed to miss your point here, through sheer lack of an objective clause. For want of a nail, and all that.

What do I take from those images, kethares?

That the Jews knew what was coming, even if the rest of the world didn't want to recognize it.

It's not like Hitler ever made a secret of what he was going to do. He said it first in 1922, when he was Just Another Bavarian Crackpot, and he said it all through the 20's, when he reinvented politicking as we know it, he said it when the Nazi's took power legally, he said it when he became Chancellor.

But everyone (even the Jews in Germany) didn't want to think it would be THAT bad.

Whoops.

To Mr. Ryniak...Rest In Peace. Time for you to forget all that...

beaverfetus

You, sir, need a lesson of history. Making claims like "the relations started out in shiat" is completely wrong (in my humble opinion nevertheless). To make this short, between 12th and 15th century relations between Jews and Poles were very good -- the jews had more rights than in most (if not all) other European nations. That changed when the Jesuits were invited at the request of the Polish king. He was a crappy king, and a Frenchman, who never cared for Poland's interests. SO, these Jesuits come and start spreading intolerance... which was a bad thing since just a few decades later they controlled most of the schooling in Poland.

So things got bad since, and then, progressively worse. There's no denying that some Poles commited crimes during WWII, but I hardly think it a reason to preach to the Poles about their racist attitudes, particularly the Americans who faced their own racial turmoil not-so-long ago.

We should work together. And with out combined strengths, focus on the true enemy. The French.

/I kid, I kid

tadlette

No better argument than "you are wrong, you have no sense of history." You, by contrast, only lack a sense of reality. Father_Jack put it well, and let me add that you cannot just ignore the differences in magnitude and scope for the purposes of your little comparative shock tactic. They are simply too great.

Nirvana98R,

Don't be a pansy.

I can see how some of you might feel.

My grandfather died at Auschwitz also.
He fell of the guard tower.

/levity

El_Swino

There you go again, wanting to make this an Iraq war thread.

Whatever. I've said what I wanted to say.