David Duke had a couple of more pressing issues that his Holocaust denial to be honest... Almost elected governor is a bit of a stretch too. He lost by a fairly wide margin.
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Seventy years ago, the Red Army arrived at Auschwitz
- Thread starter Amir0x
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David Duke had a couple of more pressing issues that his Holocaust denial to be honest... Almost elected governor is a bit of a stretch too. He lost by a fairly wide margin.
Palette Swap
Member
Thanks for this thread, Ami. I really like your awareness threads.
We were discussing this again with my wife yesterday and honestly, no matter how much we discuss it or how much we see of it, it's a thing I can never wrap my mind around. The scale and monstrosity of the project are so outlandish that just thinking too long about it is incredibly depressing.
I'll agree with everyone who mentioned Primo Levi, he's an absolute must read.
A bit tangentially, as it isn't about Auschwitz but other camps, Memory of the Camps is an interesting watch as it uses footage that was made in 1945 (and yeah, Hitchcock is involved).
Even more tangentially, Hannah Aarendt's account of the Eichmann trial casts light on the trial of a guy behind the execution of the whole plan. It raises interesting questions as he saw himself as a cog in this monstrous industrial killing machine.
We were discussing this again with my wife yesterday and honestly, no matter how much we discuss it or how much we see of it, it's a thing I can never wrap my mind around. The scale and monstrosity of the project are so outlandish that just thinking too long about it is incredibly depressing.
I'll agree with everyone who mentioned Primo Levi, he's an absolute must read.
A bit tangentially, as it isn't about Auschwitz but other camps, Memory of the Camps is an interesting watch as it uses footage that was made in 1945 (and yeah, Hitchcock is involved).
Even more tangentially, Hannah Aarendt's account of the Eichmann trial casts light on the trial of a guy behind the execution of the whole plan. It raises interesting questions as he saw himself as a cog in this monstrous industrial killing machine.
Yeah, looking him up the guy seems all kinds of crazy, though I'm unsure whether anti-semitism is more/less pressing than racism. Also he still got 39% of the vote, wide or slim it's much too close for comfort
Doczu
Member
Well the SU is known of doing stuff like that pre-war and during the war, but in the final stages of the war and just after it they did a quick change of PR so that they don't seem so bad. And it's not just the Jews. If they wanted something, they did it. To anyone, even their own.
J
Jotamide
Unconfirmed Member
I've been to Dachau and it's the most depressing thing on earth. Like nothing can ever be happy in such a place.
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
Thank you!
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
The majority of my grandmother's family were shot in the street. She was lucky to flee to England.
Everybody hates Jews and probably always will. It used to be whites, now it's the Arab world. Sigh.
Luckily I've never been attacked (only verbally abused, and pretty lightly tbh , even though it upset me). My dad not so much - he has the worst of both worlds because he's Moroccan and Jewish - we used to have a gang of white youths that used to throw stones at our windows, put spiked planks of wood under the car wheels, Etc.
My auntie's family once had to have police protection because people painted on their walls "get out filthy Jews".
Whenever I used to go to synagogue there had to be security guards and there were barbed wire fences.
I don't think it'll ever stop. There'll always be an excuse or justification. Right now it's Jews = Zionist Occupiers. It used to be Jews = Elders of Zion.
The irony? I'm not even religious and I support Palestinian self- determination. None of it makes any difference.
Everybody hates Jews and probably always will. It used to be whites, now it's the Arab world. Sigh.
Luckily I've never been attacked (only verbally abused, and pretty lightly tbh , even though it upset me). My dad not so much - he has the worst of both worlds because he's Moroccan and Jewish - we used to have a gang of white youths that used to throw stones at our windows, put spiked planks of wood under the car wheels, Etc.
My auntie's family once had to have police protection because people painted on their walls "get out filthy Jews".
Whenever I used to go to synagogue there had to be security guards and there were barbed wire fences.
I don't think it'll ever stop. There'll always be an excuse or justification. Right now it's Jews = Zionist Occupiers. It used to be Jews = Elders of Zion.
The irony? I'm not even religious and I support Palestinian self- determination. None of it makes any difference.
I've been reading lately about the actions of the Einsatzgruppen, who were enacting the Holocaust long before the first death camps were established. As bad as camps the camps were, people (here) don't really know much about what was going on outside of them.
If you have the stomach, research the Jäger Report, Babi Yar, the holocaust in Lithuania and Belarus, etc. The death camps were the culmination, but you can't really understand the true extent of the genocide if that's all you focus on.
That said, great post OP.
If you have the stomach, research the Jäger Report, Babi Yar, the holocaust in Lithuania and Belarus, etc. The death camps were the culmination, but you can't really understand the true extent of the genocide if that's all you focus on.
That said, great post OP.
Have you been there? It's a very touristic place in the sense that there are a lot of tourists, but it's done very respectfully imo.
Anyway, I would advice everyone to visit there at least once if you have the means. The shear scope of what happened hits you like a ton of bricks there. The size of the second camp is just insance...
And the prosthetics... That's the point where I got really really quiet.
They also had their own network of labor camps in form of Gulags where millions have perished.
Though obviously that doesn't make Nazi death camps any less despicable and the exact precision with how the mass murder was carried out is absolutely bone-chilling.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Great post OP.
I boggles my mind that some people even try to deny what happened. I worked at Mauthausen (the biggest KZ in Austria) for a summer. It's almost unbelievable what humans can do to other humans...
Did you know that many russian POW's were seen and treated as traitors in the Soviet Union? Some even landed in Gulags (basically the russian version of a KZ) for getting captured or surrendering.
I boggles my mind that some people even try to deny what happened. I worked at Mauthausen (the biggest KZ in Austria) for a summer. It's almost unbelievable what humans can do to other humans...
Did you know that many russian POW's were seen and treated as traitors in the Soviet Union? Some even landed in Gulags (basically the russian version of a KZ) for getting captured or surrendering.
BaronLundi
Member
If only one then "If this is a man" it should be indeed.
Also:
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Literature or Life by Jorge Semprun (an account from a non Jewish prisoner of Buchenwald).
Films:
Night and Fog by Alain Resnais
Shoah by Claude Lanzmann
Memory of the camps (various, inc. Hitchcock)
I'm from Germany/Berlin.
I will NEVER forget this one day in school, when a survivor of the holocaust visited us to tell us what happened back then... He even went to KZ Sachsenhausen near Berlin with us. I will never understand how human beings could do this and I still have a lump in my throat when I think about it.
I will NEVER forget this one day in school, when a survivor of the holocaust visited us to tell us what happened back then... He even went to KZ Sachsenhausen near Berlin with us. I will never understand how human beings could do this and I still have a lump in my throat when I think about it.
MidgarBlowedUp
Member
Supposedly over a million new documents were released in 2012 by the Yad Vashem. It's amazing how much content they have.
http://www.yadvashem.org
http://www.yadvashem.org
.... FFS
uhmm no it isnt even comparable ...
If you want to compare it to an apartheid, ok. Auschwitz though? Not even fucking close. Learn your history before sounding stupid, please.
Beren the Empty-Handed
Member
The thing that most people don't recognize, and should, is that they set out to permanently change the course of human evolution, and succeeded. Because of the groups of people that they targeted, and on the massive scale that they did so, we're actually on a different genetic path than we would have been otherwise. Not to mention that they wiped out a few ethnic and religious groups entirely. It's like something a supervillain would do, but they actually did it. And not only that, they did the same thing with flora and fauna too. Animals and plants were altered, destroyed, or actually "created" and are still in the world today. They didn't just damage people (or the world) on a personal, national, or geographic level, but on a biological level. It's absolutely appalling.
I myself wasn't aware of this aspect until I read about it in The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman. It's a nonfiction story, but it delves a bit into the biological monstrosities that they did. I was blown away.
I myself wasn't aware of this aspect until I read about it in The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman. It's a nonfiction story, but it delves a bit into the biological monstrosities that they did. I was blown away.
This is a topic that, for some reason, deeply disturbs me and often makes me just sit in quiet and think and try to find rationalization. It's so harrowing. So depressing. I remember my grandmother telling me that one of her best friends once she hit her twenties was a young woman that had been to one of the camps as a little girl and lost her whole family. She said that she was one of the funniest and warm-hearted persons she has ever met.
My heart goes out to the people today who live under such terrible conditions as this and the evil under the guise of genocide and to those who've lost their lives due to it.
My heart goes out to the people today who live under such terrible conditions as this and the evil under the guise of genocide and to those who've lost their lives due to it.
Very interesting OP.
I read 'Hanged at Auschwitz' by Sim Kessel many years ago and found it a fascinating story of how he survived his time there.
I read 'Hanged at Auschwitz' by Sim Kessel many years ago and found it a fascinating story of how he survived his time there.
Doesn't need to be on the same level or close to it even.
What I'm saying is that a people who experienced and endured such human rights violations first-hand should naturally be the ones who proactively try and avoid committing such violations. This is true not just for Isarel but for other nations as well.
In any case it was just a passing thought as I was going through the OP.
And it's about time I watched that BBC WWII documentary...
As a German who had two grandfathers that had fought in the war these topics always make me question if what my grandparents told me they did during the war was the truth or not. One of them was stationed in France as a regular infantry soldier, the other in the east as a tank commander. I have heard many stories from them, we have talked about what they knew/didn't know or theorized about many many times and of course I believe them, they are my family,they wanted me to know, why would they lie?
But still, every time I read about the history of my country during this time, I always, as bad as it makes me feel, have this tiny bit of "What if they didn't tell me the truth?" in my head.
Makes me feel like shit,really.
But still, every time I read about the history of my country during this time, I always, as bad as it makes me feel, have this tiny bit of "What if they didn't tell me the truth?" in my head.
Makes me feel like shit,really.
Then they truly did something they are ashamed of and don't want you to know.
The important thing is you recognize the horrors of humanity, not necessarily the actions of any one man in war or genocide.
mekes
Member
Oh man... I have not seen footage like that anywhere before. I don't have the words for the camp and the footage that ensued, but to think minutes away some people were living an idyllic life...
Doczu
Member
If they were simple soldiers of the Wehrmacht then the only thing they could ever be ashamed of is anything they did themself (and that is if they did anything beyond following orders). They were not responsible for the holocaust, did not participate in it, and even if they did know about it, they couldn't do anything to stop it. After '42 the only thing they were doing is delaying the oncoming defeat as long as they could. No one should ever dispise the simple troopers. They were soldiers like any others.
My great-grandfather said that at least the Germans were civilized and after the invasion of Poland they did behave with honor against our soldiers and civilians. The SS side of the army/Reich and the occupation forces and politicians is a totally other story.
POWERSPHERE
Member
It's hard to think that this is within a lifetime. So recent.
John Kowalski
Banned
But today is the 26th.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
The Wehrmacht does not have clean hands; in addition to the "normal" war crimes that would occur periodically without orders from high up (execution of civilians; plundering; rape etc), there was close collaboration with the SS particularly in the east. Wehrmacht units participated in the execution of Jews and other targets of the holocaust. Wiki has an extensive summary.
Having participated in the Wehrmacht, the Hitler Youth or even the SS does not automatically mean that a person was directly involved in any atrocities. But neither were the atrocities neatly segmented into a single box whereby the SS can take sole responsibility.
^^ Beaten by ThoseDeafMutes!
This is a myth that evolved out of the first World War II, as a way of compartmentalizing the guilt for what occurred. Yes, it is true that among the Wehrmacht there were plenty who were not involved, and some who greatly hated the SS. But plenty in the Wehrmacht not only knew of the concentration camps, but found no problem with them at all - and many participated in the mass slaughter of innocents on the Eastern Front, including Jews.
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This is a really good read on the subject
Wehrmacht Soldiers on the Eastern front have a particularly implausible argument to make that they either didn't know or weren't complicit in the horrors that took place. The Eastern Front was a true "total war", Hitler told the soldiers from the start that it was to be a far less civilized War than what was going on in the West. From the start exterminations were commonplace policy and soldiers of all type took part.
Link
This is a myth that evolved out of the first World War II, as a way of compartmentalizing the guilt for what occurred. Yes, it is true that among the Wehrmacht there were plenty who were not involved, and some who greatly hated the SS. But plenty in the Wehrmacht not only knew of the concentration camps, but found no problem with them at all - and many participated in the mass slaughter of innocents on the Eastern Front, including Jews.
.
This is a really good read on the subject
Wehrmacht Soldiers on the Eastern front have a particularly implausible argument to make that they either didn't know or weren't complicit in the horrors that took place. The Eastern Front was a true "total war", Hitler told the soldiers from the start that it was to be a far less civilized War than what was going on in the West. From the start exterminations were commonplace policy and soldiers of all type took part.
Link
To expand on what was posted above, I would recommend Hardcore History's Ghosts of the Ostfront series. Provides insight into how the Wehrmaucht and Red Armies conducted themselves on the horrifying eastern front and the varying levels of atrocities committed by either side.
Indeed, the Wehrmaucht did not come out of the war with clean hands, but I still pity many of the common soldiers involved in that war on both sides; the disposable tools of insane, hateful people.
Indeed, the Wehrmaucht did not come out of the war with clean hands, but I still pity many of the common soldiers involved in that war on both sides; the disposable tools of insane, hateful people.
How do you save them, by bombing them?
Does anyone know if these experiments managed to gather any useful medical data? For example, vivisection leading to a better understanding of how the human body works, thus helping advance organ transplants studies etc. Not that I defending these acts, just curious.
Sacrifice the few to save the many.
Those currently in the camp would die, but the camp would have been destroyed and prevented from being used further.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
Always educational, Ami..fucking animals. My anniversary is gonna feel a little sad tomorrow..
It's also important to realize that atrocities like this are still happening today.
There are various accounts of people who've escaped the North Korean death camps, but one that comes to my mind regularly is Shin Dong-hyuk, who, as far as we know, is the only person to escape the camps who was actually born there. He never knew any other life before then. I have his biography, and it's absolutely horrible. You read all these accounts, that seem vaguely familiar if you've ever read anything written by holocaust survivors, but then you look at the dates next to them - 1995, 1998, 2001, 2005. It's happening now, while we're sitting here reading this. If you read his accounts, about how living in a hell like that destroys the human spirit, where his own parents and brother were basically strangers to him, fighting over food among themselves - he actually told the guards his mother and brother were preparing to escape, expecting to be rewarded. His actual reward was to be tortured and having to witness the execution of his brother and mother. There are other escapees who shared their own experiences in the camps, and it's worth looking into. We must never forget the past, but I can't understand why we're allowing this to go on. It sickens me.
There are various accounts of people who've escaped the North Korean death camps, but one that comes to my mind regularly is Shin Dong-hyuk, who, as far as we know, is the only person to escape the camps who was actually born there. He never knew any other life before then. I have his biography, and it's absolutely horrible. You read all these accounts, that seem vaguely familiar if you've ever read anything written by holocaust survivors, but then you look at the dates next to them - 1995, 1998, 2001, 2005. It's happening now, while we're sitting here reading this. If you read his accounts, about how living in a hell like that destroys the human spirit, where his own parents and brother were basically strangers to him, fighting over food among themselves - he actually told the guards his mother and brother were preparing to escape, expecting to be rewarded. His actual reward was to be tortured and having to witness the execution of his brother and mother. There are other escapees who shared their own experiences in the camps, and it's worth looking into. We must never forget the past, but I can't understand why we're allowing this to go on. It sickens me.
manzoman96
Member
Great write up dude. People should be more aware of these things.
It's sad to think about this stuff still exists in our world. I remember researching the Rwandan genocide in high school. Horrible stuff.
It's sad to think about this stuff still exists in our world. I remember researching the Rwandan genocide in high school. Horrible stuff.
It's a bit of a complex subject. To be sure, Nazi Science - that is, scientists that operated within the Nazi regime - were quite successful at times. For example, in 1943 Germany was the first ever to recognize the link between asbestos and lung cancer/mesothelioma as a result of work from their scientists. Not all their scientists were participating in unethical things. They were also amongst the first to recognize that smoking causes lung cancer.
But the Nazi's like Josef Mengele, those who participated in the truly dark human experimentation, few if any data has been useful today. Mengele's research was mostly destroyed; what we do have was poorly organized, horrendously set up from a scientific perspective and almost completely devoid of value (and most of his experiments were failures... he never did figure out how to increase the Aryan Birth Rate). In a few rare cases the Scientific/Medical community has had to deal with the complex moral issues behind using verifiable and useful data that came from human experimentation.
For example, Sigmund Rascher's freezing experiments have been quoted more than a dozen times in medical journals in modern studies done, and is generally at least slightly credited in part with the development of techniques to slow down the progress of hypothermia and freezing. That said, many medical journals will outright reject your paper if you source his experiments.
There are a handful of cases like that we can point to, but overall the data gained from such human experimentation was just a black hole of miserable and useless information motivated by a racial hatred so intense that it allowed people to do this. The sole decent thing that came out of this perhaps is that the International Community decided on rules for medical studies/tests after the war due to this stuff.
Embearded
Member
I really don't get why many people forgive troopers and soldiers by giving them these excuses. It's a big fat lie! You don't have to accept the orders. Not if you have a working brain and some pretty simple logic. If you accept the orders, take the gun and start marching towards the "enemy", then you are as guilty as those that give the orders.
And yes they could do something to stop the activity at the camps. But they chose not to do anything.
Same goes for the Americans in the Middle East, thinking that they "save" them by bombing them and stealing their oil.
Patrick Bateman
Member
I don't want to deny anything, but I wonder how it would have been if the Nazis had liberated Gulags.
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