The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking

[listopencil]

Thirteen years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.

What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.

The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.





http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/su...wanted=1&_r=4&

[Comrade Crapski]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

2) The entire reason why there were so many Jews in Poland is because it was the only kingdom that openly accepted them while others expunged them. It was a safe haven for centuries

Poland, the most the Catholic country in Europe (if not the world).

Go figure.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Comrade Crapski

Poland, the most the Catholic country in Europe (if not the world).

Go figure.

That's actually why Poland is now so Catholic. There used to be more Protestants than Catholics, but after WWII, almost all of the German Protestants left the country.

[Loneiguana]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

That's actually why Poland is now so Catholic. There used to be more Protestants than Catholics, but after WWII, almost all of the German Protestants left the country.

I watched a European movie called Europa Europa. In short, about a Jewish boy who escapes Germany and pretends to be Russian, then pretends to be an Aryan German when Russia gets conquered.

Anyway, my point. There is an interesting scene in the movie where the German Jewish boy is in Poland and word just arrived the Germans of coming. The refugees are crossing a river and on one side you have people saying the Germans are coming, on the other side you have people saying the Russians are coming. The Religious Christians\ would rather deal with the Germans, the Jews would rather deal with the Russians.

/great points

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

1a) Why do you think Jews are associated with money and banks? Leaders of Western societies realized in the Middle Ages the utility of lending money, but given that usury was a damnable sin, Christians (and Muslims) couldn't do it. So who do you find to do it? The Jews. Then you blame them when they perform the social role that you forced upon them.

I know you know this, but I wanted to clarify the bolded part for others who might not -- it should be noted that Jews were often forbidden to own land, which meant they couldn't be farmers or engage in a number of other land-related businesses.

Also note that the crown (of various countries, but I remember it happening in FRance particularly often) would become indebted to Jews, which (after the amount got too big) became a good reason to have a new round of persecution. Chase all the Jews out, and then you don't have to pay them. That was the only time that not being able to own land became a plus -- at that point they certainly wanted portable wealth...

3) The Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments display the ability of ordinary individuals to do awful things merely by following orders. You may want to think that you would object, but every scientific study suggests that it is highly unlikely.

Fascinating studies those. Anyone who is so sure that the Germans were somehow inferior as a citizenry (and if you do think that, then consider how you are acting in the same prejudiced manner the Nazis did) needs to review those experiments.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Comrade Crapski

Poland, the most the Catholic country in Europe (if not the world).

Go figure.

It wasn't for most of its history.

[stevieray]

IIRC, aren't those the experiments where they placed students as guards/ prisoners and then studied their subsequent emotional/physical reactions to those roles? guards drunk with power, prisoners depression, etc?

during those Holocaust, there were witnesses who claimed they smelled burning flesh 24/7...try to imagine that and the effect it would have....

..also remember reading that those extermination camps were set up for the Jews, but that was only the beginning.....

[notorious]

Wow, I just read a short break-down of the Stanford prison experiment.

It's insane, and the "prisoners" still knew that they would be released.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by stevieray

IIRC, aren't those the experiments where they placed students as guards/ prisoners and then studied their subsequent emotional/physical reactions to those roles? guards drunk with power, prisoners depression, etc?

during those Holocaust, there were witnesses who claimed they smelled burning flesh 24/7...try to imagine that and the effect it would have....

..also remember reading that those extermination camps were set up for the Jews, but that was only the beginning.....

The SPE is what you are describing. The Milgram experiment tests obedience to authority rather than the corrupting nature of power.

There are several videos of modern Milgram-type experiments done on YouTube.

The gist of it: people would deliver what they thought to be a lethal dose of electricity to someone else, while hearing the person's cries for help, simply because a person in a lab coat told them to.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Another scary fact:

If any of you are familiar with Kirksville (I'm looking at you, frazod)...

Harry Laughlin lived in Kirksville and was a prominent eugenicist during the 20s and 30s. Pickler Library at Truman State has Laughlin's files, which includes correspondence with Hitler, as Laughlin's ideas helped guide and inform the Nazi eugenics program.

[blaise]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I would rather die fighting than lose my freedom of speech. Thats a deal breaker and I would have no choice but to join the war against tyranny.

I'm bowing out of this thread. It's conjuring up too many memories.

Pretty easy to say you would have stood up against the Nazis, even if it meant death or imprisonment for you and your family, when you weren't there.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Another scary fact:

If any of you are familiar with Kirksville (I'm looking at you, frazod)...

Harry Laughlin lived in Kirksville and was a prominent eugenicist during the 20s and 30s. Pickler Library at Truman State has Laughlin's files, which includes correspondence with Hitler, as Laughlin's ideas helped guide and inform the Nazi eugenics program.

Holy ****, what a disgusting story. Reading about this guy just now made my skin crawl.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by frazod

Do you really think people supported him knowing he'd be setting up death camps right outside their hometowns?

Um....there's a better chance than you'd think.

The runup from 1933 to 1938(ish) is pretty incredible and you're right - the story is much more complex than just saying that the Germans were complicit...but man, a bunch of them were.

Hitler was not elected via majority vote; he was elected in a plurality and essentially stole the rest of his authority through creating a false Bolshevik uprising and fanning flames of discontent after the Reichstag fire. He forced the Enabling Act through by essentially telling anyone that intended to vote against it that he'd have them and their families murdered. Once the enabling act was passed, he had cart blanche.

And if you go through and witness what the brownshirts were doing prior to the passing of the enabling act, there was ample reason to believe he'd act on the threat. The Nazi's had already seized control of the German police at that time and were shutting down any opposition to the Nazi regime.

I think it's disingenuous to argue that the Germans didn't know - they did. But it's equally disingenuous to argue that the majority of them wanted what Hitler was doing - the majority didn't; not at first and most likely not ever (though it's hard to get any real pulse for Germany's ideology after 1935; Naziism had been beaten into them by then). Many of them did, true, but many did not and were forced into silence.

They could've spoken out, sure. But the result would've been little more than the deaths of them and their families.

It's impossible to overstate the brutality of Hitler's rise to power.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by jspchief

I agree that there was no reasonable recourse for those that objected. But the problem is that there wasn't much objection. Anti-semitism was deeply rooted in German culture.

Yeah, this isn't accurate.

There was plenty of objection through the mid 1930s. And you trying to equate anti-antisemitism with advocating genocide is either intellectually dishonest or lazy.

Many German people do have crosses to bear here, but many of them were simply concerned with the survival of their families and where neither complicit in Hilter's crimes or in any way capable of doing anything about it.

But yeah, BRC is right - they should've just 'risen up' against the most charismatic leader in recorded human history. The Nazi's rose to power by brutally murdering opposition...I'm sure they would've grown bored of it by the 1940s rather than hardened and detached from the value of human life.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Loneiguana

Yes, the communists. And after the Reichstag Fire (33, I think), which was blamed on a Dutch communist, Hitler outlawed the parties. Once Hitler was in control, he was in control.

Dammit...late to the thread, everyone's stolen my thunder already. Yeah, the Reichstag fire was '33. Hitler may or may not have engineered the whole thing, but there's very little debate that he knew full well it was not an anti-establishment communist that burned the thing down (rather just a crazy dutchman) when he went and cited it as proof of a Communist uprising and justification for what amounted to Marshall Law.

I shall now stop posting until I read the rest of the thread.

[RNR]

Originally Posted by La literatura

I can assure you that the Church neither apologized for nor 'fessed up' to the Nazi Holocaust.

Who said they would? I never said they were involved in the killing of Jews.
The Rat Lines were no big deal and a myth right? Helping Nazis escape while pocketing a nice profit from stolen proceeds accumulated in the war just another myth right? More recently of course Richard Williamson was an innocent mistake right? Your Pope felt the charge of deicide needed to be dropped in the 60s but not you This church has helped some of the most evil people in history. I guess it should be expected from people who have hidden and protected child rapists from prosecution. Go ahead and respond with the flat denial of any wrong doing like usual~