8 ms·

I have always wondered how could the world allow the genocide of the Jews during the Holocaust. Now I understand. It's all about financial gains. No one will sp

by dsr12 6y ago

I have always wondered how could the world allow the genocide of the Jews during the Holocaust. Now I understand. It's all about financial gains. No one will speak out against such atrocities if it's against their financial interest. In today's world, no one will speak against China due to their selfish interests.

amvalo 6y ago
That and... the war
- solarkraft 6y ago
  What do you mean? The potential of a war breaking out? IIRC before the war started many countries happily traded with and weren't all that critical of Germany.
himinlomax 6y ago
The Holocaust happened during WW2, and mostly towards the end. The biggest armies ever assembled were actually actively trying to stop the Nazis you'll remember. And while persecutions against Jews were nothing new, the nature and extent of the actual genocide was definitely not publicized. It's well documented how the Nazis scrambled to hide their deeds, however late. Note how they summarily executed rural Jewish populations in Soviet territories, but deported those in urban or Western locations to remote camps. The reason why you'd think otherwise is because of a desire to further blame the German population at large at the end of the war. Not that they didn't deserve plenty of blame and were largely complicit, but I believe it's now pretty clear Nazi leadership knew it would have been too controversial should the truth of what was going on had been widely known. To wit, right after a concentration camp was liberated, the US general in charge forced the mayor of the nearby town to visit the camp (https://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/aftermath03.html https://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberat...). He and his wife then promptly committed suicide. Hard square that with the nature of the genocide being public knowledge.
- pasabagi 6y ago
  You should probably read the wikipedia article on this topic: there's far more evidence than I could give a concise introduction to, but the majority consensus is yes, the german people did know about the holocaust, because it was the german people (not just a secretive subset) that did it. The majority of the holocaust was carried out by ordinary german soldiers.
  - himinlomax 6y ago
    That it was carried out by "ordinary german soldiers," whatever that means, is irrelevant to the issue at hand, namely whether what was actually going on was widely known.
    - pasabagi 6y ago
      Do you have some kind of axe to grind on this topic? I just ask because, at that time, almost the entire male fighting age population were mobilized. So when it comes to the question 'is something generally known', it's obviously relevant that such a large portion of the population were actively involved in it.
      - himinlomax 6y ago
        There's a difference between what people can be made to do in the heat of the action (and it's frighteningly easy given the right circumstances) and what they will consent to when their rational, moral brain is engaged. (Though according to cognitive dissonance theory, the former influences the latter.) The only axe I have to grind is that this drive to further demonize Nazism, as if it needed any outside help, is utterly counter-productive. First it prevents us from drawing actual lessons from what happened. In this case, I posit that merely hiding the most gruesome details of the Holocaust was instrumental in allowing it to happen. "I should have known, I could have known, I didn't know" Albert Speer said. It was sneered at as being self-serving, but I think it reflects an important truth: it was rather easy to have people choose to ignore what was going on. They could simply choose to believe that the Jews had gone to live on a farm or something, so to speak, and avoid thinking too much about it at a time when they had plenty of other things to worry about. Second, it gives credibility to denialists' arguments. For example, they point out that gas chambers look dodgy and extremely unsafe for operators. That's because the Final Solution was initially presented as a well orchestrated, industrial operation that would have required a larger population to have full knowledge. But the current historical consensus is that while it was indeed a massive operation, it was in fact committed with relatively limited resources using leftover supplies.
pjc50 6y ago
The uncomfortable truth is that the eugenics and ""race science"" used to justify the Holocaust were mainstream in a lot of the colonial West. It started with people conveniently far away: Africans and Native Americans. Genocide against them was incredibly profitable. This made the empires of Spain, Portugal, UK, Belgium, and France. The Axis countries were trying to acquire a similar empire at a later date, and therefore had to create a racial enemy out of those they wanted to conquer; Italy in Abyssinia, and Germany against the slavic peoples to the east. The Jewish people (and Romani, disabled, queer and other groups targeted) were a convenient internal enemy. Fascism relies on enemies to unify the "people" against. Allegedly Hitler said "nobody remembers the Armenians" when asked about genocide, referring to the comparatively recent event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide The Holocaust of the Jews was the point at which the horror was brought home enough that most people could recognise it as morally abhorrent, and there was enough "never again" motivation to embed human rights into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R... .
- hrkucuk 6y ago
  Do you point out that Armenian Genocide was also an event nobody talked about while it was happening? I believe Armenian Genocide cannot be compared to what happened in Holocaust or what is happening in Xinjiang. I think you need more information on what happened during 1914–1923 in Anatolia. I suggest you to read "Dashnagtzoutiun Has Nothing To Do Anymore",The Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic. You can find it in this PDF, the manifesto starts at page 29: https://ata-a.org.au/pdf/DASHNAGTZOUTIUN.pdf https://ata-a.org.au/pdf/DASHNAGTZOUTIUN.pdf
  - cafard 6y ago
    Plenty of people talked about it, but to no particular result.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    For the record, there is a controversy about authenticity of this book. Read the Wikipedia page about Hovhannes Katchaznouni, and also its talk page.
pinkfoot 6y ago
Or against Rwanda. Where there was no money involved.

by dsr12 6y ago

amvalo 6y ago

That and... the war

solarkraft 6y ago
What do you mean? The potential of a war breaking out? IIRC before the war started many countries happily traded with and weren't all that critical of Germany.

himinlomax 6y ago

The Holocaust happened during WW2, and mostly towards the end. The biggest armies ever assembled were actually actively trying to stop the Nazis you'll remember. And while persecutions against Jews were nothing new, the nature and extent of the actual genocide was definitely not publicized. It's well documented how the Nazis scrambled to hide their deeds, however late. Note how they summarily executed rural Jewish populations in Soviet territories, but deported those in urban or Western locations to remote camps. The reason why you'd think otherwise is because of a desire to further blame the German population at large at the end of the war. Not that they didn't deserve plenty of blame and were largely complicit, but I believe it's now pretty clear Nazi leadership knew it would have been too controversial should the truth of what was going on had been widely known. To wit, right after a concentration camp was liberated, the US general in charge forced the mayor of the nearby town to visit the camp (https://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/aftermath03.html https://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberat...). He and his wife then promptly committed suicide. Hard square that with the nature of the genocide being public knowledge.

pasabagi 6y ago
You should probably read the wikipedia article on this topic: there's far more evidence than I could give a concise introduction to, but the majority consensus is yes, the german people did know about the holocaust, because it was the german people (not just a secretive subset) that did it. The majority of the holocaust was carried out by ordinary german soldiers.
- himinlomax 6y ago
  That it was carried out by "ordinary german soldiers," whatever that means, is irrelevant to the issue at hand, namely whether what was actually going on was widely known.
  - pasabagi 6y ago
    Do you have some kind of axe to grind on this topic? I just ask because, at that time, almost the entire male fighting age population were mobilized. So when it comes to the question 'is something generally known', it's obviously relevant that such a large portion of the population were actively involved in it.
    - himinlomax 6y ago
      There's a difference between what people can be made to do in the heat of the action (and it's frighteningly easy given the right circumstances) and what they will consent to when their rational, moral brain is engaged. (Though according to cognitive dissonance theory, the former influences the latter.) The only axe I have to grind is that this drive to further demonize Nazism, as if it needed any outside help, is utterly counter-productive. First it prevents us from drawing actual lessons from what happened. In this case, I posit that merely hiding the most gruesome details of the Holocaust was instrumental in allowing it to happen. "I should have known, I could have known, I didn't know" Albert Speer said. It was sneered at as being self-serving, but I think it reflects an important truth: it was rather easy to have people choose to ignore what was going on. They could simply choose to believe that the Jews had gone to live on a farm or something, so to speak, and avoid thinking too much about it at a time when they had plenty of other things to worry about. Second, it gives credibility to denialists' arguments. For example, they point out that gas chambers look dodgy and extremely unsafe for operators. That's because the Final Solution was initially presented as a well orchestrated, industrial operation that would have required a larger population to have full knowledge. But the current historical consensus is that while it was indeed a massive operation, it was in fact committed with relatively limited resources using leftover supplies.

pjc50 6y ago

The uncomfortable truth is that the eugenics and ""race science"" used to justify the Holocaust were mainstream in a lot of the colonial West. It started with people conveniently far away: Africans and Native Americans. Genocide against them was incredibly profitable. This made the empires of Spain, Portugal, UK, Belgium, and France. The Axis countries were trying to acquire a similar empire at a later date, and therefore had to create a racial enemy out of those they wanted to conquer; Italy in Abyssinia, and Germany against the slavic peoples to the east. The Jewish people (and Romani, disabled, queer and other groups targeted) were a convenient internal enemy. Fascism relies on enemies to unify the "people" against. Allegedly Hitler said "nobody remembers the Armenians" when asked about genocide, referring to the comparatively recent event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide The Holocaust of the Jews was the point at which the horror was brought home enough that most people could recognise it as morally abhorrent, and there was enough "never again" motivation to embed human rights into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R... .

hrkucuk 6y ago
Do you point out that Armenian Genocide was also an event nobody talked about while it was happening? I believe Armenian Genocide cannot be compared to what happened in Holocaust or what is happening in Xinjiang. I think you need more information on what happened during 1914–1923 in Anatolia. I suggest you to read "Dashnagtzoutiun Has Nothing To Do Anymore",The Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic. You can find it in this PDF, the manifesto starts at page 29: https://ata-a.org.au/pdf/DASHNAGTZOUTIUN.pdf https://ata-a.org.au/pdf/DASHNAGTZOUTIUN.pdf
- cafard 6y ago
  Plenty of people talked about it, but to no particular result.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  For the record, there is a controversy about authenticity of this book. Read the Wikipedia page about Hovhannes Katchaznouni, and also its talk page.

pinkfoot 6y ago

Or against Rwanda. Where there was no money involved.