3 ms·

It’s not slavery. They’re similar atrocities though. It would be weird to refer to the people in Auchwitz-II as slaves.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago
I'm no necessarily disagreeing with you, as far as saying "it would be weird to refer to the people in Auschwitz-II as slaves", but may I ask why? I can't come up with a reason, really. They were dehumanized, worked to death, treated as property and less. Would calling them slaves be giving the Nazis too much credit, at that point?
- jlokier 6y ago
  Because Auschwitz-II took dehumanisation to a whole extra level of depravity, far beyond slavery. While you could logically argue that people there were also slaves, it would be an injustice to leave it at that. Generally speaking, slaves had some kinds of rights that were far better than those in Auschwitz-II. It's one thing to be treated as someone's property and forced labour, as a slave. It's another thing to be subject to awful medical experimentation (often to death), torture of kinds that are barely imaginable, and mass killing with on-site factories literally built to murder the occupants and other occupants forced to dispose of the body parts of their friends afterwards. All of this in large numbers. There's a reason Auschwitz-II had sections called "Crematoria I-IV". Auschwitz-II makes almost every evil in the world look mild in comparison. It's that bad.
  - UnpossibleJim 6y ago
    I'm just trying to get the comparison of terms down. While, yes, as an American, English is my first and primary language, I'm afraid some of its phraseology still confuses me. I think it has to do with parts of society that I don't understand, granted. The visceral reaction to the word "slavery" seems much more than to the more sanitized phrase "forced labor", or even "labor camp". Those are what we are what we're discussing here, like it or not. Uighurs are being sterilized and used as forced labor, but the phraseology is so sanitary as to not disturb our modern pallet of consumerism, we dare not draw a comparison to Nazis. While there are no crematoria, there are certainly shallow graves and executions, and parallels to be drawn. The word slave and forced labor is, at best, an argument of semantics of note only to those on the sidelines I'm sure, while those in bondage don't care what they're called.
baybal2 6y ago
It is slavery. > It would be weird to refer to the people in Auchwitz-II as slaves. People in Auchwitz-II were enslaved, thus they were slaves, subjects of economic exploitation in their life, and death. It's just we never, and for a wrong reason, talk about the original motive behind NSDAPs attack on Jews, and other minorities. That motive is the same as for whatever else form of forced labour — class warfare, as was the case for many other pretexts for genocide in history. The type of hatred NSDAP managed to peddle the most was not for hatred of Jewish people for being Jewish as such, but for Jewish people being rich. NSDAPs first attacks on Jewish people were spun around the message of class warfare. NSDAPs biggest sell for Kristallnacht was the opportunity for poor angry underclasses to get from rags to riches in one night by robbing homes, and businesses of rich Jewish families with impunity after all.
bigbubba 6y ago
Oh fuck off. A quick web search reveals that Auschwitz.org refers to slave labor as slave labor in numerous places. > On July 4, 1942 at the latest, regular selection was introduced for the Jews arriving on RSHA transports. As a result, an average of only 20% of them were kept alive and placed in the camp as prisoners capable of performing slave labor. They were employed mostly in constructing new parts of the camp, or at German companies involved in maintaining and developing the military potential of the Third Reich. They were transferred on a mass scale from Auschwitz to sub-camps set up nearby or in Upper Silesia, or to concentration camps in the depths of the Third Reich. http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/jews-in-auschwitz/ http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/jews...

I'm no necessarily disagreeing with you, as far as saying "it would be weird to refer to the people in Auschwitz-II as slaves", but may I ask why? I can't come up with a reason, really. They were dehumanized, worked to death, treated as property and less. Would calling them slaves be giving the Nazis too much credit, at that point?

jlokier 6y ago
Because Auschwitz-II took dehumanisation to a whole extra level of depravity, far beyond slavery. While you could logically argue that people there were also slaves, it would be an injustice to leave it at that. Generally speaking, slaves had some kinds of rights that were far better than those in Auschwitz-II. It's one thing to be treated as someone's property and forced labour, as a slave. It's another thing to be subject to awful medical experimentation (often to death), torture of kinds that are barely imaginable, and mass killing with on-site factories literally built to murder the occupants and other occupants forced to dispose of the body parts of their friends afterwards. All of this in large numbers. There's a reason Auschwitz-II had sections called "Crematoria I-IV". Auschwitz-II makes almost every evil in the world look mild in comparison. It's that bad.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  I'm just trying to get the comparison of terms down. While, yes, as an American, English is my first and primary language, I'm afraid some of its phraseology still confuses me. I think it has to do with parts of society that I don't understand, granted. The visceral reaction to the word "slavery" seems much more than to the more sanitized phrase "forced labor", or even "labor camp". Those are what we are what we're discussing here, like it or not. Uighurs are being sterilized and used as forced labor, but the phraseology is so sanitary as to not disturb our modern pallet of consumerism, we dare not draw a comparison to Nazis. While there are no crematoria, there are certainly shallow graves and executions, and parallels to be drawn. The word slave and forced labor is, at best, an argument of semantics of note only to those on the sidelines I'm sure, while those in bondage don't care what they're called.

baybal2 6y ago

It is slavery. > It would be weird to refer to the people in Auchwitz-II as slaves. People in Auchwitz-II were enslaved, thus they were slaves, subjects of economic exploitation in their life, and death. It's just we never, and for a wrong reason, talk about the original motive behind NSDAPs attack on Jews, and other minorities. That motive is the same as for whatever else form of forced labour — class warfare, as was the case for many other pretexts for genocide in history. The type of hatred NSDAP managed to peddle the most was not for hatred of Jewish people for being Jewish as such, but for Jewish people being rich. NSDAPs first attacks on Jewish people were spun around the message of class warfare. NSDAPs biggest sell for Kristallnacht was the opportunity for poor angry underclasses to get from rags to riches in one night by robbing homes, and businesses of rich Jewish families with impunity after all.

bigbubba 6y ago

Oh fuck off. A quick web search reveals that Auschwitz.org refers to slave labor as slave labor in numerous places. > On July 4, 1942 at the latest, regular selection was introduced for the Jews arriving on RSHA transports. As a result, an average of only 20% of them were kept alive and placed in the camp as prisoners capable of performing slave labor. They were employed mostly in constructing new parts of the camp, or at German companies involved in maintaining and developing the military potential of the Third Reich. They were transferred on a mass scale from Auschwitz to sub-camps set up nearby or in Upper Silesia, or to concentration camps in the depths of the Third Reich. http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/jews-in-auschwitz/ http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/jews...