4 ms·

Well you're not a historian right? So you can always opt to have no judgement. But, in any given field, the job is to sort the probable propositions from the i

• easytiger 3y ago
  > But, in any given field, the job is to sort the probable propositions from the improbable. The job is also to assert no conclusion when appropriate. That has not happened here.
• candiodari 3y ago
  How about this: my family gave me a firsthand account of what happened at the end of WW2 in my hometown (which was mass executions by a mob, with all the kids invited to come and see, one of those kids was my grandfather, grandmother and another one of those kids became professor and bartender in the student union). They used a bridge over the central river in the town and hung several dozen people, including 1 kid. People watched from the next bridge over, the kids were given most of the front part of the bridge to look on. My grandmother claims she didn't dare leave. For weeks afterwards, dozens of people disappeared or were outright found murdered in the street before revenge killings slowly died down. This was in the center of Northwest Europe. I also know what the history books and the state says, namely that no such thing happened. In fact this happened in essentially every town, all but the smallest, in Northwest Europe. There were local differences. In some cities kids got executed because of who their parents were. Sometimes the Nazi soldiers were gone, people in hiding came out, and the local government turned out to have internalized Nazi ideology ... and executed them. Mostly the government never looked at it's own role in what happened, and CERTAINLY never did anything to return possessions of deported people, mostly but certainly not exclusively Jews. Sometimes opportunists used the opportunity to execute local rich families or rival farmers and confiscate their possessions. In another relatively famous story, the local police commander knew that civil servants and things like notaries, but also some youth services related clergy, were cooperating with the Nazi government ... and executed them. In some places it even came to a battle between pro- and anti-Nazi forces (yes, after liberation). You will find some reference to some of what happened in history books about the South Part of the Netherlands, but this happened everywhere. The government denies it happened in my hometown, and in fact denies it happened anywhere in the country. A general amnesty was declared by the Americans some months later, mostly out of total desperation that they were losing everyone, and that it needed to stop and instead they'd do the Nuremberg trials, which were limited to the worst of the worst, and exclusively people from the actual Nazi party. Of course, all the European governments did all decide they were never going to repay or return anything that was stolen, not to Jews, not to those rich families, not to the Church, nothing. War pensions were awarded to survivors of the camps, the same or similar to what was awarded to soldiers. Western European Governments just wanted control, and let murders happen, provided official documents "confirming" possessions of goods stolen through massacres, if only they were allowed to stay in power. This included falsifying birth certificates for a LOT of children where, shall we say, parental responsibilities were redistributed. This practice would continue for decades after the war ended.
  • mjburgess 3y ago
    I think you're making the point better than I can --- scepticism isn't innocent.