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The comment about context is spot on; linguists call the mentioned phenomenon "associative meaning" after Leech (1981: 18). The OP uses the Italian fascism sym

by jll29 2y ago

The comment about context is spot on; linguists call the mentioned phenomenon "associative meaning" after Leech (1981: 18). The OP uses the Italian fascism symbol. Hitler's appropriation of the symbol for the sun - taken from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism (and apparently in some places in Africa, too) - can also be used to explain it: it has forever changed the _associative meaning_ of it - and now the symbol (legally banned in Germany outside of historic educational/research context) evokes images not of sun workship, but of the worst evils committed by mankind: gas chambers with scratch marks of human fingernail, human skin turned into lamp shades and piles of starved bodies, tens of millions dead one way or another (holocaust and WWII). That history leaves a sad, repulsive, shocking and painful memory imprinted on one's brain (assuming one has some empathy and conscience), and seeing the symbol in the 19th century would be quite difference in comparison; this memory association cannot be "un-thought" (and as moral obligation, shouldn't!). On a related note, looking at the European elections, it is shameful and beyond believe that some want to turn back the clock (actual fascists) or to protest-vote like the folks did in the 1930s (coward followers). Leech, Geoffrey N. (1981) _Semantics: The Study of Meaning_ (2nd ed.), London: Penguin).

oiuerncn 2y ago
>human skin turned into lamp shades a human skin lampshade was reported to have been displayed by Buchenwald concentration camp commandant Karl-Otto Koch and his wife Ilse Koch, along with other human skin artifacts.[2][3][4] Despite myths to the contrary, there were no systematic efforts by the Nazis to make human skin lampshades.[5] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampshades_made_from_human_skin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampshades_made_from_human_ski... >soap made from human corpses The Yad Vashem Memorial has stated that the Nazis did not produce soap with fat which was extracted from Jewish corpses on an industrial scale Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_made_from_human_corpses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_made_from_human_corpses The German Corpse Factory or Kadaververwertungsanstalt (literally "Carcass-Utilization Factory"), also sometimes called the "German Corpse-Rendering Works" or "Tallow Factory"[1] was one of the most notorious anti-German atrocity propaganda stories circulated in World War I. In the postwar years, investigations in Britain and France revealed that these stories were false. [...] Rumours that the Germans used the bodies of their soldiers to create fat appear to have been circulating by 1915. Cynthia Asquith noted in her diary on 16 June 1915: “We discussed the rumour that the Germans utilise even their corpses by converting them into glycerine with the by-product of soap.”[7] Such stories also appeared in the American press in 1915 and 1916.[7] The French press also took it up in Le Gaulois, in February, 1916. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Corpse_Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Corpse_Factory
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> human skin turned into lamp shades This is horseshit. Even the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem says that concentration camp lampshades made of human skin were probably myth. The one extant example was tested in 2012, seems it's just cow leather. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lampshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lampshade
- cossatot 2y ago
  Should the apocryphal status of a single item in his list change your (or anyone else's) opinions and associations of the horrors of the Holocaust?
  - kragen 2y ago
    it seems important that the comment was written with no concern for whether it was true or false; it puts it outside the pale of serious discourse and more in the category of trolling
  - kevinventullo 2y ago
    I mean… yes? Isn’t it strictly worse if they really did make lampshades out of human skin? Truth matters, and such fabrications do a disservice to the victims of the horrors which did transpire.

by jll29 2y ago

oiuerncn 2y ago

>human skin turned into lamp shades a human skin lampshade was reported to have been displayed by Buchenwald concentration camp commandant Karl-Otto Koch and his wife Ilse Koch, along with other human skin artifacts.[2][3][4] Despite myths to the contrary, there were no systematic efforts by the Nazis to make human skin lampshades.[5] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampshades_made_from_human_skin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampshades_made_from_human_ski... >soap made from human corpses The Yad Vashem Memorial has stated that the Nazis did not produce soap with fat which was extracted from Jewish corpses on an industrial scale Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_made_from_human_corpses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_made_from_human_corpses The German Corpse Factory or Kadaververwertungsanstalt (literally "Carcass-Utilization Factory"), also sometimes called the "German Corpse-Rendering Works" or "Tallow Factory"[1] was one of the most notorious anti-German atrocity propaganda stories circulated in World War I. In the postwar years, investigations in Britain and France revealed that these stories were false. [...] Rumours that the Germans used the bodies of their soldiers to create fat appear to have been circulating by 1915. Cynthia Asquith noted in her diary on 16 June 1915: “We discussed the rumour that the Germans utilise even their corpses by converting them into glycerine with the by-product of soap.”[7] Such stories also appeared in the American press in 1915 and 1916.[7] The French press also took it up in Le Gaulois, in February, 1916. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Corpse_Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Corpse_Factory

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

> human skin turned into lamp shades This is horseshit. Even the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem says that concentration camp lampshades made of human skin were probably myth. The one extant example was tested in 2012, seems it's just cow leather. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lampshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lampshade

cossatot 2y ago
Should the apocryphal status of a single item in his list change your (or anyone else's) opinions and associations of the horrors of the Holocaust?
- kragen 2y ago
  it seems important that the comment was written with no concern for whether it was true or false; it puts it outside the pale of serious discourse and more in the category of trolling
- kevinventullo 2y ago
  I mean… yes? Isn’t it strictly worse if they really did make lampshades out of human skin? Truth matters, and such fabrications do a disservice to the victims of the horrors which did transpire.