5 ms·

In what historical context was “wellness farm” used as a euphemism?

by _2d30 2y ago

froh 2y ago
would you, in the context of fascist Germany or other totalitarian regimes with concentration camps, not understand the quoted text as cynical euphemism for such camps? this understanding of metaphors is not that it was used then. the understanding happens today a contemporary application of historical knowledge. and honestly, it's obvious.
- vasco 2y ago
  It's not after that fact, or any euphemism - this is the exact way the regime tried to pass them off at the time. Germany called the concentration camps luxurious places to hangout and learn skills and rehabilitate, with post office, frequent movie screenings, a swimming pool, nice beds. The reality was much different as we know. They did have a small pool on the grounds for show. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/lying-about-auschwitz/ https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/lying-about-ausc...
  - froh 2y ago
    wow. TIL.
    - taneliv 2y ago
      Good for you! If only things like this were taught in schools so that by the time people find Hacker News, they'd already know about them. We would be having entirely different conversations.
      - _2d30 2y ago
        Seems like a waste to update the curricula every few years to include, for example, some random lady who published a holocasut denail book in 2010 as referenced in that source. Doesn't seem very useful pedagogically!
      - froh 2y ago
        this gets me the wrong way. see, I live in Nuremberg, Germany. I went to school here, "higher education". I've learned a lot about fascism, how it lured voters into electing them, how they grabbed and secured power, how they introduced concentration camps ("animal protection" legislation, prohibiting kosher butchering, introduced the camps as punishment for those insisting on kosher law. twisted) I've visited two concentration camp memorials, with their cynical writing at the gate. I've read the Auschwitz documents edited by 2001 Verlag. I've watched the Holocaust movie series of the 1970s (way to early) nonetheless, I was not aware of concentration camps being labeled as recreational leisure camps of some sort by the nazis. my point being: it was no lack of education to not know that additional aspect of systematic brain sick evil.
        _2d30 2y ago
        AFAICT, this wasn't actually how the Germans framed the concentration camps at all. The article you responded to is about how a woman described them in 2010. The closest thing I can find is here: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deceiving-the-public#propaganda-film-lens-on-theresienstadt-6 https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deceiving-... And this film was never even shown broadly as it was made near the end of the war. Also, it's technically for a ghetto and not a concentration camp. No AI I've asked and no links I've found suggest that concentration camps were broadly propagandized as anything similar to "wellness farms".
        vasco 2y ago
        What about this article from AP, Monday, April 24, 1933, doesn't say wellness farm, but it also isn't very accurate. Was a cursory search of contemporaneous articles and that popped up, probably not impossible to find more with similar descriptions. Enough to at least understand the message at the time was much softer than reality. > Some 18,000 Germans from all walks of life are being held in the political concentration camps in various parts of the country. > Wilhelm Frick, Prussian minister of the interior, explains that they will be kept there until they become "fit citizens," reconciled if not converted, to the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. > Sanitary conditions generally are described as excellent. There are doctors at each camp to care for the health of the inmates, and some of them report that the political prisoners are adepts [sic] at getting on morning "sick call." > The physical culture includes morning setting-up exercises, football matches and similar group games. The manual labor is mostly tidying up the camp premises and barracks, but there are odd Jobs too, such as sewing or painting swastika emblems on confiscated Communist flags. > Taeglische Rundschau sees political ideas of tomorrow coming from the concentration camps of today. Quoting a prisoner as saying "Sure we'd like to get out; but this is a good enough place to think things over," the paper comments: [0] https://newspapers.ushmm.org/historical-article/1933-camps-used-by-nazis-to-convert-foes-50954 https://newspapers.ushmm.org/historical-article/1933-camps-u...
  - _2d30 2y ago
    Your source for this is an article that takes down a description from a book that was written in 2010. Not sure if you quite caught that on your thorough reading of it.
    - vasco 2y ago
      I just wanted to find some supporting information, what I know about this I know from visiting the camp myself so I didn't have an amazing source at hand.
- _2d30 2y ago
  Oh so you mean it wasn’t used that way in a historical context? Got it.
  - froh 2y ago
    no I was explaining what understanding in historic context means. edit: ...also I didn't know it was even used this way, back then, see my TIL reply in some "cousin" comment.
    - _2d30 2y ago
      If by "back then", you mean 2010, then yeah. But if you still mean that the specific term "wellness farm" COULD have been used as a euphemism for concentration camps (regardless of whether or not it ever was), then what's the point? Like people also COULD have used the term "suburb" as euphemism for a concentration camp. Should we also be skeptical of anyone who says they want to build suburbs? What's even the point of of saying that a term COULD have been used as euphemism historically?
mrtesthah 2y ago
[flagged]
BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
Current day
Aeolun 2y ago
Do you read ‘wellness farm’ and think it is something literal? If it was a well accepted term it’d be one thing, but when made up on the spot it very much sounds like “place we sen out undesirables” to me.

In what historical context was “wellness farm” used as a euphemism?

by _2d30 2y ago

In what historical context was “wellness farm” used as a euphemism?

froh 2y ago

would you, in the context of fascist Germany or other totalitarian regimes with concentration camps, not understand the quoted text as cynical euphemism for such camps? this understanding of metaphors is not that it was used then. the understanding happens today a contemporary application of historical knowledge. and honestly, it's obvious.

vasco 2y ago
It's not after that fact, or any euphemism - this is the exact way the regime tried to pass them off at the time. Germany called the concentration camps luxurious places to hangout and learn skills and rehabilitate, with post office, frequent movie screenings, a swimming pool, nice beds. The reality was much different as we know. They did have a small pool on the grounds for show. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/lying-about-auschwitz/ https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/lying-about-ausc...
- froh 2y ago
  wow. TIL.
  - taneliv 2y ago
    Good for you! If only things like this were taught in schools so that by the time people find Hacker News, they'd already know about them. We would be having entirely different conversations.
    - _2d30 2y ago
      Seems like a waste to update the curricula every few years to include, for example, some random lady who published a holocasut denail book in 2010 as referenced in that source. Doesn't seem very useful pedagogically!
    - froh 2y ago
      this gets me the wrong way. see, I live in Nuremberg, Germany. I went to school here, "higher education". I've learned a lot about fascism, how it lured voters into electing them, how they grabbed and secured power, how they introduced concentration camps ("animal protection" legislation, prohibiting kosher butchering, introduced the camps as punishment for those insisting on kosher law. twisted) I've visited two concentration camp memorials, with their cynical writing at the gate. I've read the Auschwitz documents edited by 2001 Verlag. I've watched the Holocaust movie series of the 1970s (way to early) nonetheless, I was not aware of concentration camps being labeled as recreational leisure camps of some sort by the nazis. my point being: it was no lack of education to not know that additional aspect of systematic brain sick evil.
      - _2d30 2y ago
        AFAICT, this wasn't actually how the Germans framed the concentration camps at all. The article you responded to is about how a woman described them in 2010. The closest thing I can find is here: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deceiving-the-public#propaganda-film-lens-on-theresienstadt-6 https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deceiving-... And this film was never even shown broadly as it was made near the end of the war. Also, it's technically for a ghetto and not a concentration camp. No AI I've asked and no links I've found suggest that concentration camps were broadly propagandized as anything similar to "wellness farms".
        vasco 2y ago
        What about this article from AP, Monday, April 24, 1933, doesn't say wellness farm, but it also isn't very accurate. Was a cursory search of contemporaneous articles and that popped up, probably not impossible to find more with similar descriptions. Enough to at least understand the message at the time was much softer than reality. > Some 18,000 Germans from all walks of life are being held in the political concentration camps in various parts of the country. > Wilhelm Frick, Prussian minister of the interior, explains that they will be kept there until they become "fit citizens," reconciled if not converted, to the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. > Sanitary conditions generally are described as excellent. There are doctors at each camp to care for the health of the inmates, and some of them report that the political prisoners are adepts [sic] at getting on morning "sick call." > The physical culture includes morning setting-up exercises, football matches and similar group games. The manual labor is mostly tidying up the camp premises and barracks, but there are odd Jobs too, such as sewing or painting swastika emblems on confiscated Communist flags. > Taeglische Rundschau sees political ideas of tomorrow coming from the concentration camps of today. Quoting a prisoner as saying "Sure we'd like to get out; but this is a good enough place to think things over," the paper comments: [0] https://newspapers.ushmm.org/historical-article/1933-camps-used-by-nazis-to-convert-foes-50954 https://newspapers.ushmm.org/historical-article/1933-camps-u...
- _2d30 2y ago
  Your source for this is an article that takes down a description from a book that was written in 2010. Not sure if you quite caught that on your thorough reading of it.
  - vasco 2y ago
    I just wanted to find some supporting information, what I know about this I know from visiting the camp myself so I didn't have an amazing source at hand.
_2d30 2y ago
Oh so you mean it wasn’t used that way in a historical context? Got it.
- froh 2y ago
  no I was explaining what understanding in historic context means. edit: ...also I didn't know it was even used this way, back then, see my TIL reply in some "cousin" comment.
  - _2d30 2y ago
    If by "back then", you mean 2010, then yeah. But if you still mean that the specific term "wellness farm" COULD have been used as a euphemism for concentration camps (regardless of whether or not it ever was), then what's the point? Like people also COULD have used the term "suburb" as euphemism for a concentration camp. Should we also be skeptical of anyone who says they want to build suburbs? What's even the point of of saying that a term COULD have been used as euphemism historically?

mrtesthah 2y ago

[flagged]

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago

Current day

Aeolun 2y ago

Do you read ‘wellness farm’ and think it is something literal? If it was a well accepted term it’d be one thing, but when made up on the spot it very much sounds like “place we sen out undesirables” to me.