History of the Holocaust

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Gustav said:
Gens understood better than most what the future held. He told a young partisan in the Vilna ghetto: “The ghetto is a world alone, a special world. The ghetto is a death chamber which holds men, women and little children. The death sentence has already been pronounced but not yet carried out, and the final date is not known.” But he also attempted to vindicate himself before the bar of history, declaring: “I will say: I did everything in order to save as many Jews as possible…to usher them to freedom. To ensure that at least a remnant of Jews survive, I myself had to lead Jews to death; and in order to have people emerge with a clean conscience, I had to befoul myself and act without conscience.”

It was a questionable philosophy. As Samuel Esterowicz wrote: “I came to the conclusion (as did many others) that Gens was a man stripped of any moral standards long before his treacherous role became obvious to most of us… In defence of Gens' shameful deeds one often hears the argument that if not he but the Germans had carried out the aktionen, it would have been worse. I ask: worse for whom? Certainly not for the many thousands who Gens and the police acting on his orders sent to their deaths. In this case worse off could be only those who, by pushing others to their deaths, had hoped to save their own lives, a hope in which they turned out to be cruelly wrong… Faced with the demand of the Germans to furnish them with victims, without hesitation Gens seized the right given to nobody - to decide who of us should stay alive and who should die and then to deliver the victims to the executioners.”

Not all shared this view. Grisha Shur wrote in his diary after Gens' death: “… If Gens had supporters and opponents – there were no longer two opinions, nor any who hated him… Virtually all understood that the ghetto had lost… a man of wide vision and great understanding of historical moments…” And Chaim Lazar, a leading member of the FPO, wrote: “The hearts of the Jews mourn the tragedy of Gens…. All that he did during his tenure as chief of the ghetto was for his people… Everyone knows that Gens had many opportunities to save himself… but he renounced his personal safety to devote himself to the ghetto. He believed in his ability, and was convinced to the last moment that he would be able to save the remnants [of the ghetto].”

Perhaps Yitzhak Arad delivered the most charitable verdict on Gens. “In the prevailing conditions,” he wrote, “the policy laid down by Jacob Gens was the only one that afforded hope and some prospect of survival. But even this failed, and the fact that the ghetto was productive did not spare it from liquidation.” ​
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So why did he not lead the brigade?
 
Gustav said:
i would take the bullet
there comes a time in life when you will not bend on your principles. this is one of them. if i do rape my daughter, i do not expect absolution from anyone

what if you force me to kill my daughter at gunpoint? her life for mine? is that not a better analogy of what the judenrat were actually trading their survival for? the death of other jews?

in a future holocaust would you consider this an honorable alternative? sending your jewish neighbors to the gas chamber so you can survive?

i would be ashamed
obviously not you

/spits
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Armchair moralist. No one knows what they would do when confronted with that situation. The instinct to survive is often stronger than anything else. I would admire people who could think about principles at such a time, but I would also not think anything less of someone who just wanted to live. It's not immoral, since they were not responsible for the situation.
 
spidergoat said:
Armchair moralist. No one knows what they would do when confronted with that situation. The instinct to survive is often stronger than anything else. I would admire people who could think about principles at such a time, but I would also not think anything less of someone who just wanted to live. It's not immoral, since they were not responsible for the situation.
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i rather you not drag me into your gutter
you can live on your knees if you want. i will not
 
Makes no difference what we say. Neither of us have faced such a situation. Many holocaust survivors live with the guilt of what they could have done and what they might have been forced to do. In any case, it is a tragedy not of their own making.
 
S.A.M.'s statement that the rounding up of Jews was done by Jews is at best a factual inaccuracy and at worst a lie. Your inability to back it up with anything outside of blogs with radical agendas shows your insecurity.
 
Musichascolors said:
S.A.M.'s statement that the rounding up of Jews was done by Jews is at best a factual inaccuracy and at worst a lie. Your inability to back it up with anything outside of blogs with radical agendas shows your insecurity.
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I hardly think quoting Holocaust victims testimonies and holocaust researchers [all Jewish] is a sign of insecurity.

Now, making sweeping, unsupported assertions on the other hand...

This is not about Jews. The Germans also used the Poles in Poland, the French [remember the Vichy?] in France and the all manner of local leaders as their kapos in the camps. This is also not only about the Germans, since selecting a leader out of the prison population as an overseer is as old as the hills. It is followed in wars quite regularly. If you've seen any old WWII movies, you may remember it.
 
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James R said:
After about 150 posts, it looks like the OP still hasn't really been addressed. Briefly I'd like to do so, without giving specific references. SAM can follow up.



I'm not sure. The figure usually given for the Jewish persecution is about 6 million people. Then you need to add groups such as gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people and others. There are approximate figures available.
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funny, russians are not people? they died more than any other group in ww2. the jewish supposed casualty number is dwarfed by theirs.
 
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S.A.M. said:
The group of people most involved in rounding up, persecuting and killing Jews for Nazis was Jews.
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There was a minor amount of 'collaboration" by Jews hoping to save themselves. As I have said before, the Nazis were the policymakers and the enforcers. Any collaboration by Jews flowed essentially from fear and self preservation. A very common human trait.

Where do you get the above statement from?
 
S.A.M. said:
Indeed. And collaborators in the abuse of said victims. According to most testimonies, the cruelty of the Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei was "at times greater than that of the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Latvians."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Ghetto_Police

11548.gif




http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/gallery/11548.htm
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Ah OK. That`s your source.
Equating the dark side of human nature, as seen in the OD and other Jewish self-policing activities, is to the statement:
The group of people most involved in rounding up, persecuting and killing Jews for Nazis was Jews.
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is incorrect. Nothing can alter the fact that the Nazis established Ghettos and Concentration camps by force, and that any collaboration by Jews, was a direct consequence of these policies. Human nature, like rats in a cage, will ultimately manifest in self preservation.
 
StrawDog said:
There was a minor amount of 'collaboration" by Jews hoping to save themselves. As I have said before, the Nazis were the policymakers and the enforcers. Any collaboration by Jews flowed essentially from fear and self preservation. A very common human trait.

Where do you get the above statement from?
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Plus, most of the time the Jews didn't know what was going on when they were getting rounded up, how could Jew help the Germans if he himself had no idea what was going on.
 
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