History of the Holocaust

[StrawDog]

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.

Yes sadly. Imagine the horror.

 

[S.A.M.]

There was a minor amount of 'collaboration" by Jews hoping to save themselves.

Thats assuming they knew what was happening. Did they? The extermination per se was not implented from the beginning of the war, was it? But the collaborators were present from the very beginning.

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:

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.

Of course, by modern comparison, no one can alter the fact that its the Israelis occupying Palestine. But that does not change the fact that the PA collaborates with them and apparently encourages the killing of Palestinians as well.

The video reportedly showed Abbas trying to convince Barak to continue the war on Gaza, while Barak looked hesitant, although Livni appeared to be in support of the plan, Shahab quoted its sources as saying.

The video reportedly showed Abbas trying to convince Barak to continue the war on Gaza, while Barak looked hesitant, although Livni appeared to be in support of the plan, Shahab quoted its sources as saying.

Meanwhile, does anyone make similar excuses for the Vichy in France or the Poles or Lithuanians who also collaborated with the Germans? Is collaboration something unique to them?

 

[GeoffP]

Thats assuming they knew what was happening. Did they? The extermination per se was not implented from the beginning of the war, was it? But the collaborators were present from the very beginning.

They certainly knew they were saving themselves from something, Sam. They were hoping to avoid being rounded up themselves and were willing to do whatever to dodge whatever worse might happen.

Of course, by modern comparison, no one can alter the fact that its the Israelis occupying Palestine.

We've been over this before, but it's not really a comparison. It's a separate issue.

Meanwhile, does anyone make similar excuses for the Vichy in France or the Poles or Lithuanians who also collaborated with the Germans? Is collaboration something unique to them?

That's an interesting comment. I don't think anyone is excusing the actions of the Jewish collaborators with the Nazis. What I more generally see is people differentiating the actions of those - very few, it must be restated - Jewish collaborators with those of Jews generally. Is it this difference you are seeking to erode? I ask this as a question, but the tone of your comments throughout this thread suggest that you've already made up your mind.

So the collaborators were very savage. And? So what? What is it you wish to relate to this?

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Actually the Holocaust was set in motion almost as soon as the Nazi's took power in several steps;

1.The boycott of April 1, 1933, and the ensuing wave of racial legislation aimed at Jewish employees in the public services and the various professions.

2.The Nuremberg Laws of September 15, 1935, which put the final seal on Jewish emancipation in Germany and defined Jewishness in racial terms.

3.The state-organized pogrom on the night of November 9-10, 1938, the so-called Kristallnacht ( "Crystal Night").

It was only after the war started that the outside pressure from the world ceased to have any influence, and Hitler and the Nazis could implement the final solution with the Wannsee Conference which laid out the plans for the extermination of the Jews in Germany and the Rest of Europe.

 

[StrawDog]

Thats assuming they knew what was happening. Did they? The extermination per se was not implented from the beginning of the war, was it? But the collaborators were present from the very beginning.

Jews can recognize a pogrom when they see one. Kristallnacht, was a clear message to Jews regarding their fate, and this happened before the war in November 1938. I would imagine from then on human nature would manifest in collaboration with the enforcer to save ones own skin, or receive preferential treatment, which of course happened. When exactly the extermination was officially initiated, does not detract from the reality that from the very beginning, Jews were being violently persecuted, and systematically forced into incredibly overcrowded ghettos with major scarcities of food and water. This is when the Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei was initiated by the Nazis, and the human instinct for self preservation no doubt lead to excesses. The Jews did not force themselves into ghettos and concentration camps, the Nazis did. That Jewish cruelty against Jews was the norm is utterly unfounded.

Of course, by modern comparison, no one can alter the fact that its the Israelis occupying Palestine. But that does not change the fact that the PA collaborates with them and apparently encourages the killing of Palestinians as well.

Yes, that is human nature SAM. It comes in all sizes, shape and colours, including Palestinians. Do you believe PA collaboration is the norm or the exception? Does one tar all Palestinians as collaborator because of the actions of a few?

The real tragedy is, that in their deluded, obsessive and destructive pursuit of survival, the Zionists are perpetrating the very same tragedy on the Palestinians that befell the Jews in WW2, and pogroms going right back to 38 CE. And yes, the Holocaust is used as a smokescreen and false justification for many immoral activities, including war crimes, and most likely crimes against humanity, perpetrated against the Palestinians and Arabs.

 

[quadraphonics]

the Zionists are perpetrating the very same tragedy on the Palestinians that befell the Jews in WW2

No. There are no concentration camps, no gas chambers, etc. Most saliently, there has been no reduction in the Palestinian population; quite the opposite.

If the Zionists were perpetrating the very same tragedy on the Palestinians, there would no longer be any significant Palestinian populations in the Middle East.

 

[StrawDog]

No. There are no concentration camps, no gas chambers, etc. Most saliently, there has been no reduction in the Palestinian population; quite the opposite.

How exactly is Gaza different to a concentration camp/ghetto complete with starvation, thirst and disease? Birth stats are what? Proof of a comfortable lifestyle? There were numerous births in the Jewish ghettos.

If the Zionists were perpetrating the very same tragedy on the Palestinians, there would no longer be any significant Palestinian populations in the Middle East.

The tragedy is one of disenfranchisement, discrimination, displacement, starvation and violence.

 

[quadraphonics]

How exactly is Gaza different to a concentration camp/ghetto complete with starvation, thirst and disease?

About a million reasons that are obvious to any serious person.

It's sad that you feel this need to reduce the Holocaust to whatever generic form will accomodate your desired rhetoric.

You'd be better off just criticizing Israel on its own terms, instead of debasing your analysis in order to make bombastic comparisons to Nazis. Then we could actually discuss the issues in question, instead of getting hung up on your misconstruals of history.

Birth stats are what? Proof of a comfortable lifestyle? There were numerous births in the Jewish ghettos.

The fact that the Palestinian population has consistently grown is proof that they are not being systematically eliminated. Obviously.

And how did we elide from the Holocaust to simply "ghettos?" Jewish ghettos in Europe are not the same thing as The Holocaust.

The tragedy is one of disenfranchisement, discrimination, displacement, starvation and violence.

That's not "the very same tragedy" as the Holocaust. The Holocaust involved industrial destruction of a minority embedded inside the society in question. The Palestinians are neither embedded inside Israeli society, nor being herded up and liquidated in gas chambers.

 

[Challenger78]

Once you're done reading about the holocaust. Go read a book called "The Holocaust industry", by a Jew and respected historian, Norman G. Finkelstein.

 

[pjdude1219]

About a million reasons that are obvious to any serious person.

It's sad that you feel this need to reduce the Holocaust to whatever generic form will accomodate your desired rhetoric.

You'd be better off just criticizing Israel on its own terms, instead of debasing your analysis in order to make bombastic comparisons to Nazis. Then we could actually discuss the issues in question, instead of getting hung up on your misconstruals of history.



The fact that the Palestinian population has consistently grown is proof that they are not being systematically eliminated. Obviously.

And how did we elide from the Holocaust to simply "ghettos?" Jewish ghettos in Europe are not the same thing as The Holocaust.



That's not "the very same tragedy" as the Holocaust. The Holocaust involved industrial destruction of a minority embedded inside the society in question. The Palestinians are neither embedded inside Israeli society, nor being herded up and liquidated in gas chambers.

there are parrellels that can be made between nazi actions and Israeli actions. to ignore that simply because are unpleasant is dishonest and unhelpful.

 

[quadraphonics]

there are parrellels that can be made between nazi actions and Israeli actions.

Your weasal words reduce that assertion to puffery: there are parallels than can be made between any two groups.

The question is whether they are informative.

to ignore that simply because are unpleasant is dishonest and unhelpful.

Seeing as, in addressing them directly, I have done the opposite of ignoring them, I have to wonder whether this is directed at me.

And supposing it was, I'll add that I gave numerous reasons apart from "unpleasantness" for rejecting them.

Which makes your post to me both dishonest and unhelpful, as a response to mine.

There are quite a few posters here that have a lot of trouble addressing the actual positions and statements they're presented with. The preference seems to be for strawmen.

 

[StrawDog]

About a million reasons that are obvious to any serious person.
It's sad that you feel this need to reduce the Holocaust to whatever generic form will accomodate your desired rhetoric.

Instead of brushing things off, and getting sidetracked by the standard rebuttal terms of "sad", "serious" and "desired rhetoric", lets look at some current parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza in more detail. Feel free to debate any of the points below.

1. The Nazis rounded up the Jews of Poland and quartered them in a small area of Warsaw, building a barricade around the perimeter to prevent them leaving. So too have the Israelis through conflict and force pushed many of the Arab inhabitants out of Israel into an enclave that now has a population density of 4,200 people per sq. km which is 14 times that of the surrounding area of Israel which has 360 people per sq. km.

2. The Nazis deprived the ghetto inhabitants of food and essential supplies. So too has the Israeli government stopped the flow of goods to the 1.4 million inhabitants of Gaza by limiting the convoys of supplies to a mere trickle.

3. The Nazis reduced the average calorie intake of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto to 241 calories per day. So too have the Israelis reduced the calorie intake of the Palestinians in Gaza. According to a UN report, it is presently at 61 percent of the average daily requirements.

4. The Nazis restricted public utilities such as water and electricity. So too has the Israeli government.

5. The Nazis restricted the inhabitants from adequate health care. Israelis restrict the health care in Gaza by limiting the medical supplies in or the treatment of cases that need to be done outside.

6. The Jewish inhabitants through the ZZB and the ZOB resisted the oppression by the Nazis albeit too late and their rebellion was brutally crushed without concern for who was in the way. So too have the Palestinians of Gaza through their own resistance organizations, in particular Hamas, rebelled against their oppressors and so too do the Israelis use all means available to crush the rebellion without concern for who is in the way or who they maim or kill in doing so.

7. The Nazis destroyed the structure of the ghetto leveling it to the ground in a broad quest to rout the resistance to their oppression. Israelis indiscriminately level buildings and the infrastructure in Gaza in a quest to rout out the resistance to their oppression. The Nazis assigned the Jewish people to a lesser status of all their inhabitants depriving them of their rights as citizens and even as humans. Israel assigns the refugees held in Gaza less status than is given to the Jews worldwide and deprives the Palestinians of their rights to return to their former lands.

8. The Nazis applied whatever was at their means to break the will of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto. Israelis do the same thing; they use whatever is at their means to break the will of the Palestinians.

9. The Nazis killed the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto indiscriminately. Don’t the Israelis kill indiscriminately the inhabitants in forcing their control over Gaza?

10. The Jews of Israel and elsewhere are quite right to protest at the inhumanity of the Nazis in their treatment of them and oblige the world not to allow the same situation to happen again. The Palestinians protest at the inhumanity of the Israeli treatment, yet in a bizarre twist of events, the world still allows the oppression to happen and continue.

11. It was after the Jews in the ghetto had been largely killed or transported that the world stood up and felt guilty in not acting sooner.

Further opinion regarding parallels.

The Holocaust of the Palestinians: Root Causes and Parallels

What is a Holocaust? I believe a Holocaust occurs when one group of people (superiors, rulers, conquerors, the "chosen few," etc.) strips another group of people (slaves, serfs, untouchables, inferiors, etc.) of their human rights and dignity, leaving them the defenseless prey of anyone willing to take advantage of them. In a Holocaust, innocent members of an "inferior" group lose their land, homes, property, freedom, and often their lives, because they have little or no defense against the people who rule over and despise them. In a Holocaust, the abuse of the "inferior" group by the "superior" group becomes systematic, with the "superior" group blaming most or all its problems on its victims, until a culture of impunity evolves. The "superior" group creates excuses for its increasingly brutal behavior—excuses centered around the unworthiness and untrustworthiness of the "inferior" group—and raises its own "superior" children to believe a concoction of half-truths and outright lies. The children of the "superior" group grow up knowing or at least sensing something is terribly wrong, but often find themselves unable to break free from the racism their parents and society indoctrinated them into.

etc. link

You'd be better off just criticizing Israel on its own terms, instead of debasing your analysis in order to make bombastic comparisons to Nazis. Then we could actually discuss the issues in question, instead of getting hung up on your misconstruals of history.

If the comparisons were not so obvious, I would not be making them. Once again, feel free to discuss the accuracy/inaccuracy of the stated points above.

The fact that the Palestinian population has consistently grown is proof that they are not being systematically eliminated. Obviously.

The issue is larger than just systematic elimination. An examples of systematic elimination can be found in the recent assault on Gaza, that has led to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The very same charges the Jews directed at the Nazis.

And how did we elide from the Holocaust to simply "ghettos?" Jewish ghettos in Europe are not the same thing as The Holocaust.

1. Its a component of the bigger picture.
2. The Palestinian issue is far from resolved, and thus there is potential for more atrocities.

That's not "the very same tragedy" as the Holocaust. The Holocaust involved industrial destruction of a minority embedded inside the society in question. The Palestinians are neither embedded inside Israeli society, nor being herded up and liquidated in gas chambers.

You are looking in nooks and crannies to detract from the obvious fact of a gross injustice, comparable to the Holocaust as laid out above.

 

[pjdude1219]

Your weasal words reduce that assertion to puffery: there are parallels than can be made between any two groups.

The question is whether they are informative.

What weasal worlds. Wow you can throw around all these fansty terms you learned in a logic class. I'll be impressed when you use the correctly

Seeing as, in addressing them directly, I have done the opposite of ignoring them, I have to wonder whether this is directed at me.

Where have you addressed them? and yes its directed at you.

And supposing it was, I'll add that I gave numerous reasons apart from "unpleasantness" for rejecting them.

No you discounted the most extreme and ignored the rest.

Which makes your post to me both dishonest and unhelpful, as a response to mine.

You no for you to turn it around you have to be right

 

[S.A.M.]

No. There are no concentration camps, no gas chambers, etc. Most saliently, there has been no reduction in the Palestinian population; quite the opposite.

If the Zionists were perpetrating the very same tragedy on the Palestinians, there would no longer be any significant Palestinian populations in the Middle East.

Marek Edelman who died last week wrote the Palestinians [all of them, including the militants] that the legacy of the Warsaw ghetto uprising had become theirs. I think he would know, being one of the members of the militant group that initiated the intifada in Warsaw. Not all of us need to wait until after a genocide has happened to see the parallels.

That Jewish cruelty against Jews was the norm is utterly unfounded.

So the survivors who claim it [all Jews btw] are mistaken?

example,

As one who himself lived through the Holocaust, first in Warsaw then in Bergen-Belsen, I will give an immediate example of the total ignorance of daily life during the Holocaust. In the Warsaw ghetto, even during the period of the first massive extermination (June to October 1943), one saw almost no German soldiers. Nearly all the work of administration, and later the work of transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths, was carried out by Jewish collaborators. Before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (the planning of which only started after the extermination of the majority of Jews in Warsaw), the Jewish underground killed, with perfect justification, every Jewish collaborator they could find. If they had not done so the Uprising could never have started. The majority of the population of the Ghetto hated the collaborators far more than the German Nazis. Every Jewish child was taught, and this saved the lives of some them "if you enter a square from which there are three exits, one guarded by a German SS man, one by an Ukrainian and one by a Jewish policeman, then you should first try to pass the German, and then maybe the Ukrainian, but never the Jew".

One of my own strongest memories is that, when the Jewish underground killed a despicable collaborator close to my home at the end of February 1943, I danced and sang around the still bleeding corpse together with the other children. I still do not regret this, quite the contrary. - Israel Shahak, Falsification of the Holocaust

Are these statements unfounded?

 

[GeoffP]

Are they relevant to something?

 

[StrawDog]

Are these statements unfounded?

No. Of course there were collaborators.That they are the norm, is unfounded.

 

[S.A.M.]

No. Of course there were collaborators.That they are the norm, is unfounded.

In which camp were Jews NOT under Jewish kapos from the beginning of the war?

 

[quadraphonics]

What weasal worlds.

The ones I explicitly referred to:

there are parrellels that can be made between nazi actions and Israeli actions.

Those are textbook weasel words.

Where have you addressed them?

In the post you quoted in its entirety when you responded, for one.

and yes its directed at you.

Then you are exhibiting very poor reading comprehension and/or argument formulation. Or simply lying.

No you discounted the most extreme and ignored the rest.

Again, easily seen to be false from the text you yourself quoted.

Stupidity or deception?

You no for you to turn it around you have to be right

Cheap equivocation is just that.

 

[quadraphonics]

lets look at some current parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza in more detail.

The Warsaw Ghetto is not The Holocaust.

So too have the Israelis through conflict and force pushed many of the Arab inhabitants out of Israel

"out of Israel" being an important difference. The Nazis didn't expell the Jews from their territories: the imprisoned them within their territories, where they could be systematically exterminated.

Gaza has an elected government, and a political status recognized by the UN. It is not an internment camp inside Israel.

2. The Nazis deprived the ghetto inhabitants of food and essential supplies. So too has the Israeli government stopped the flow of goods to the 1.4 million inhabitants of Gaza by limiting the convoys of supplies to a mere trickle.

In response to warfare launched on Israel from Gaza. Not a feature of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Also, where is Egypt in all this? Israel only controls three of Gaza's borders. Egypt controls the other one. So how is it that Israel is responsible for supplying a self-governing territory that it doesn't control all the borders of?

3. The Nazis reduced the average calorie intake of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto to 241 calories per day. So too have the Israelis reduced the calorie intake of the Palestinians in Gaza. According to a UN report, it is presently at 61 percent of the average daily requirements.

Which works out to about 1200 calories a day; a lot more than the Warsaw Jews got. More to the point, where are the reports of Gazans actually dying of starvation? I have no trouble finding bombastic rhetoric using the term, but I have yet to see any evidence that Gazans are literally dying of hunger as occurred in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Likewise, there are international organizations operating in Gaza and feeding people. Hence the UN report. Not something the Nazis permitted in the Warsaw Ghetto.

And, again, where are the Egyptians in all this?

4. The Nazis restricted public utilities such as water and electricity. So too has the Israeli government.

But - again - Israel does not control all of Gaza's access to the outside world. Egypt also has a say.

Moreover, if Gaza is to be an independent state, it's going to have to get used to not relying on Israel for utilities. The equation of Palestinian territories with the Warsaw Ghetto infantilizes the Palestinians in an offensive way.

Are they to be a sovereign nation, or simply a rhetorical bludgeon for you to edify your self-righteousness with?

5. The Nazis restricted the inhabitants from adequate health care. Israelis restrict the health care in Gaza by limiting the medical supplies in or the treatment of cases that need to be done outside.

That's a pretty ridiculous equivocation, even for you.

6. The Jewish inhabitants through the ZZB and the ZOB resisted the oppression by the Nazis albeit too late and their rebellion was brutally crushed without concern for who was in the way. So too have the Palestinians of Gaza through their own resistance organizations, in particular Hamas, rebelled against their oppressors and so too do the Israelis use all means available to crush the rebellion without concern for who is in the way or who they maim or kill in doing so.

Don't be ridiculous: Hamas has hardly been "crushed" as a "rebellion." They still rule the territory in question, brandish arms openly, etc.

And it's not like rebellions and responses are some unique feature of the Holocaust or something. That exact type of thing has occurred in countless different contexts throughout history.

7. The Nazis destroyed the structure of the ghetto leveling it to the ground in a broad quest to rout the resistance to their oppression. Israelis indiscriminately level buildings and the infrastructure in Gaza in a quest to rout out the resistance to their oppression.

Again, hardly unique to the Holocaust or Nazis. That stuff has been a standard feature of warfare for centuries, all over the world.

The Nazis assigned the Jewish people to a lesser status of all their inhabitants depriving them of their rights as citizens and even as humans. Israel assigns the refugees held in Gaza less status than is given to the Jews worldwide and deprives the Palestinians of their rights to return to their former lands.

Again, hardly unique. Chauvinism is commonplace, the world over. The Arabs assign the Jewish people to a lesser status, for example.

8. The Nazis applied whatever was at their means to break the will of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto. Israelis do the same thing; they use whatever is at their means to break the will of the Palestinians.

Now this is becoming vague to the point of irrelevancy. Determined belligerents throughout history have "applied whatever was at their means to break the will of" their opponents.

The Allies used whatever was at their means to break the will of the Nazis, for example. Including the indiscriminate firebombing of entire cities.

9. The Nazis killed the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto indiscriminately. Don’t the Israelis kill indiscriminately the inhabitants in forcing their control over Gaza?

Not really, no. They easily have the firepower to kill and destroy everything in Gaza, so that's the result you should expect if they cease to discriminate.

10. The Jews of Israel and elsewhere are quite right to protest at the inhumanity of the Nazis in their treatment of them and oblige the world not to allow the same situation to happen again. The Palestinians protest at the inhumanity of the Israeli treatment, yet in a bizarre twist of events, the world still allows the oppression to happen and continue.

It's not the same situation. If it were, the Palestinians would have been physically eliminated decades ago. Instead, their population flourishes, they govern their own territories, etc.

11. It was after the Jews in the ghetto had been largely killed or transported that the world stood up and felt guilty in not acting sooner.

That's because the world, for the most part, didn't know what was afoot until afterwards. The Nazis weren't in the business of allowing permanent UN humanitarian missions in the Ghettos and camps.

If the comparisons were not so obvious, I would not be making them.

Your comparisons are extremely shallow. In your terms, it seems the Holocaust is equivalent to any instance of one group being marginalized by another.

Which is your prerogative, I suppose, but then why harp on the Holocaust so consistently? There are manifold other instances of marginalization in history that you could draw on. Hence the charges of bombast.

The issue is larger than just systematic elimination.

Or rather, smaller, since there are no larger issues than that. You are reducing the Holocaust - the industrialized elimination of a minority - to simple "oppression." That's missing the point quite badly, while obviating the relevance of your chosen comparison.

An examples of systematic elimination can be found in the recent assault on Gaza, that has led to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

War crimes are not the same thing as systematic elimination of a population.

The very same charges the Jews directed at the Nazis.

It was the Allies that charged the Nazis with war crimes, not "the Jews."

1. Its a component of the bigger picture.

Exactly: you make a (tenuous) comparison with one small aspect of the Holocaust, and then try to leverage this to equate Israel with the Nazis. This is dishonest, because when people here the term "Holocaust," they understand it to refer to death camps and systematic liquidation of a minority, not just certain aspects of the Warsaw Ghetto.

There are any number of other instances of marginalization and oppression that would be more exact comparisons for the situation, and which would not carry the bombastic implications of industrialized extermination. But you never bother with those.

2. The Palestinian issue is far from resolved, and thus there is potential for more atrocities.

So... what? This requires you to blow the situation out of proportion by invoking the Holocaust at any pretext? How does that help?

You are looking in nooks and crannies to detract from the obvious fact of a gross injustice, comparable to the Holocaust as laid out above.

No, what you laid out was a comparison to the Warsaw Ghetto, which is only a small (and not particularly unique or salient) aspect of the Holocaust. When you refer to the "gross injustice of the Holocaust," people understand that to refer to the industrialized liquidation of a minority population. Jews were living in ghettos all over Europe for hundreds and hundreds of years, and nobody considers that to be part of the Holocaust.

 

[S.A.M.]

Also, where is Egypt in all this? Israel only controls three of Gaza's borders. Egypt controls the other one. So how is it that Israel is responsible for supplying a self-governing territory that it doesn't control all the borders of?

Would you say the same thing about the Vichy government and borders of France? Do you believe the situation in Egypt would be different if the Americans stopped paying off the Egyptians?