jim (04/28/83)
Was the Jewish experience of the Holocaust any different from the Chilean liberal, socialist, & communist experience of Pinochet's rise to power? Of the Ugandan rival tribe's experience of Idi Amin's attempt to exterminate them (drinking their blood, to which extreme even the Nazis didn't go). Of the Armenian experience of the first Holocaust of the century, when the Turks tried to exterminate *them*. Of the American Indian's experience when they were given blankets infected with smallpox, so they'd convieniently disappear, leaving the land open for white settlers? The Jewish experience is the ***human*** experience. It's attitudes like "the Jews are somehow different" that led to Sabra and Chattella, to the intolerence of the Israelis(not Jews in general, note) for the Palastinians, and which will lead to the next Holocaust, that will probably destroy the planet. Come on people! We're all brothers and we've got to share this small planet, whether we like it or not. Let's get together before it's too late! !arizona:jim
leichter (05/01/83)
I am sorry to disappoint arizona:jim in his pursuit of the evil in men's hearts,
but the Holocaust WAS different, both qualitatively and quantitatively. As a
Jew, both of whose parents survived the Nazis, I cannot stand by quietly and
let the memories be cheapened by ill-informed references to "holocausts"
right and left - not to mention innuendo against Israelis and, indirectly,
Jews who support Israel. (WHO did the killing at Savra and Chattella [sic]?
Hint: NOT Israelis.) The Holocaust was a unique, or close to unique, histo-
rical experience, and the unique portion was almost exclusively the experience
of Jews. I, for one,ave too little data to comment on the Turkish slaughter
of the Armenians; but how DARE you compare the systematic killing of MILLIONS
of Jews, of all ages, with the horrible - but perfectly "historical" -
murder of POLITICAL OPPONENTS - real or perceived - in Chile? It requires an
amazing lack of perceptive ability to fail to see the distinctions - or a sad
lack of basic data. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that
it is the latter. To get some data, please read "Appropriating the Holocaust"
by Henryk Grynberg, in the November 1982 issue of Commentary. Here is a
short extract that will give you some idea of what you don't know:
"One factor obscuring the truth about the Holocaust is the confusion in termi-
nology which has bedeviled this subject from the beginning. An example of
such confusion is the continual use of the term "concentration camps" in con-
ection with the Holocaust, as though the two were synonomous. Since the con-
centration camps did in fact contain inmates of many different religions and
nationalities, it is only logical to conclude, as many have, that the Jewish
case was only a more extreme instance of a catastrophe which befell many other
nationalities and religions as well.
The truth is, however, that the largest part of Europe's Jews perished not in
concentration camps but in extermination camps, and German terminology - with
its distinction between @i(Konzentrationslagern) and @i(Vernichtungs-) or
@i(Sonderslagern) - is very clear on this point. Those Jews who did not die
in the death camps died either in the closed ghettos, where the were systema-
tically started (Warsaw, Cracow, Lodz) or else in mass executions carried out
in places like Babi Yar, Ponary, Dubno, and other points in the German-occu-
pied Soviet territories. What the murder installations have in common is that
they wer designated exclusively for Jews.
To clarify the distinction once and for all, Treblinka (where 750,000 people
perished), Belzec (600,000), Chelmno (360,000), and Sobibor (250,000) were
strictly extermination camps, while Maidanek, with 200,000 victims, was bot a
concentration camp and an extermination camp. The same is true of Auschwitz,
the most infamous of all. What the visitor who enters Auschwitz through the
gate bearing the inscription @i("Arbeit macht frei") ["work will make you free"
-- Jerry] sees is Auschwitz I, the concentration camp, which housed 405,000
registered and numbered prisoners of different nationalities, including Jews;
340,000 of those inmates died here. But about a mile and half away is another
camp - Auschwitz II, also know as Birknau (in German) an Brzezinka (in Polish).
This was the extermination camp of Aucshwitz, where about 3,500,000 people
were gassed.
According to the testimony of Rudolf Hoess at the Nuremberg trials, except for
about 20,000 Russiona prisoners of war, people gassed during his term as
commandant of Auschwitz were "Jews from Holland, Belgium, France, Poland,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and other countries." They were never regis-
tered or numbered, and in a sense never became real prisoners. They were
taken to the gas chambers almost straight from the train, following a quick
selection process which separated out the younger and healthier adults and the
taller teen-agers. These were directed to the concentration-camp work force,
where they had the chance, if not ultimately to survive, then at least to live
a while longer.
The extermination camps, unlike the concentration camps, were never "liberated"-
the liberators came too late. While there are thousands of survivors of the
concentration camps, many of whom have written accounts of their experiences,
the extermination camps left virtually no survivors, and almost nothing in the
way of eyewitness testimony. I myself, for example, am technically a kind of
"survivor" of the death camp Treblinka, but that is only because my parents
managed to run away with me before we were loaded onto a train - the rest of
my family was murdered. Under these circumstances, it is all too easy to
speak only of the concentration camps, and let the mute death camps fade into
oblivion."
I ended up quoting more than I had intended to, but even so I barely touched
the surface. The article goes on just after this section to show that the
"concentration camp" had, unfortunately, a long history - the Russians had
refined those techniques. The death camp, however, was a Nazi invention...
PLEASE, read the article before you consider yourself competent to comment -
or even have an informed opinion on - the uniqueness or lack thereof of the
Holocaust. It's too important an issue to leave to ill-informed ramblings by
those who have no understanding of the facts.
-- Jerry
decvax!yale-comix!leichter
leichter@yalebstempleton (05/05/83)
I can't claim any direct experience with any of these mass killings, but I can say this: The killing of the Jews by Hitler was mostly an act of lunacy. There were some reasons given, such as a fear that they controlled a good deal of money, but mostly it was lunacy. As the lunacy of one man, we can do little to stop it. Though the numbers and atrocity may be orders of magnitude above other killings, it may be argued that we should be as or more concerned with killings where the killers are sane and also think they are justified.
dave (05/05/83)
The killing of Jews by Hitler may well have been an act of lunacy, but it was not "the lunacy of one man" which "we can do little to stop". Hitler didn't do it all on his own. There were thousands of people - not only Gestapo and SS, but many Eastern European locals, who participated in the mass murders in various direct ways. And the process wasn't "an act" - it went on for approximately FOUR YEARS on a very large scale. Dave Sherman Toronto
mmt (05/06/83)
=========================== ......... but mostly it was lunacy. As the lunacy of one man, we can do little to stop it. Though the numbers and atrocity may be orders of magnitude above other killings, it may be argued that we should be as or more concerned with killings where the killers are sane and also think they are justified. =========================== The Holocaust was surely more than the lunacy of one man. To call Hitler a lunatic is far too simple, and to assume that one man could cause the Holocaust is ridiculous. Antisemitism had a long, and in many "Christian's" eyes "honorable", history in Europe before the little corporal came along. There had been many massacres in ghettos, especially in Eastern Europe. Only in Arab countries were Jews welcomed (well, possibly in the Orient as well, but that's outside the region under consideration). Hitler merely agreed with and used a pretty virulent tradition. A Hitler could easily have come to England or France, if they had been subject to the economic horrors imposed on Germany after WWI, and I don't think we have any right to feel superior to the Germans. Jews have always been a particularly Christian scapegoat for anything that is wrong with society. As I have privately discussed with Dave Sherman, I think it was most unfortunate that Zionism chose the region of Palestine/Israel as a refuge for Judaism, since it violently antagonized the one group that had consistently been at least neutral toward Jews. Why should the Arabs have felt toward the Zionists any differently than the Native Americans felt toward the conquering, land-grabbing Europeans in North America? The difference is that the Europeans won in North America because of at first technological superority and later numerical superiority. Will that happen in the Middle East? I doubt that the Arabs will return quickly to their former goodwill. Perhaps Zionists should rely on the shame that West Europeans and North Americans feel over the Holocaust, and hope that the antisemitism that is clearly latent in France (and other places) dies away before Jews begin another diaspora. Martin Taylor (Once English, but never Jewish)
elman (05/12/83)
B. Stempleton refers to the "killing of Jews by Hitler", and the "luncay of one man". In fact, Hitler probably killed few Jews himself. If he was a lunatic (and undoubtedly he was), it was a lunacy shared by at least several thousand others who participated directly in the murdering of millions, and tolerated (to varying degrees, some only mildly, and others reluctantly) by hundreds of thousands of others. During this period, there was essentially open hunting season on Jews, and a huge number of personal acts of violance were carried out by people who probably would have flinched at kicking a dog. I think this merits some concern, don't you?
dave (05/12/83)
(I am again informed that an item didn't make it across the decvax link. Apologies to those who have already seen this.) Re: watmath.5015 The killing of Jews by Hitler may well have been an act of lunacy, but it was not "the lunacy of one man" which "we can do little to stop". Hitler didn't do it all on his own. There were thousands of people - not only Gestapo and SS, but many Eastern European locals, who participated in the mass murders in various direct ways. And the process wasn't "an act" - it went on for approximately FOUR YEARS on a very large scale. Dave Sherman Toronto
nixon (05/19/83)
Leaders are responsible for their commands, even if they don't directly carry them out. Brian Nixon.