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Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

bbc.co.uk

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

#41
post #35

My grandmother was the last living Jew I knew who personally experienced any part the Holocaust. Her father was smart enough see the writing on the wall, and to throw whatever wealth he had at the problem of getting them out of Belgium shortly before it became impossible to do so. I'm sure there are others still alive, but she was a kid when it happened, so there can't be many. I grew up in a community filled with ol…

I had aunts, uncles, and various family friends with numbers on their arms. I vividly recall their expression when I asked (I was like 3 or so, late 1960s) if I could get one of those for me. I thought it was cool. I only learned much later, when my older brother came home with a swastika drawn on one of his school binders, what had happened. This was "the talk". A discussion of the Shoah with my older brother and me…

> we have a secret weapon. We have no other place to go

This is an excellent point, although I do wish most Jews would Israel would lead by example with their treatment of Palestinians, which currently is a shande

Re: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he hadn't been Jewish, does it make a difference?

No, but it adds insult to injury. Keep in mind that the Germans used all kinds of pressure including the deportation or execution of family members to get people to betray others.

Sure, but how do you hold anyone accountable then? OPs language sounded like a rephrase of "just following orders"

Re: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it adds insult to injury. Keep in mind that the Germans used all kinds of pressure including the deportation or execution of family members to get people to betray others.

Sure, but how do you hold anyone accountable then? OPs language sounded like a rephrase of "just following orders"

There were extensive legal proceedings post WWII here, the only way people got away with stuff like that is if they fled abroad, even well into the 80's collaborators and other people that betrayed the local population were discovered and tried and convicted.

But this sort of 'posthumous trial by media' is revolting in its own right, especially because the instigators are simply trying to make a buck off the back of Anne Frank (they're not the first and likely won't be the last).

Re: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

#44
post #35

My grandmother was the last living Jew I knew who personally experienced any part the Holocaust. Her father was smart enough see the writing on the wall, and to throw whatever wealth he had at the problem of getting them out of Belgium shortly before it became impossible to do so. I'm sure there are others still alive, but she was a kid when it happened, so there can't be many. I grew up in a community filled with ol…

I had aunts, uncles, and various family friends with numbers on their arms. I vividly recall their expression when I asked (I was like 3 or so, late 1960s) if I could get one of those for me. I thought it was cool. I only learned much later, when my older brother came home with a swastika drawn on one of his school binders, what had happened. This was "the talk". A discussion of the Shoah with my older brother and me…

> There is precisely 1 country on the planet that accepts jews from where ever

It is difficult to discuss the history, which is part of the history of anti-semetism. I think it was that anti-semitism and the Evian Conference that directly led to the British Mandate. But if attempting to understand these events, it is difficult because even attempting to talk about what these leaders and many others believed, their belief in stereotypes, draws accusations of anti-semetism. But I am going to risk it, not because it is a valid perspective, but because it happened, it was a common belief that Jewish populations put economic strain on a country by nepotistic practices and hoarding wealth, and this belief was behind the reluctance of the Evian Conference participants to accept refugees; to avoid accepting Jewish refugees, the British Mandate created Israel. The British just grabbed hold of a pre-existing dream of some Jews (Zionism) to return to the "Promised Land," and promoted it. But I think the truth behind this detail of anti-semitism is that the lazy envy the industrious and successful, and unjustly those among Jewish populations that were successful and wealthy became representative of all Jews. The fallacy here is hasty generalization, thus the sentiment was always invalid.

The British Mandate was a very weird thing because it handed victory over the current residents of the area to a conquered (effectively) alien nation. But Israel would not have been able to exist if not for the sheer amount of backbreaking labor and the terraforming of non-arable land by the original settlers (of the 20th Century, but migrations of Jewish populations to the Four Holy cities predated the British Mandate by about 4 centuries).

Contrasting the horrifying treatment of Jewish populations with the horrifying treatment of Native American populations and the horrifying treatment of African populations reveals what is distinct in anti-semitism compared to other forms of racism. It was and is all very very bad, so it is a bit of a shock that anti-Palestinian racism is also a thing and rampant. It seems for every identifiable culture there is a particular flavor of racism. Fundamentally, racism is ignorance and hatred overpowering the ability to reason.

Re: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy enough to say "led the gestapo to" or whatever is actually being claimed by the book. They can be responsible for that, if there is evidence to support it, without being responsible for the arrest. Holding the jewish person at the end of the long chain of actions 'responsible' for the whole situation doesn't really seem that much different from blaming the victims themselves.

If he hadn't been Jewish, does it make a difference?

Yes?

Apparently the theory is that he gave up this family to save his own family, which is a horrific situation to be in. So even if we knew this is what actually happened, and we don't, it's an obvious mitigating circumstance.

Re: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

#46
post #20

The refutation paper (very long fyi) is: https://admin.spui25.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Refutatio... And the program page for the presentation is here: https://spui25.nl/programma/the-betrayal-of-anne-frank-a-ref... News sites need to get over their aversion to linking outside of their own domain.

> News sites need to get over their aversion to linking outside of their own domain One of my least favorite things in news today is when sites will say, “A new report from _NPR_” - and NPR is just a link to example.com/category/npr, and not the original source SEO is genuinely one of the worst things to happen to journalism.

Right behind the _free_ part

Re: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been speculating about who murdered the Princes In The Tower for hundreds of years. Why isn't that considered "distasteful"? What's so wrong with trying to throw new light on old mysteries? Isn't that why there are historians?

I think time makes a difference there, along with the general character of the people involved. "Twenty generations back one of your ancestors killed some children" isn't likely to be particularly concerning to anyone, particularly when most of the obvious candidates are documented to have done far worse than that anyway. Accusing someone's grandparent of a heinous crime to sell a book is a bit different, and, well,…

Well, I think that's being hypersensitive.

[Edit] I don't mean you, rsynnott.

My father fought for the British Army in Malaya. I'm not campaigning for the suppression of information about the crimes the brits committed there.

Among my ancestors are people who were in the cotton business, in Liverpool; the ships went from Liverpool (manufactured goods) to the Gold Coast of Africa (sell goods, pick up slaves) to American colonies (sell slaves, buy cotton), and back to Liverpool. I'm not campaigning to block that information either.

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