Live data from Hacker News

Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

apnews.com

61–70 of 80 posts

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#61
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holocaust is one thing, Nazi persecution is another thing. Persecutions are a terrible thing — and Nazi persecution especially so — but it (and others) just fall short on the scale of atrocities, when being compared to the Holocaust. Either you don't understand what exactly the Holocaust is, or you're spreading a modern version of Holocaust denial, where by "modern version" I mean not "this didn't happen" but "this d…

> Persecutions are a terrible thing — and Nazi persecution especially so — but it (and others) just fall short on the scale of atrocities, when being compared to the Holocaust. > > Either you don't understand what exactly the Holocaust is, I would say it's more likely you don't understand. The Nazis committed genocide againist multiple groups at the exact same time using the same people, same locations, and same meth…

> The Nazis committed genocide againist multiple groups at the exact same time using the same people, same locations, and same methods.

You seem to not understand the term "genocide", thinking it means "mass murder".

It doesn't mean that.

The difference between "mass murder" and "genocide" is that genocide (as postulated by USHMM) is a. systematic, b. bureaucratic, and c. state-sponsored, while "mass murder" is either none of that, or at the very least not all of that.

The "final solution to the Jewish question", as suggested, planned, and implemented by the Nazis, started with an intent to eliminate the Jews, regardless of their sex, age, or beliefs, to the very last one of them — and planning to the point of realizing that intent, complete with sparing no effort at all, to see that intent to full implementation.

The only other ethnical/racial group targeted in the same manner was the Sinti/Roma people. Their prosecution and murder, which is also undeniably an instance of genocide ("killing of a nation"), is known as Porajmos.

This is not meant in any way to diminish the terrible suffering of other groups who were targeted and prosecuted by the Nazi regime — Soviet civilians, Polish civilians, prisoners of war, German homosexuals, the mentally disabled, Jehovah witnesses, and others (the list is very long). But the Nazis never had an intent, planning, bureaucracy, or effort to eliminate these groups until the very last one of them — in the way they had with regards to Jews or Roma/Sinti. They never asked the occupied France to deliver French homosexuals, of whom they never cared to begin with. They never asked Hungary to turn over their mentally disabled so they could be sent to extermination camps, the way they did ask for Jews. And they never sent a huge war ship to a remote Greek island for a single Jehovah witness living there — but they did that to pick one Jew.

The Holocaust, as any genocide, is not "just" mass murder. It's an intentional, planned, and duly executed mass murder of an entire people, when the complete and utter elimination of that ethnical/racial group is the declared and practical end goal.

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they were humanly treated in the camps there wouldn't be so much of an issue. Wrong. We've made a pretty big deal over Manzanar and other Japanese-American internment camps, despite their being "more humane".

Comparing Japanese-American internment camps to Auschwitz is a disgraceful thing to do. In no way shape or form were they as big of a problem as Auschwitz. The German POW camps were brutal and left POWs looking like walking skeletons, but we barely mention them. Holding people in camps wasn't the problem, killing them en masse was. many of the victims of the holocaust didn't even make it to camps. The majority of the…

> Comparing Japanese-American internment camps to Auschwitz is a disgraceful thing to do. In no way shape or form were they as big of a problem as Auschwitz.

That's consistent with what I said. You said "if they were humanly treated in the camps there wouldn't be so much of an issue", to which I provided a counter-example where people were treated more humanely (which you seem to agree with). Nonetheless, I remember learning about Manzanar as a kid multiple times - we do make a big deal out it, and it is properly contextualized as "very bad, but less bad than Auschwitz", at least where I grew up.

Sounds like you just want to be up on a soapbox.

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#63
post #47
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nazi belief at the time was that Judaism was an integral component of "Judeo-Bolshevism" i.e. the USSR so it is not correct to assert that there was "no military" -- the USSR had a rapidly growing industrial military. German fascists thought that all Jewish people were in cahoots with the USSR, which was Definitely trying to conquer all of Europa. Polish fascists think all ethnically Russian people are in cahoots…

> German fascists thought that all Jewish people were in cahoots with the USSR, which was Definitely trying to conquer all of Europa. This is easily proven false on the grounds that not all Jewish people had any connection to the USSR. You have to accept a falsehood for this conclusion. > Polish fascists think all ethnically Russian people are in cahoots with the RF MoD, which is Definitely trying to conquer all of E…

Mental gymnastics aside, having a possible "connection to Russia" is not the same as supporting the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#64
post #63
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> German fascists thought that all Jewish people were in cahoots with the USSR, which was Definitely trying to conquer all of Europa. This is easily proven false on the grounds that not all Jewish people had any connection to the USSR. You have to accept a falsehood for this conclusion. > Polish fascists think all ethnically Russian people are in cahoots with the RF MoD, which is Definitely trying to conquer all of E…

Mental gymnastics aside, having a possible "connection to Russia" is not the same as supporting the Russian Ministry of Defense.

But that ignores the whole point! If I ignore that the sky isn't blurple, sure, the sky is blurple.

The Nazis believed all Jewish people to be connected to a conspiracy, even though the necessary precondition wasn't given. This is NOT the same with Russian people, which the previous poster claimed.

I am not claiming all Russian people should be treated one way or another, but I cannot stand the historical revisionism comparing the plight of the Jewish people DURING WWII to Russian people today!

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#65
post #64
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental gymnastics aside, having a possible "connection to Russia" is not the same as supporting the Russian Ministry of Defense.

But that ignores the whole point! If I ignore that the sky isn't blurple, sure, the sky is blurple. The Nazis believed all Jewish people to be connected to a conspiracy, even though the necessary precondition wasn't given. This is NOT the same with Russian people, which the previous poster claimed. I am not claiming all Russian people should be treated one way or another, but I cannot stand the historical revisionism…

[deleted]

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#66
post #64
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental gymnastics aside, having a possible "connection to Russia" is not the same as supporting the Russian Ministry of Defense.

But that ignores the whole point! If I ignore that the sky isn't blurple, sure, the sky is blurple. The Nazis believed all Jewish people to be connected to a conspiracy, even though the necessary precondition wasn't given. This is NOT the same with Russian people, which the previous poster claimed. I am not claiming all Russian people should be treated one way or another, but I cannot stand the historical revisionism…

It wasn't just Jewish people, it was any group associated with the USSR. Socialists, communists, etc.

Anyways, I'm sure the European fascists will be right this time, and nothing will go wrong.

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#67
post #64
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental gymnastics aside, having a possible "connection to Russia" is not the same as supporting the Russian Ministry of Defense.

But that ignores the whole point! If I ignore that the sky isn't blurple, sure, the sky is blurple. The Nazis believed all Jewish people to be connected to a conspiracy, even though the necessary precondition wasn't given. This is NOT the same with Russian people, which the previous poster claimed. I am not claiming all Russian people should be treated one way or another, but I cannot stand the historical revisionism…

To be precise, I was comparing the plight of the Jewish people in Germany in c. 1933 to the plight of 'suspected Russian collaborators' in Poland today, with the goal of explaining how blocking the rise of totalitarian states (with no independent judiciary or fair trials for citizens) could have prevented the plight of the Jewish people in 1943.

Claiming that anyone is doing the kind of historical revisionism are opposed to is something of a strawman argument, isn't it?

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#68
post #66
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that ignores the whole point! If I ignore that the sky isn't blurple, sure, the sky is blurple. The Nazis believed all Jewish people to be connected to a conspiracy, even though the necessary precondition wasn't given. This is NOT the same with Russian people, which the previous poster claimed. I am not claiming all Russian people should be treated one way or another, but I cannot stand the historical revisionism…

It wasn't just Jewish people, it was any group associated with the USSR. Socialists, communists, etc. Anyways, I'm sure the European fascists will be right this time, and nothing will go wrong.

You're right, I'm sorry - the Russian people are living through the exact same trauma that Jewish people went through. They are being banned from society for no good reason, and are slowly but surely being killed through a bureaucratic death machine.

It's the exact same situation. Literally.

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have you been reading? And an open secret pretty much means it wasn't public policy or politics. And higher estimates don't really make sense, why were the allied forces in the dark? Why were the death camps in Poland and not Germany? People who were living nearby, I will never be convinced they didn't know. But expecting someone in Fankfurt am Main to know about the mass executions happening in small towns in P…

> Why were the death camps in Poland and not Germany? Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Oranienburg, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen... You can argue about the semantics (i.e., death camps versus concentration camps), but massive executions happened in both, and some of these were established throughout Germany almost immediately after the regime change in 1933. That said, see the points below about Holocaust.

> You can argue about the semantics (i.e., death camps versus concentration camps),

Hundreds of thousands of deaths is semantics? That is a disgusting point of view. I wanted to ignore this entire conversation because there is no postive side to it. But quite simply it is disgusting to minimise the horrors that happened at camps like Auschwitz by comparing it with camps such as Dachau and it really highlights the fact that the opinions that oppose the opinion of the Auschwitz museum as held by people who are fundamentally deatched from what actually happening and having the correct perspective.

Re: Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics

#70
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The holocaust was very much a political event, and to treat it otherwise is to excuse the broad public support that political movement had, and the widespread public participation involved. Was it a political event tho? It wasn't something the Nazis were openly announcing they were doing. Sending them to camps was one thing, pretty much every country ended up creating camps to keep people during that time. If they…

The nazi desire to exterminate all Jews was known. Jews were killed in the streets of towns. Some even involved mass killings. Towns bragged about being Jew free. Ignorance does not fly. Yes there was some uncertainty of what happened at the camps. But it was well known even at the time that nazi’s camps meant death.

This doesn't comport with the situation in Hungary in 1944, where Hungarians were transported to extermination camps without, apparently, being aware of what was happening to them, thus leading to most of them dying at the hands of the Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrba%E2%80%93Wetzler_report#De...

Maybe if you make your claims more solid - who knew what, and when - and provided at least one link to evidence.

There seems to have been a lot of suppression of knowledge about the camps on the allied side too (looking at how the Vrba-Wetzler report was received), something that I don't understand at all.

Post reply on HN