Live data from Hacker News

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

washingtonpost.com

31–40 of 54 posts

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#31
I tend to think that these kinds of summaries kinda miss the point. Yes, it's technically true that if the oppressed Jews had a lot more guns, they might have lasted longer, or took more Germans with them, or survived the war or something. But the real issue is more the mindset and culture they had than the weapons and the laws around them.

First, it bears repeating that the vast majority of Jews killed were Polish, not German. This never really was a matter of not paying attention to the political progress of anti-semitism in your own country, but rather that your crazy neighbors get crazier and crazier and eventually invade your country and turn it upside-down.

The real problem is that the Polish Jews always had to deal with a relatively low-level anti-semitism, and their strategy of being meek and going along always worked well enough for them. They had been doing it for so long that even when the Nazis invaded and changed everything virtually overnight, there was no real widespread movement for resistance until it was much too late. If it had been legal for them to buy and own guns, they wouldn't have bothered, and if they had them, they would have given them up without a peep long before.

I suppose you could say that the even deeper root of the problem is the belief that It Can't Happen Here. The Nazis did indeed try hard to hide the facts of what they were doing, but they were greatly helped by the fact that pretty much nobody really believed that such industrialized mass-murder could happen in a first-world, civilized country. Even with the massive levels of documentation produced, there are plenty of people who still don't believe that it happened.

But the facts on the ground there went on to fuel history in another direction. Jewish shame at how passively they were led to the slaughter in Europe fueled their will to flout British colonial immigration laws in moving to what was then British Palestine, found a nation and an army, desperately build or buy weapons from any possible source, and successfully defend it against all comers over and over again. They were also helped in no small part by Western diplomatic backing, fueled by shame at not having done enough to prevent the Holocaust from happening.

In the end, having the materiel and skills to defend yourself is good, but having the knowledge that you might need to and the will to go through with it is more important. Without that, any armaments you do have will evaporate before they can make a difference, and with it, you can find a way to buy or make some kind of weapons, even if it wouldn't be as good as if you had gotten them beforehand.

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#32
post #8

The implication here is that an armed American population would be able to defeat a tyrannical US government. This is the same US government that's armed with nuclear weapons, tanks with composite armor, a hacker network that would make Google blush, and populist democratic backing. Additionally, this is the same US government has killed over 600,000 of its own citizens before for rebelling. It is the height of socio…

Is that the same well-armed and powerful U.S. Military that has repeatedly had its ass handed to it by small groups of fighters with little more than small arms and IEDs in the Middle East? Is that the all-powerful, unbeatable military force you're speaking of? Your argument sounds quite a lot like what was being said around the time the US wanted independence from England. What? We're going to fight them? With their…

The "small groups of fighters" have been fighting for generations against the tyranny of larger, mostly distracted forces. That the US didn't "win" is a political matter, not one of ability. If the full weight of the US military were put against an uprising, the rednecks with the doomsday shelters would be annihilated in short order.

England was similarly distracted. AND on the other side of the freaking world. Fighting the colonies were more time and money than they were worth.

The problem with the gun issue in this country is that the people who vote against gun control are the ones least susceptible to gun violence. I guarantee you that you'll find a lot of support for gun control in housing projects.

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#33

Ben Carson's comments weren't in a void: it's long been an NRA hobbyhorse that the holocaust wouldn't have happened if only the Jews had guns. He's just repeating a long-stated claim. The problem is that for those events in WWII where such a claim can be tested -- for example, the Ghetto Uprising -- the claim fails miserably. In the Ghetto Uprising, the Nazis lost 300 soldiers and the Jews lost at least 13,000 people…

there is only one fact used to justify that U.S. citizens can arm themselves, and that is the fact that our constitution guarantees us the right. no further emotional games are needed, but gun control enthusiasts want it to be a debate, so people play along.

Not subscribing to either side of the argument at the moment, but I just want to note: the Constitution is not the Word of God, it can and is changed whenever the society thinks something it turns out to be a spectacularly bad idea. When discussing whether that is the case, "it's in Constitution" is not a valid argument per se.

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the same well-armed and powerful U.S. Military that has repeatedly had its ass handed to it by small groups of fighters with little more than small arms and IEDs in the Middle East? Is that the all-powerful, unbeatable military force you're speaking of? Your argument sounds quite a lot like what was being said around the time the US wanted independence from England. What? We're going to fight them? With their…

Yes. This is the same military that didn't have the popular support to complete its objectives in the ME, so they phoned it in. That's what happens to countries that go to war under false pretense - they get to half-send their militaries for political appeasement. Were you implying that the REAL military was defeated in the ME? Or, that they would somehow be unable to put down a guerrilla war?

If you think that's what happened in Iraq, then you have a simplistic and woefully inadequate view of how the war actually went.

If there's any one big thing we learned in Iraq, it's how Counter-Insurgency works and how important it is. You can't simply roll in and impose your will on a well-armed populace, no matter how many ships and planes and tanks you have. You will be hit over and over again by snipers and small ambushes that fade away before you can bring your resources to bear. There are no big targets to use your big weapons against, and using them arbitrarily against the civilian population will enrage more people into fighting against you than the number of actual combatants it kills. You can't get any good information from anybody on who the insurgents really are and where they are.

The force that is closest to the population will basically always win in the end, even if they have less resources. The only way for an outside force to successfully counter an insurgency is to make themselves more close to the population than the insurgents. That's how the US won in Anbar late in the war - the insurgents, despite being the same religion and more culturally similar, were so brutal, arbitrary, and disrespectful of local traditions that they were willing to side with Americans from an ocean away to get them out.

The other important part is how the soldiers themselves feel. It makes less of a different when you're an ocean away from home in a very foreign culture, since there's not really any practical way to desert. If they were ever to operate in America against Americans, that could be a very big deal. Soldiers aren't order-following robots; you're going to have to convince them to fire weapons at, and take fire from, their friends and neighbors on the orders of somebody far away to impose something they may not care about or believe in. It's not necessarily impossible, but it makes things a lot harder.

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#35
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I brought up the Polish because many of them did have to fight for survival, and many died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_Pol... Approximately six million Polish citizens perished during World War II: about one fifth of the pre-war population. Most were civilian victims of the war crimes and crimes against humanity during the occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Half of those we…

Out of the 6M Polish casualties 3M of them were Jewish, the Polish people suffered extensively during WW2 there's no doubt about it. Both the Germans and the Russians often practices universal punishment and exterminated entire villages for hosting resistance fighters and later on for cooperating with either Russian or German forces. The 6M death figure which is horrible is also the total death accounts during the wa…

> Out of the 6M Polish casualties 3M of them were Jewish

These numbers don't really add up and it's the upper bound Polish historians quote. The problem is that there were roughly 3M Jews in Poland before the war and census before and after the war showed ~3,5M population drop in total. So not only 6M seems excessive but 3M seems unlikely given that this would mean that roughly every single Jew died in the result of WWII. 3M/6M figures are never verified, PRL figures.

> but if you ask the Poles would they rather be armed and fighting or be the next inline for complementary train tickets you would probably get only a single response and that is we rather fight

Sure, most of us would rather fight. But this piece isn't about our will or ability to fight. I actually find it offensive that some random dude from across the ocean is using pieces of my history to justify his own agenda. One that has absolutely NOTHING to do with fighting against oppression, aggression or genocide but EVERYTHING to do with interests of gun manufacturers. I find this kind of articles dangerous in how cynical they are in exploiting fears we all have, that a group I'm a part of could be targeted, to push particular agenda. It's disgusting.

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is the same military that didn't have the popular support to complete its objectives in the ME, so they phoned it in. That's what happens to countries that go to war under false pretense - they get to half-send their militaries for political appeasement. Were you implying that the REAL military was defeated in the ME? Or, that they would somehow be unable to put down a guerrilla war?

If you think that's what happened in Iraq, then you have a simplistic and woefully inadequate view of how the war actually went. If there's any one big thing we learned in Iraq, it's how Counter-Insurgency works and how important it is. You can't simply roll in and impose your will on a well-armed populace, no matter how many ships and planes and tanks you have. You will be hit over and over again by snipers and smal…

Right. Like I said, the US half-assed it.

We don't lose in real wars that we care about, such as ones where rebel states cause an existential threat.

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of the 6M Polish casualties 3M of them were Jewish, the Polish people suffered extensively during WW2 there's no doubt about it. Both the Germans and the Russians often practices universal punishment and exterminated entire villages for hosting resistance fighters and later on for cooperating with either Russian or German forces. The 6M death figure which is horrible is also the total death accounts during the wa…

> Out of the 6M Polish casualties 3M of them were Jewish These numbers don't really add up and it's the upper bound Polish historians quote. The problem is that there were roughly 3M Jews in Poland before the war and census before and after the war showed ~3,5M population drop in total. So not only 6M seems excessive but 3M seems unlikely given that this would mean that roughly every single Jew died in the result of…

Only 50,000 or so Polish Jews survived the Holocaust, the Germans have kept quite meticulous records and about 3.3M Polish Jews were killed during WW2.

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the same well-armed and powerful U.S. Military that has repeatedly had its ass handed to it by small groups of fighters with little more than small arms and IEDs in the Middle East? Is that the all-powerful, unbeatable military force you're speaking of? Your argument sounds quite a lot like what was being said around the time the US wanted independence from England. What? We're going to fight them? With their…

Yes. This is the same military that didn't have the popular support to complete its objectives in the ME, so they phoned it in. That's what happens to countries that go to war under false pretense - they get to half-send their militaries for political appeasement. Were you implying that the REAL military was defeated in the ME? Or, that they would somehow be unable to put down a guerrilla war?

> Were you implying that the REAL military was defeated in the ME? Or, that they would somehow be unable to put down a guerrilla war?

The problem is that despite repeated demonstrations of the contrary, many people (including people who really, really should know better) believe that wars are only decided on the battlefield. The point of going to war is not to engage in set-piece battles and blow up a hapless opponent like Saddam's outclassed military live on CNN. The point is to complete a number of strategic objectives. If you didn't manage to do that, you lost.

If on top of that, you managed to engineer a power vacuum in a very volatile area, which subsequently created the conditions necessary for the emergence of the most powerful militant group to date, you pretty much scored an own goal. Bonus if your PR plan included saying "mission accomplished".

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is the same military that didn't have the popular support to complete its objectives in the ME, so they phoned it in. That's what happens to countries that go to war under false pretense - they get to half-send their militaries for political appeasement. Were you implying that the REAL military was defeated in the ME? Or, that they would somehow be unable to put down a guerrilla war?

> Were you implying that the REAL military was defeated in the ME? Or, that they would somehow be unable to put down a guerrilla war? The problem is that despite repeated demonstrations of the contrary, many people (including people who really, really should know better) believe that wars are only decided on the battlefield. The point of going to war is not to engage in set-piece battles and blow up a hapless opponen…

People frown on building mountains of skulls, enslaving all the men of military age, and distributing the conquered lands and peoples to your officers and men these days...

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

#40
Apologies for the length, but I had to correct some misinformation.

"In Western Europe, where anti-semitism among the conquered gentile population was less severe [...]"

"But when Poland regained its independence in 1919, thanks to the Versailles Treaty, the nation degenerated into a military dictatorship which encouraged anti-semitism."

These statements are either facile and come from a position of ignorance and show a lack of discernment. Consider that:

* After Poland regained its independence in 1918/19, it had been a democratic republic until the May coup d'etat of 1926 under Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, arguably the most important figure in the creation of the Second Polish Republic and the rebirth of the nation's independence. This de facto dictatorship lasted for less than 10 years. I know that we like to superficially assign without question an absolute superiority to democracy and view dictatorship as an absolute evil, but this depends on the particular characteristics of a given society, its situation, and its present needs as well as the kind of dictatorship we have in mind. Poland had been wiped off the map 123 years prior and divided into three parts by a joint conspiracy between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. It is strongly argued that without a dictatorship that would hold the nation together and guard it from foreign malice and its notoriously bad geopolitical predicament, Poland would have failed to survive as a state. There was a need for stabilization and coordination. Democracy presumes a certain status quo and does not bear chaos in such circumstances very well.

* Under Pilsudski's rule, the situation of ethnic minorities (1/3 of the citizenry) actually improved considerably, though some of these minorities later colluded with the Nazi and Soviet regimes in exterminations of the Polish population. Pilsudski preferred to emphasize loyalty to the state over ethnicity, which was the policy of the National Democrats under Roman Dmowski, Pilsudski's arch-rival (and who purportedly argued that ethnic minorities can add salt to the soup, though too much can ruin or destabilize a society, esp. when they fail to assimilate). In fact, Jews viewed him very favorably and their situation improved greatly especially under Pilsudski-appointed prime minister Kazimierz Bartel. Worth noting is that Pilsudski's own wife was Jewish. So I'm not sure how the author drew the link between dictatorship and anti-semitism. Maybe he was looking for a cheap trope to appeal to to sell his story.

* The Polish variety of anti-Jewish feeling during this period was not racial in character. The "Jewish Question" concerned the problem of who and what Jews were in relation to the Polish nation. To say that Jews were being kept back is not really accurate. The situation was far more complicated. Many Jews who did assimilate were quite successful. However, it is false to assume that all Jews wanted to assimilate in the first place and simply weren't welcome. Many had no such desire and purposefully maintained a separation from gentiles. Many were Zionists. Many had German loyalties. Some had Communist sympathies. During an era of nationalism where the state was rebuilding and trying to survive against the threat of Nazi German and Soviet Russian aggression, unknown or divided loyalties were threatening. Furthermore, much of the resentment towards Jews, where it did exist, was economic in nature. While the aristocracy and the peasantry were about 2/3 Polish, the same proportions did not hold among the burghers where Jews were overrepresented. In other words, Polish-Jewish relations are complicates and require particular care if they are to be understood, not boorish generalizations that you often hear from bigots and the ignorant, no doubt the same people who use phrases such as "Polish concentration camps".

* The greatest number of people honored at Yad Vashem are by far Poles. This is true despite that fact that only in Poland did Germany impose a death penalty that could be extended to the entire family for aiding and hiding Jews.

Other than that, I'm not sure how convincing the main argument seems to be. Gun control, like many polarizing topics, exists in an anti-rational domain that elevates a tool to some transcendental, fantastic order of Manichean symbols: you either have those who equate guns with freedom and those who equate it with evil incarnate. It is my opinion that whether gun training and ownership is not a matter of principle but a matter of contingent factors and pragmatism. For example, since we're on the topic, I believe countries in historically geopolitically risky situation like Poland could benefit from widespread training if not ownership. Switzerland is arguably geopolitically safer place, but it has a trained populace in possession of firearms. The US has a very curious history with fire arms that differs from that of France, which does not mean stricter regulation of the gun market cannot be put in place. However, while gun ownership has been increasing, violence has been decreasing, esp. violence involving guns. There is no single number that can characterize the facts on the ground, but what it goes to show is that much of the "public debate" is merely the projection of preconceived notions, ideology, and emotion. There is barely any reason in it, merely arrogant presumption that the issue is obvious.

Post reply on HN