The Holocaust

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#21

  1. But if industrial methods would have been available centuries ago, wouldn’t you think that some of the other countries would have used them? They often used whatever means were available at that time.

  2. “Extermination of a race” is a bit difficult to define, since nazi germany didn’t actually try to destroy jews in the areas they didn’t control. Germany wanted to clear certain area from jews - wasn’t this exactly the same target as England, portugal, France and other countries had earlier? Isn’t this exactly the same as when America wanted to make Georgia “Cherokee-free”.

Of course history is full of “what if” - situations.

What if nazi plan to move all the jews to Madagaskar or any one of their several plans would have succeeded?

What if American plan to clear Georgia of Cherokees would have failed year after year - would that eventually resulted the same desperate solution that Germany faced? Documented and planned clearing of Georgia resulted 20%-50% of a cherokee race wiped out - and that was only moving them - during quite short period of time. It took nazis several years to start to reach those percentages.

I hope I’m not offending anyone. All corrections are welcomed. I’m not trying to play down holocaust - it was inexpressible event in the history. But if you look at the nations and their history, they all have their sins. Sadly history is full of races and tribes completely wiped out like Conestoga tribe in north America. But with or without industrial development, the same “cause and effect” has existed in history. In a way, it is not germany’s fault that industrial development happened during their era, had industrial development occured during the time when England was active against Jews, would that have made them pop-out from unfortunate history of anti-semitism - who knows.

#22

Umm… to an extent. I’m rather ambivalent as Germany did do their best to extend the area they controlled to cover as many Jews as possible (if not for that reason). Some of Hitler’s rhetoric does indicate he wished to destroy all the Jews - not just those in areas he controlled - and it was military rather than ideological reasons which meant there were surviving Jewish populations outside the area Germany controlled.

#23

  1. But if industrial methods would have been available centuries ago, wouldn’t you think that some of the other countries would have used them? They often used whatever means were available at that time.

  2. “Extermination of a race” is a bit difficult to define, since nazi germany didn’t actually try to destroy jews in the areas they didn’t control. Germany wanted to clear certain area from jews - wasn’t this exactly the same target as England, portugal, France and other countries had earlier? Isn’t this exactly the same as when America wanted to make Georgia “Cherokee-free”.[/quote]

  1. Previous anti jewish attacks were largely directed at the destruction of jewish culture within the country, by killing Jews, forcing them to leave or to convert. The Nazi aim was extermination. This is why Jews were not encouraged to leave german controlled territories, but actively prevented from doing so. Judenrein was a state to be attained through extermination, not population displacement.

  2. I don’t believe this is true. The talk of ‘final solutions’ and preventing Jews from leaving Nazi controlled territories indicates that extermination was the policy. As for the Nazis not trying to destroy Jews in areas they didn’t control - they didn’t try, becuase they didn’t control those areas. It is no evidence that they didn’t want to. When the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem popped into Berlin for tea and biscuits, what do you reckon he chatted to Hitler about? I can’t speak for American policies towards Native Americans, but I can suggest a little about previous anti-Jewish european activities. These were motivated by strong religious doctrine used on a poorly educated and superstitious population. It was wrong, but civilisation has since progressed beyond these activities. Nazi policies towards Jews were a direct regression towards such uncivilised anti-semitism. Again, the european policies were based on convert / displace / kill, not purely kill and were directed against practising Jews. They stood out far less as examples of targeted inhumanity when viewed in the context of their time.

#24

Caution re the Shadow of Storm. We only have 4, so they will never be used again, certainly not on a country without an AF anyway!

#25

I believe you are strongly speaking only about the 42-43-44-45 situation.

1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938 one might say Germany used strongest possible means to support or “encourage” moving out.

Unfortunately not too many nation was eager to receive Jews. US quota for immigrant from Germany was filled and US did not want to relocate quota from other countries (there was a lot of space in other quotas).

"In 1924, the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed, with eugenicists for the first time playing a central role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of “inferior stock” from Eastern and Southern Europe. This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to fifteen percent from previous years, to control the number of “unfit” individuals entering the country. "

"Eventually, America’s eugenic movement spread to Germany as well, where it caught the fascination of the Nazi movement. In 1934 the Richmond Times-Dispatch quoted a prominent American eugenicist as saying, “The Germans are beating us at our own game.” "

Jews in germany were more or less free to move, several hundred thousand moved to Poland and Soviet Union. Germany wanted them out. Most of them wanted to leave. Western nations didn’t want to take them.

1939, 1940 and 1941 situation was almost like “paused”, or locked. Germany tried hard to move, ship, etc Jews out, but there were too much difficulties.

I recommended to read original documents such as:
Ministry for Foreign Affairs : 83-26 19/1 Ang. II

The Jewish Question as a factor in German Foreign Policy in the year 1938.

  1. The German Jewish Policy as basis and consequence of the decisions for the foreign policy of the year 1938.
  2. Aim of German Jewish Policy: Emigration.
  3. Means, ways and aim of the Jewish Emigration.
  4. The emigrated Jew as the best propaganda for the German Jewish Policy.

It does not matter which german ministry you study, the documents point to the task of moving Jews out of Germany.

“German documents from 1939 to 1941, the term “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was clearly meant to be a “territorial solution”, that is the entire Jewish population was to be expelled somewhere far from Germany and not allowed to come back.”

“At first, the SS planned to create a gigantic “Jewish Reservation” in the Lublin. In 1940, the SS had the so-called “Madagascar Plan” to deport the entire Jewish population of Europe to a “reservation” on Madagascar. The “Madagascar Plan” was cancelled because Germany could not defeat Britain and until the British blockade was broken, the “Madagascar Plan” could not be put into effect.”

Memorandum written by Himmler in May, 1940 explicitly rejecting extermination of the entire Jewish people as “un-German” and going on to recommend to Hitler the “Madagascar Plan” as the preferred “territorial solution” to the “Jewish Question”.

1942 After waiting, forcing to move, trying to relocate to another continent, trying to relocate to east, etc… Germany had pretty much exhausted all the possibilities expect extermination if they wanted to continue selected policy.

How many times in history leader have changed completely his policy and by that admitted he has been wrong all the years and all his talks?

#26

Plenty of Af’s in Zim, of all hues !
:wink:

#27

In the 30’s/40’s there was a lot of anti-semitism around. German brutality/efficiency meant they managed to kill in greater numbers than anyone else. The other mini-holocausts mentioned by Alephh I’m sure would have caused outrage in their time otherwise they would not be in the history books and remembered today. The German holocaust is more fresh in our memories, on a greater scale, on our (European that is) doorstep and was done by and to people whom look like us. It could have been us hence the reason why it is of much more horror to us than something that happened 100’s of years ago.

It amazes me how much the ocupied territories helped to denounce Jews to teh Germans. Certainly in the East SOME of the occupied peoples were glad to see the back of teh Jews and benefitted from it. Poor Anne Frank was also denounced to teh Germans by someone never identified. I hope that person had a seriously guilty and troubled conscience for the rest of their life.

I can sympathise with “crab-to-be” about the German holocaust supposedly happening “never again”. When I first learnt a lot about the holocaust in about 1995 (50 yrs after the camps were liberated), I felt so incensed by the whole thing that I resolved to do my bit to make sure it did “never happen again”. The Rwanda happened and I idly watched it unravelling on my TV and did nothing at all. I felt guilty about doing nothing but just looked on - as the world did in the 1930’s/40’s - it taught me what sort of a person I am.

Finally a question:

When the Jews (and Russian POWs, political prisoners etc) were herded in to the gas chambers, what sort of a death did they suffer? I heard that it took 20mins for them to die after the Xyklon gas crystals were added. I also heard that when the doors to the gas chamber was opened the bodies were piled up at the end near the door as everyone scrabbled to get out - children and old people at the bottom, fitter people on top. I’m quite troubled by how terrifying these last 20 mins must have been for everyone involved. Are my facts right here or did Xyklon provide an instantaneous death?

#28

True.

Industrialism caused major changes in the culture - values, spiritual life, beliefs, unemployment…

Scary thing is, is it possible that it all will happen again?

I mean: with technology, automation and so on advancing, it maybe possible to produce most of the things without too many human beings involved in the process. That would leave most of the population of the world with nothing to do, nothing to get their pride/meaning from…

I personally feel bad about the fact that if 40,000 people die in the Asia because of flood, quake, tsunami - nobody cares - except of course there are lot of westerners involved. Difference in the media-coverage and amount of help is appalling.

World is still basically very selfish/nationally oriented: “if couple of my countrymen die, that’s horrible - but if one million people die in Africa…”

#29

For Zyklon B (HCN - Hydrogen cyanide) used on Auschwitz, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide
An HCN concentration of 300 parts per million of air will kill a human within a few minutes. […]Hydrogen cyanide (under the brand name Zyklon B) was perhaps most infamously employed by the Nazi regime in Germany as a method of mass-execution.
End quote.

On the other hand, check http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/poison-gas.shtml
Quoted:
Chemicals, primarily hydrogen cyanide ( HCN ) and carbon monoxide ( CO) were used in the gas chambers to murder Jews and other people:

The following are the major death camps in Poland and the gases employed by the Nazis to murder innocent victims:

  1. Treblinka: Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in purpose-built gas chambers.
    2.- Belzec: Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in purpose-built gas chambers.
    3.- Sobibor.- Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in purpose-built gas chambers.
    4.- Auschwitz (including Birkenau) Hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon-B, a commercial preparation of hydrogen cyanide, in purpose-built gas chambers.
    5.- Majdanek: Hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon-B, a commercial preparation, and carbon monoxide from commercial high-pressure cylinders, in purpose-built gas chambers.
    Other camps and locations in Poland that occasionally used gases for murdering people were:
    6.- Chelmno: Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in mobile vehicles known as “gas vans.”
    7.- Natzweiler-Struthof: Hydrogen cyanide produced on site by mixing Sodium cyanide with an acid. This took place in an adapted chamber to kill Jews for a “skeleton collection.”:
    End quote, my emboldment.
    For emboldment, remember that Dachau is in Germany!
#30

I always find it faintly amusing theat the stupid cretins that were responsible for this sort of thing were prepared to waste such a large amount of resources on such a non-essential thing in the middle of a major war.
I suppose it demonstrates that those who hate for the sake of it are some of the most fundamentaly stupid Oxygen-thieves.

On the subject of the fundamentaly stupid, the other day Sky News carried a special report into Fred(?) Phelps the self-styled “Pastor” who claims that US deaths in Iraq etc and Louisiana are be cause America tolerates homosexuals . He protests at US service funerals to this effect. Anyway his utterly charming granddaughters decided that they were going to lecture the reporter on the scriptural basis for this, stupidly failing to realise that in the same Old Testament book that rules against gays there ia another law that states that women are forbidden from teaching, particularly in matters of religion. One wonders whether Grandpa would cast the first stone?

#31

I remember reading (some years ago) in the Nyremberg trials archives, a testimony of a Jewish doctor.
Im forgeting his name or the camp he was in but i remember saying that when he was assigned to carry blankets (that have gone through disinfection using Zyklon B) he passed out and later revived from other inmates.
He said that he didn’t felt a thing before passing out .
Of course this was the cause of only a few (or a single) Zyklon B crystals that were still among the blancet’s layers and in open air-not a gas chamber full of the gas.
I think this was the only testimony of a man that have breathed the gas and still was alive.
The bodies were indeed piled up when the doors were finally opened but this was due to the fact that every gas chamber was filled up to maximum capacity (I think it was 1000 persons/chamber in most camps) with the use of extreme force.
The last 100 of vistims were violently pushed with rifle buts and stabed with bayonets in order to squeeze the rest of the crowd.
To reach its capacity, the victims were ordered to raise their hands above their heads in order to leave more free room.
Small children and babies were simply thrown above the crowd and the safety doors were pushed by two or three guards in order to close.

So cruel,so tragic, so sad.