Surviving the selection process at Auschwitz..

[Charles Bunch]

The quotation cited by Smith doesn't even support his libel. In the quote, Elie Wiesel does not say that every Jew "should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy virile hate " for Germans. Rather he said they "should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy, virile hate -- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the Germans."

Since Dan was talking about Jewish opinions during WW2, what difference does it make? It still contradicts what Dan said.

Also, I never said the Jews shouldn't use the words Holocaust or Genocide. What I object to is howling about the uniqueness of their sufferings, and I guess that most educated Jews would agree with me that their persecutions were not unique in the history of the world.

I suspect most educated Jews would ignore you.

There are many aspects of the Holocaust which are unique, which transcend mere mass murder. But I don't expect that is a discussion you're equipped to have, since anyone who denies the event also has the motivation to minimize it.

[Erik]

Quote: Elie Wiesel has won the hearts and minds of Holocaust Studies professors with his counsel on how to perpetuate a loathing for Germans:


Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate—healthy virile hate—for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.
*(Legends of Our Time, “Appointment with Hate,” NY, Avon, 1968, pp. 177-

John Silber wrote:

The quotation cited by Smith doesn't even support his libel. In the quote, Elie Wiesel does not say that every Jew "should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy virile hate " for Germans. Rather he said they "should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy, virile hate -- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the Germans." As the Nazi generation has passed from the scene, what Germans personify and what persists in the Germans has changed. What Germans personified in 1945 is not what a different generation of Germans personify today.

Mr. Silber again:

What is the motivation and purpose of Mr. Smith and his CODOH? Why do they find it personally important to deny the Holocaust and to abuse and denigrate Professor Wiesel? Isn't it relevant to ask? Bradley R. Smith and his Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust are a travesty and a repudiation of all that a university should stand for when falsehood is disseminated and truth is suppressed.

What is the motivation and purpose of the alleged “hate speech” that needs laws against it being disseminated and to suppress its abuse and denigration of truth?

Does it try to set apart a zone of hate – sickly cowardly hate – for what the Jew personifies and for what persists in the Jews?

As the Christ killer generation has passed from the scene, what Jews personify and what persists in the Jews has changed. What Jews personified in year 0 – at Calvary – is not what a different generation of Jews personify today.

Still, “Can Germany ever be forgiven”?

Isn't it relevant to ask?

Can we learn anything from the history of the Jews?

When is hate hate, i e healthy virile hate and/or its opposite?

When is it to be “set apart” with Hate Speech laws, and when will it be allowed to persist – in laws against Hate Speech?

Something must be hated, right?

Mr. Weakly wrote:

I wonder what else we don't know about the above quote. Perhaps Elie Weisel says this hatred is to be compartmentalized in the furthest recesses of ones mind so as not to interfere with their daily lives and disrupt the relations they have with others?

Regardless, Elie Weisel certainly earned the right to be unforgiving if he so chooses.

Mr. Wiesel makes an exception for the opposite kind of hate then? When the “healthy virile” variety has been "set apart" and "compartmentalized in the furthest..." etc?

“Can Germany ever be forgiven”?

[Charles Bunch]

What is the motivation and purpose of the alleged “hate speech” that needs laws against it being disseminated and to suppress its abuse and denigration of truth?

So Erik equates laws passed against the public denial of the Holocaust with Bradley Smith's and CODOH's denial of the Holocaust and it's implicit claim that Jews have lied about it?

Does it try to set apart a zone of hate – sickly cowardly hate – for what the Jew personifies and for what persists in the Jews?

So Erik equates hating those who attempted genocide with antisemitism?

As the Christ killer generation has passed from the scene, what Jews personify and what persists in the Jews has changed. What Jews personified in year 0 – at Calvary – is not what a different generation of Jews personify today.

So Erik believes the Jews killed Christ, and are as deserving of hatred as those who sought to exterminate the Jews of Europe? Or is Erik asserting that both the Christ Killer charge and the genocide charge are false?


With Erik it is difficult to tell, since he seems to prefer thoughtless words to thinking.

[Dan W.]

Mr. Weakly wrote:
Quote:
I wonder what else we don't know about the above quote. Perhaps Elie Weisel says this hatred is to be compartmentalized in the furthest recesses of ones mind so as not to interfere with their daily lives and disrupt the relations they have with others?

Regardless, Elie Weisel certainly earned the right to be unforgiving if he so chooses.


Mr. Wiesel makes an exception for the opposite kind of hate then? When the “healthy virile” variety has been "set apart" and "compartmentalized in the furthest..." etc?

“Can Germany ever be forgiven”?

Mr. Weisel clearly states that "the children of murderers are not murderers, but children." This there is no mistaking. The only "exception" is for those who suffered in the concentration camps. They have earned the right to hate, but most realized that this only ruins ones life, so to really survive you must forgive. And most have.

Germany has been forgiven and while some compensatory financial claims have been made recently there is no mistaking Germany has owned up to its past. Can the same be said of other countries that also caused the suffering and deaths of millions? I can think of two examples where the answer is no. But that is tangential to the argument and I don't want to get off topic.

[Dan]

I do not believe in collective guilt; only the guilty and their accomplices are guilty, not those who were not born yet, and surely not their children. The children of murderers are not murderers, but children."

For the third time, what does that have to do with Jewish inmate attitudes during the war?

And Charles, if most educated Jews still think their suffering was unique, I would be wrong in my opinion, but I would still feel sorry for them.

[Scott Smith]

Dan,

Here is another example of the "Jewish hatred" towards the Germans, from Elie Wiesel's speech on January 27th in the German parliament in Berlin:

"Ich glaube nicht an Kollektivschuld; nur die Schuldigen sind schuldig; nur sie und ihre Komplizen. Nicht jene, die damals noch nicht waren, und schon gar nicht die Kinder. Die Kinder von Mördern sind nicht Mörder, sondern Kinder."

Source: http://www.german-embassy.se/wiesel27100.htm

Translation:

"I do not believe in collective guilt; only the guilty and their accomplices are guilty, not those who were not born yet, and surely not their children. The children of murderers are not murderers, but children."

Who said anything about collective guilt? There is a generational and cultural break between the Old Germans (bad) and the New Germans (good) and with crypto-Germans in-between.

Roughly, a crypto-German is one who affects to embrace the new order by being vigilant against the old days but only alienating himself from his own heritage in the process of capturing his "authentic" Germanness (pre-1933 if not pre-1871). It is simply the mentality of a defeated people, I would argue.

It is also controversial since "nobody knows" any Germans like that, do we, so it is difficult to particularize. (Maybe it's like all the schoolkids from Lake Wobegon, where "all are a little bit above average.") So I'll just leave a precise definition to your imagination.

I posted this on the old forum a couple of years ago:

Here are some comments regarding your [Roberto's] post of 1-21-01 on the Baltic thread:

1.
(a) I realize that it is popular and fashionable to hate-Hate. But I am against such laws because crimes are crimes and internal motives are important for psychologists not jurists. Violence is no worse because it is esoteric or banal, politically-incorrect or popular. Speaking unpopular, often academic, points-of-view is not the same as terrorism and violence—except in an Orwellian world. “The penalty for Thoughtcrime is not death. Thoughtcrime IS Death.” [Orwell, 1984.]

(b) I would hardly consider the Bundesrepublik “fragile.” Are France, Canada, and Australia “fragile democracies” too. I know that Tony Blair was toying with “Hate-speech” laws. As far as Germany being a fragile democracy though—if that is the case then maybe we should rethink letting them bear-arms without supervision! They are on icy waters as far as I’m concerned with their Thoughtcrimes laws. Germans will not in the long-run distance themselves from the Third Reich: Hitler ist Deutschland aber Deutschland Hitler ist. That’s why the Allies fought Hitler so hard in the first place! Already, “revisionist” historians like Goldhagen are revising the German sop that NS-Verbrechen was an exclusive product of SS-criminality and Hitler. Only, instead of all Germans being “willing executioners,” I would argue that the victorious Allies criminalized the SS in toto *because* they best symbolized in the Allied mind a devotion to German honor and the German-cause itself, in a very bitter war with many villains on all sides. The raison d’etre of the Bundesrepublik is denazification; they need to rethink this paradigm and move forward! Banning historical krinklejammers and access to U.S. websites is not going to keep the “liberal reactionaries” in power any more than the East Germans banning West German TV prevented the Berlin Wall from coming down. Germany does not need to out-weasel the Wiesels and Wiesenthals to legitimate itself. As John Brown [from the old forum] said, German culture is two-thousand years old and a dozen years do not change anything.

(c) The Weimar Republic failed not because it was “tolerant,” but because it was a Spoils System with everyone having their snout in the trough, not the least of which the raison d’etre of the regime was the Versailles Treaty and the War-Guilt clause, which justified reparations and obeisance to the Allied victors. The Weimar Regime had no public credibility and could not even handle simple problems.

(d) I would be interested in seeing the exact German Thoughtcrimes statutes. Please translate since I’m not good at reading between the lines in German. I would like to see this posted on codoh as well to generate discussion.

[Emphasis added 1-4-03 SLS.]

Best Regards,
Scott

[Scott Smith]

This is what I posted on the old forum about two years ago. I went directly to Wiesel's book at the library to insure context:

Mr. Wiesel can have whatever opinions he chooses about his geysers-of-blood. I could care less about someone else's fideist myths and ethnocentric or theocentric predilections.

But I find it interesting that the well-known Jewish writer, who served as chairman of the official U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and received the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, wrote in his book, Legends of Our Time:

"Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy, virile hate -- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German."

Legends of Our Time. NY: Schocken Books, 1982, (chap. 12, p. 142).

Hating-Hate is a dangerous concept, a slippery-slope to zealotry, if not genocide. Mr. Wiesel seems uncritical of Zionist human-rights abuses. I wonder what happens when Arab folks get taught to hate Zionist-Hate? Just an observation...

[Erik]

Mr. Bunch wrote:

The evidence for the attempted annihilation of Jews, and for their gassing at places like Auschwitz, doesn't depend on evidence such as this. But testimonial evidence of this sort from literally hundreds of Auschwitz prisoners provides a wealth of detail on the operation of the camp and how the system of death within it functioned.
To suggest that Levi, and the many others, created such scenes out of whole cloth, bespeaks of a view of these people which transcends any claim to intellectual skepticism.

I’ve read Primo Levi’s “If This Is a Man”, i e, “Survival in Auschwitz” (“Se questo e un uomo”)
in a swedish translation of an edition dated 1976. This edition has an “afterword”(?), which was added to an Italian school edition in1958.
On side 216 of the swedish edition Mr Levi says that he didn’t know about the crematoria and gas chambers when he was at Monowitz, but found out first afterwords, “when the whole world found out about them”(this last is my translation from Swedish of a part of a sentence I noted down).

But he may have heard what he considered rumours, while in the camp(I don’t remember reading it in the book – the reading was “cursory”!)? Since these rumours were “true” – i e “found out” (see above) to be true – maybe he “knew” already in the camp, without being aware of it?

I see and hear Kuhn praying aloud, swaying backwards and forwards violently. Kuhn is thanking God because he has not been chosen. Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the Greek in the bunk next to him? Beppo is twenty years old and is going to the gas chamber tommorrow and he knows it and lies there looking at the light without saying anything and without even thinking anymore. Does Kuhn fail to realize that the next time will probably be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what happened today was an abomination, which no propitiatory prayer, no pardon, no expiation by the guilty can change?

If I was God, I would spit at Kuhns prayer.

(My emphases.)

Still, he “knew”, didn’t he? Like Kuhn and Beppo?

...the important thing for the Lager is that the most useless will be eliminated.

(from what?)

But is it “rumours”?

Today is working Sunday, Arbeitssonntag: we work until 1:00 PM, then we return to camp for the shower, shave and general control of the skin diseases and lice. And in the yards, everyone mysteriously knew that the selection would be today. Rumors circulate, the young tell the young only the old will be chosen. The healthy tell the healthy only the ill ones will be chosen. Specialists will be excluded. German Jews will be excluded. Low numbers will be excluded. You will be chosen. I will be excluded.

(My emphases.)

Chosen for/excluded from what? Gas chambers?

I.e., from death? Or delousing?

Mr Bunch wrote:

But testimonial evidence of this sort from literally hundreds of Auschwitz prisoners provides a wealth of detail on the operation of the camp and how the system of death within it functioned.

Death of men or of lice?

How do you know? How did Levi know?

[Dan]

So who's quote was accurate? Bunch's or Smith's

[Scott Smith]

Okay, your worldly experience notwithstanding, why on earth would you discredit the revelations of Primo Levi? One thing I have discovered in reading the stories of Jewish inmates of the camp system is a notable absence of malice and hatred in their writings, as if they make a particular effort to seperate their just bitterness towards the Nazi's and try to relate their story in a dispassionate manner, all which leads me to believe they are more interested in influencing the reader with the facts, and to show that it is not a personal vendetta that drives them but an intense desire to ensure their story is not forgotten.

It is more theology than history. At best it is hearsay, as any honest cross-examination would show. Proprietary-history, however, does start with the premise that the experiences of one's people are unique.

I posted this on the Old Forum a couple of years ago:

Comrade Wiesel is mistaken if he thinks that his pain and suffering is any better than anybody else's. I'm sorry but welcome to the human race. But this really speaks more to Wiesel's own personal insecurities than anything else. It is kind of sad, really.

Having said my piece about Elie Wiesel's crusade, let me reiterate my own belief and hope:

We are just studying history here. I have said all along that we have to study history objectively and without emotion to understand ourselves-who we are, where we came from and where we intend to go.

This requires a certain degree of tolerance! History should be divorced from theosophy, in my opinion. I prefer to determine my own values and ethics, thank you. And if everybody could do that the world would be a much more reasonable, mature and safer place for all of us. Civilization is a learning-process and intellectual freedom is crucial to that.

We can't learn and progress if, for example, key historical people like Adolf Hitler are reduced to mere cardboard-cutouts of Evil.

Sincerely,
Scott

Peace is forged through tolerance and mutual respect. An agreement to disagree.

Has Mr. Wiesel or Mr. Levi "earned the right" to Hate because their people were mistreated by the Germans? We cannot force anyone to forgive. But they don't have a collective right to anything on this planet greater than anyone else. Their theology is their business.

But public space is mine too.

[Charles Bunch]

So who's quote was accurate? Bunch's or Smith's

What makes you think there's any dispute about the quote?

[Scott Smith]

So who's quote was accurate? Bunch's or Smith's

This is how I explained Elie Wiesel to Roberto at the time I checked the quote from Wiesel's book at the library:

Hi Roberto,

The book was translated from French into English from a 1968 version. The quote came from chapter 12, "Appointment With Hate." It is very interesting and I considered typing it out for you but got lazy.

Basically, Wiesel is whining to himself, wanting the German establishment to grovel over the NS-era rather than to blame everything on "the Nazis." (The implication for me is that he wants Thoughcrimes laws to be passed canonizing his novella as orthodox history.)

In "Appointment With Hate," Wiesel wants to be treated by Germans with fear and trembling, the way Jews were treated by frightened Germans immediately after Liberation, but not [for] long [enough] after the Marshall Plan and recovery. He sees German cars on American autobahns and wants to fight WWII again. "I shall not soon be going to Germany again," he concludes, where snot-nosed liberals can distance themselves from the Nazis on account of their youth, and fawning crowds of slumming German bourgeoisie perversely bow-and-scrape to a Jew who lectures them about NS-infamy in French. They remain the hated Germans!

I don't want to belabor the point but, if necessary, I can provide news and magazine references showing Wiesel's attitudes "uncritical of his country" (i.e., Israel, despite him being an American citizen).

For example, the Israelis agreed to accommodate Turkey by dropping Armenian genocide from their general genocide-propaganda, and Wiesel backed Israel on this, much to the disdain of other, less-partisan human-rights groups. He moans about internecine conflicts in Israel, apparently ignoring the other, more bloody, Holy War going on between the Jews and Muslims over pious pieces of real estate.

Wiesel's geysers-of-blood stories employ considerable artistic license like the Diary of Anne Frank but he markets it as history or non-fiction, and some of his publishers and reviewers are not comfortable with this at all. Librarians are somewhat at a loss with how to catalog his works. Not quite historical fiction, his pretensions go in the major-literature category like Shakespeare or Anne Frank's diary, but not serious history or even historical nonfiction usually.

Also, Wiesel has been criticized by other elements of the Shoah industry, like the Wiesenthal Center. He apparently campaigned heavily for his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, infuriating many other liberals.

I can't stand the guy because he made such a stink over President Reagan visiting a German cemetery at Bitburg, which contained the bodies of 47 SS soldiers. There was no evidence presented whatever that the 47 soldiers were guilty of warcrimes other than they were German and that the Nuremberg legacy has criminalized the SS in toto.

At Bitburg, Reagan wanted to sooth ruffled German feathers because the invidious D-Day celebrations in 1984 were deliberately intended to exclude and gloat over the defeat of the Germans, so Reagan made a peace gesture to Helmut Kohl the next year. And Wiesel's propaganda-apparat went wildly into high-gear.

Germans are no longer needed to fight the Cold War, and therefore the "Bundestablishment" has made Wiesel's dream come true, where questioning the court histories is heresy and the uniquely culpable German race must forever grovel before the world community over a war lost a half-century ago.

The other reason that I dislike Wiesel so strongly is that, he backs the exploding practice of using the Holocaust (the Never Again! mantra) to justify bombing attacks on foreign countries. This insidious outrage is becoming so easy and knee-jerk from the White House that it is literally the-tail-wagging-the-dog, anytime someone can invoke "human rights" issues or genocide propaganda. The enemy is "not the gas chambers" but "indifference" Wiesel says, whatever that means.

Thanks,
Scott

[Emphasis Original.]

[Dan W.]

Okay, your worldly experience notwithstanding, why on earth would you discredit the revelations of Primo Levi? One thing I have discovered in reading the stories of Jewish inmates of the camp system is a notable absence of malice and hatred in their writings, as if they make a particular effort to seperate their just bitterness towards the Nazi's and try to relate their story in a dispassionate manner, all which leads me to believe they are more interested in influencing the reader with the facts, and to show that it is not a personal vendetta that drives them but an intense desire to ensure their story is not forgotten.

.It is more theology than history At best it is hearsay, as any honest cross-examination would show. Proprietary-history, however, does start with the premise that the experiences of one's people are unique.

I posted this on the Old Forum a couple of years ago:

Comrade Wiesel is mistaken if he thinks that his pain and suffering is any better than anybody else's. I'm sorry but welcome to the human race. But this really speaks more to Wiesel's own personal insecurities than anything else. It is kind of sad, really.

Having said my piece about Elie Wiesel's crusade, let me reiterate my own belief and hope:

We are just studying history here. I have said all along that we have to study history objectively and without emotion to understand ourselves-who we are, where we came from and where we intend to go.

This requires a certain degree of tolerance! History should be divorced from theosophy, in my opinion. I prefer to determine my own values and ethics, thank you. And if everybody could do that the world would be a much more reasonable, mature and safer place for all of us. Civilization is a learning-process and intellectual freedom is crucial to that.

We can't learn and progress if, for example, key historical people like Adolf Hitler are reduced to mere cardboard-cutouts of Evil.

Sincerely,
Scott

Peace is forged through tolerance and mutual respect. An agreement to disagree.

Has Mr. Wiesel or Mr. Levi "earned the right" to Hate because their people were mistreated by the Germans? We cannot force anyone to forgive. But they don't have a collective right to anything on this planet greater than anyone else. Their theology is their business.

But public space is mine too.

Hmmm....Where should I start? It is more theology than history
Really? I think not. Theoelogy does not even factor into the equation. His comment "He would spit at Kuhns prayer" clearly shows a contempt for religion.

At best it is hearsay, as any honest cross-examination would show
Come now Scott. Hearsay? I think this is first-hand knowledge, gleaned through experience (and an intense suffering that lends one to not easily forget and which we could barely imagine)

Again, this argument seems to be headed in the direction as if the Jews have some monopoly on suffering. They certainly do not. When i speak of "earning" a right to hate I am speaking of someone who suffered grievous injustices and bodily harm. I am speaking as though that individual has the right, for him or herself, not as a spokesperson for their race. Forgiveness is a personal issue in this regard.

When you state that "we need to study history objectively and without emotion" I agree, and I am certainly impressed by the level of factual retelling of events, devoid of emotion, that I read in these first hand accounts. My hatred would probably be palpable and seep from the pages were it I who suffered in the same fashion and had a story to share.

Regards,
D.W.

[Dan]

Good post, Scott

[Erik]

Mr Bunch wrote:

Quote:

What is the motivation and purpose of the alleged “hate speech” that needs laws against it being disseminated and to suppress its abuse and denigration of truth?

So Erik equates laws passed against the public denial of the Holocaust with Bradley Smith's and CODOH's denial of the Holocaust and it's implicit claim that Jews have lied about it?

Quote:

Does it try to set apart a zone of hate – sickly cowardly hate – for what the Jew personifies and for what persists in the Jews?

So Erik equates hating those who attempted genocide with antisemitism?

Quote:

As the Christ killer generation has passed from the scene, what Jews personify and what persists in the Jews has changed. What Jews personified in year 0 – at Calvary – is not what a different generation of Jews personify today.

So Erik believes the Jews killed Christ, and are as deserving of hatred as those who sought to exterminate the Jews of Europe? Or is Erik asserting that both the Christ Killer charge and the genocide charge are false?


With Erik it is difficult to tell, since he seems to prefer thoughtless words to thinking.

“So Erik equates…?”
“So Erik believes…?”
“With Erik it is difficult to tell…”!

And then Mr. Bunch tell’em what Erik prefers!

I was actually trying to “think” with “thougthless words”.

Isn't it relevant to ask? Bradley R. Smith and his Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust are a travesty and a repudiation of all that a university should stand for when falsehood is disseminated and truth is suppressed.

What does this MEAN? Who is suppressing what? What ”Debate” is ”Open”? Are there any historical déjà-vu’s around? Can we learn from history? Jewish history? Revision of the Bible readings?

Can God and Truth and Freedom and Human Rights etc. become ”thoughtless words”? Can you make their ”emptiness” resound by using them where thoughts ought to be? By ”knocking them about” a bit?

Erik wrote concerning ”hate”:

When is it to be “set apart” with Hate Speech laws, and when will it be allowed to persist – in laws against Hate Speech?

If there is a “healthy virile” variety, how do you distinguish it from its opposite? Do we know from Law and Orthodoxy?

Or from the HISTORY of such laws and such orthodoxy?