Why the Jews and the gas chambers?

Discussions on the Holocaust and 20th Century War Crimes. Note that Holocaust denial is not allowed. Hosted by David Thompson.
Tarpon27
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Re: Huh?

#61

Post by Tarpon27 » 08 May 2002, 23:34

Dan wrote:

Mark, I don't think you are reading Michael properly. To say the disproportionant Jewish involvement in Communism was one link in a chain of events isn't to say this "link" is rational, it is just to say that this was a link. Not that it was right, fair, consistant, etc...
Hello, Dan, and I have several things to say. As I admitted in my above initial post, I may have misread Michael. That being said...

One who reads both his posting and yours, is immediately, for lack of my own writing ability, I guess "expected" to nod my head, and say, "Yes, I agree with the constructs of Michael's or Dan's arguments."

But I don't.

I don't agree with your "disproportionant Jewish involvement in Communism" any more than I agree that the Jews of Europe were attacked by Nazis because of Jewish commissars, a number and existence of such, I have yet to see anyone adequately flesh out.

In other words, from here and other boards, usenet, and readings, I have often read that amazing rationalization that it was, don't you know, the Jews who were behind communism. One has to marvel at that, in the clear light of Russian Jews fleeing the USSR as fast as possible, provided they could get airfare and an exit visa. In fact, I just saw ads on some religious programming asking for $750 donations to purchase a ticket for Russian Jews wanting to emigrate this week. (In the harsh economic times in today's Russia, guess what group of people is being singled out as the reason times are so tough?)

If one wishes to argue that some Jews are certainly leftists, embracing political movements I abhor, I would not argue the point; to take it one step further, and then claim that such involvement made for the Holocaust being the Jews' fault, is not only repellant, but absurd.

And, my, how convenient for Hitler and the Nazis. It wasn't the insane racial policies, the sophomoric theories on the Master Race and Aryan bloodlines, the barely veiled threats to exterminate the Jews, no, none of those count, as the destruction of European Jews was, surprise, the fault of those same European Jews.

It does not matter that a tiny percentage of Jews were communists; how could that possibly justify the Nazi actions? It was the act of a murderous, insane tyrant whose speech and writing displayed his overwhelming obsession with Jews.

Sheesh, what's next? Blood ritual lore being the cause for Auschwitz?

Regards,


Mark

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Scott Smith
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WARTIME ANTI-SEMITISM...

#62

Post by Scott Smith » 09 May 2002, 01:44

Whether Jews were Leftists, Communists, Zionists, international bankers or rooftop fiddle-players, they were nevertheless considered by the Germans within the context of their times to be enemy-aliens during the war. This is not to justify their mistreatment but only to help understand it beyond the comic-book treatment of the subject that we usually get. Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism, nor is it unique to Germans. But what is even more bizarre, I think, is that the Holocaust is used to justify the mistreatment of the Palestinians today, as if the Jews are now entitled and in constant danger.
:roll:
Last edited by Scott Smith on 09 May 2002, 08:11, edited 1 time in total.


Tarpon27
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Re: Huh?

#63

Post by Tarpon27 » 09 May 2002, 02:53

Scott wrote:

Whether Jews were Leftists, Communists, Zionists, international bankers or rooftop fiddle-players, they were nevertheless considered by the Germans within the context of the times to be enemy-aliens during the war.
Well, the war started in September of 1939. What were the Jews before then? Enemy citizens?

Or just basic cannon fodder for the Nazis to consolidate power, charge 'em a billion marks for destroying their shops and synagogues, summarily remove them from their jobs and professions, and basically make it impossible to exist in the Reich?
Scott wrote:

This is not to justify their mistreatment but only to help understand it beyond the comic-book treatment of the subject that we usually get. Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism, nor is it unique to Germans.
Ahhh, good, no comic-book treatment here.

If you recall, my posts were on Michael Mills's statement, which ends with this:

"...those who question the concept of all Jews as purely passive victims and posit an active role by some Jews, eg various leaders or activists, in creating the chain of events that culminated in the destruction of a large part of European Jewry."

Now, maybe something got "lost" in the posting, or I am misreading it, but it appears to me that Mills is implying that the actions of some Jewish leaders and activists created the chain of events that culminated in their own destruction.

Which seems like a remarkable way to assert that Hitler and the Nazis are not responsible for killing Jews; the Jews made them do it.

If you wish to reply to that, please do so. Your spam on Israeli/Palestinian conflicts is just that, and especially here at this forum.

Mark

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#64

Post by michael mills » 09 May 2002, 03:55

Now, maybe something got "lost" in the posting, or I am misreading it, but it appears to me that Mills is implying that the actions of some Jewish leaders and activists created the chain of events that culminated in their own destruction.
Mark,

May I respectfully suggest that you consult the book "Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime", by the Jewish-American historian Richard Pipes (father of the Zionist extremist Daniel Pipes).

Richard Pipes obviously cannot be accused of anti-Semitism, although he might, as a Jewish conservative, be suspected of harbouring a bias against Jewish Communists and Bundists.

Pipes writes extensively about the involvement of Jews in the Bolshevik movement and in the Russian Revolution, and shows how, after the success of the Bolshevik coup, large numbers of leftist-inclined Jews, particularly Bundists (who had constituted the largest Jewish political movement) joined the Bolsheviks and played a major role in the administration of the Bolshevik regime.

Pipes also expresses an opinion which in my view is highly significant to any explanation of the chain of events leading to the destruction of a large part of European Jewry during the Second World War. He believes that the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia fundamentally changed the nature of European anti-Semitism.

Previously the attitude of anti-Semites toward Jews had essentially been one of dislike and contempt. Now, that attitude changed to one of fear and loathing. The Jews were now seen, not as a rabble of contemptible immigrant hucksters, but as a powerful force that could take over a country, destroy the existing ruling class and socio-political system, and remake the country in a way favourable to themselves.

In Pipes' view, the Russian Revolution gave credence in the minds of unsympathetic observers to anti-Semitic tracts such as "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", the forgery that had previously been regarded somewhat disdainfully. The claims made in such tracts that the Jews were conspiring to take control of the whole world seemed to have been borne out by events in Russia.

It is not so much a question of objective reality as of the subjective reality in the minds of rightist-inclined observers of the Russian Revolution.

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Re: Huh?

#65

Post by Scott Smith » 09 May 2002, 08:49

Tarpon27 wrote:
Scott wrote:Whether Jews were Leftists, Communists, Zionists, international bankers or rooftop fiddle-players, they were nevertheless considered by the Germans within the context of their times to be enemy-aliens during the war.
Well, the war started in September of 1939. What were the Jews before then? Enemy citizens?
They were German nationals but not citizens after the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. During the war all Jews were considered enemy-aliens, justifiably or not.

How many Jews murdered before September 1, 1939?
Tarpon wrote:
Scott wrote:This is not to justify their mistreatment but only to help understand it beyond the comic-book treatment of the subject that we usually get. Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism, nor is it unique to Germans.
Ahhh, good, no comic-book treatment here.
How many gassed before the war because they were Jews?
Tarpon wrote:If you recall, my posts were on Michael Mills's statement, which ends with this:

"...those who question the concept of all Jews as purely passive victims and posit an active role by some Jews, eg various leaders or activists, in creating the chain of events that culminated in the destruction of a large part of European Jewry."

Now, maybe something got "lost" in the posting, or I am misreading it, but it appears to me that Mills is implying that the actions of some Jewish leaders and activists created the chain of events that culminated in their own destruction.
Regardless whether it was true or not, that was the Nazi view, which is indispensible in trying to examine their motives, and to thereby understand what happened and why.
Tarpon wrote:Which seems like a remarkable way to assert that Hitler and the Nazis are not responsible for killing Jews; the Jews made them do it.
That's not what I said and I don't think that's what Mr. Mills said.
Tarpon wrote:If you wish to reply to that, please do so. Your spam on Israeli/Palestinian conflicts is just that, and especially here at this forum.
Some of the post-9/11 flag-waiving jingoism has died down now and there have been pro-Palestinian and pro-Jewish rallies here in Arizona.

The Jewish response to the Mid-East conflict is that Jews are in eternal jeopardy of Genocide from Gentiles and some actually carried signs affirming that "The Holocaust Happened."

Thus, it is either a war against TERRORISM or a war against LIES, depending on your point-of-view.

Yes, Mark, unfortunately, the Jewish Question is inextricable from the Holocaust, and the Holocaust from the Palestinian Question. It is part of the Aftermath of World War II--indeed the historiography of the Third Reich, a "detail" of the gargantuan World War which has become the Bratwurst of modern diplomacy.

AND WHO IS TO BLAME? HITLER (the Devil) OF COURSE...
With comic-book answers we will never have PEACE.
:)

Hillel rallies for Israel: Group Responds to pro-Palestinian Demonstration, by Barry Cohen, editor. Jewish News of Greater Phoenix: May 3, 2002/Iyar 21, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 33.
Last edited by Scott Smith on 09 May 2002, 12:45, edited 1 time in total.

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Roberto
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#66

Post by Roberto » 09 May 2002, 12:01

Tarpon27 wrote:
Scott wrote:
Whether Jews were Leftists, Communists, Zionists, international bankers or rooftop fiddle-players, they were nevertheless considered by the Germans within the context of their times to be enemy-aliens during the war.


Well, the war started in September of 1939. What were the Jews before then? Enemy citizens?

They were German nationals but not citizens after the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. During the war all Jews were considered enemy-aliens, justifiably or not.

How many Jews murdered before September 1, 1939?
The extermination program was developed during the war, the consideration that wartime conditions were particularly propitious for it being a factor, as it had previously been for carrying out the “euthanasia” program of killing physically and/or mentally handicapped people. At least this is what Goebbels’ diary entry of 27 March 1942 suggests:
Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.

The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is to carry this measure through, is doing it with considerable circumspection and according to a method that does not attract too much attention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophesy which the Fuehrer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It's a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime would have the strength for such a global solution of this question. Here, too, the Fuehrer is the undismayed champion of a radical solution necessitated by conditions and therefore inexorable. Fortunately a whole series of possibilities presents itself for us in wartime that would be denied us in peacetime. We shall have to profit by this.

The ghettoes that will be emptied in the cities of the General Government now will be refilled with Jews thrown out of the Reich. This process is to be repeated from time to time. There is nothing funny in it for the Jews, and the fact that Jewry's representatives in England and America are today organizing and sponsoring the war against Germany must be paid for dearly by its representatives in Europe - and that's only right.
Source of quote:

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/g/goe ... 942-mar-27

Emphasis is mine.
Tarpon wrote:
Scott wrote:
This is not to justify their mistreatment but only to help understand it beyond the comic-book treatment of the subject that we usually get. Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism, nor is it unique to Germans.

Ahhh, good, no comic-book treatment here.

How many gassed before the war because they were Jews?
See above.
Tarpon wrote:
If you recall, my posts were on Michael Mills's statement, which ends with this:

"...those who question the concept of all Jews as purely passive victims and posit an active role by some Jews, eg various leaders or activists, in creating the chain of events that culminated in the destruction of a large part of European Jewry."

Now, maybe something got "lost" in the posting, or I am misreading it, but it appears to me that Mills is implying that the actions of some Jewish leaders and activists created the chain of events that culminated in their own destruction.

Regardless whether it was true or not, that was the Nazi view, which is indispensible in trying to examine their motives, and to thereby understand what happened and why.
Any chance that the Nazi view could have been “true” rather than merely the mindless paranoia of fanatics, Reverend?
Tarpon wrote:
Which seems like a remarkable way to assert that Hitler and the Nazis are not responsible for killing Jews; the Jews made them do it.

That's not what I said and I don't think that's what Mr. Mills said.
From what I have understood, both the dissident historian and his more primitive brother-in-spirit contend that “the Jews” bear some kind of responsibility for what happened to them.
Tarpon wrote:
If you wish to reply to that, please do so. Your spam on Israeli/Palestinian conflicts is just that, and especially here at this forum.

Some of the post-9/11 flag-waiving jingoism has died down now and there have been pro-Palestinian and pro-Jewish rallies here in Arizona.

The Jewish response to the Mid-East conflict is that Jews are in eternal jeopardy of Genocide from Gentiles and some actually carried signs affirming that "The Holocaust Happened."

Thus, it is either a war against TERRORISM or a war against LIES, depending on your point-of-view.

Yes, Mark, unfortunately, the Jewish Question is inextricable from the Holocaust, and the Holocaust from the Palestinian Question. It is part of the Aftermath of World War II--indeed the historiography of the Third Reich, a "detail" of the gargantuan World War which has become the Bratwurst of modern diplomacy.

AND WHO IS TO BLAME? HITLER (the Devil) OF COURSE...
Not Hitler alone, I would say:
Sowenig dieser ungeheuerliche Vorgang auch normale Politik war, sosehr Hitler ihn auch inszenierte – in dieser einen Hinsicht wurde über das Leben der europäischen Juden offenbar fast wie bei einem “normalen” politischen Entschluß entschieden: der “Führer” fällte die Entscheidung nicht einsam, sondern nach einer gewissen Zeit, in einer gewissen Situation und bei einem gewissen Anlaß stimmte er Initiativen aus dem Staats- und Parteiapparat zu. Viele drängten auf die Ermordung aller europäischen Juden hin, doch bevor sie damit systematisch beginnen konnten, bedurfte es im NS-System einer von Hitler gefällten Entscheidung.
Christian Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, pages 165/166

My translation:
As little as this monstrous process was normal politics, as much as Hitler produced it – in this respect the decision about the lives of the European Jews were taken almost as in a “normal” political deliberation: the “Führer” did not take the decision all alone, but after a given time, in a given situation and on a given occasion he approved the initiatives from the state and party apparatus. Many insisted on the murder of all European Jews, but before they could begin with it systematically, there was the need in the National Socialist system for a decision taken by Hitler.
With comic-book answers
The comic-book artists are those who try to construct a co-responsibility of the victims for their having been murdered, as I see it.
we will never have PEACE.
Denial of the Holocaust is sure to provide a significant contribution to peace, however. The lies serve a good cause, folks, so let’s all adhere to them. Mind the consequences of the Tangled Web:

http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/zioncnsquncs.html

Erik
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#67

Post by Erik » 09 May 2002, 12:43

The following quotes from Mr Mills, Mr Tarpon27 and Mr Dan are cited in their wrong order of posting, and the middle quote was a reply to the quote from Mr Dan, not to Mr Mills.

In this way they make a “conceptual whole”, I think. I hope it is not “out of context”.

Mr Mills :
Pipes also expresses an opinion which in my view is highly significant to any explanation of the chain of events leading to the destruction of a large part of European Jewry during the Second World War. He believes that the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia fundamentally changed the nature of European anti-Semitism.

Previously the attitude of anti-Semites toward Jews had essentially been one of dislike and contempt. Now, that attitude changed to one of fear and loathing. The Jews were now seen, not as a rabble of contemptible immigrant hucksters, but as a powerful force that could take over a country, destroy the existing ruling class and socio-political system, and remake the country in a way favourable to themselves.


Mr Tarpon27 :
I don't agree with your "disproportionant Jewish involvement in Communism" any more than I agree that the Jews of Europe were attacked by Nazis because of Jewish commissars, a number and existence of such, I have yet to see anyone adequately flesh out.

In other words, from here and other boards, usenet, and readings, I have often read that amazing rationalization that it was, don't you know, the Jews who were behind communism. One has to marvel at that, in the clear light of Russian Jews fleeing the USSR as fast as possible, provided they could get airfare and an exit visa. In fact, I just saw ads on some religious programming asking for $750 donations to purchase a ticket for Russian Jews wanting to emigrate this week. (In the harsh economic times in today's Russia, guess what group of people is being singled out as the reason times are so tough?)

If one wishes to argue that some Jews are certainly leftists, embracing political movements I abhor, I would not argue the point; to take it one step further, and then claim that such involvement made for the Holocaust being the Jews' fault, is not only repellant, but absurd.
Mr Dan:
Mark, I don't think you are reading Michael properly. To say the disproportionant Jewish involvement in Communism was one link in a chain of events isn't to say this "link" is rational, it is just to say that this was a link. Not that it was right, fair, consistant, etc...

Hopefully no one here will dispute with me that one of the foundations of our society comes from the ancient Biblical law that the magistrate cannot punish the children for the sins the fathers (only God has that right) so to punish Jews in Germany for colaboration with the Soviets in Estonia is not rational, ethical, moral or just.

Unfortunately, the mob has it's own set of ethics. Michael's point can be true, (and it is) and at the same time be illogical, immoral, inconsistant, etc..
Here is what a jewish columnist in The Jewish World Review has to say:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will.html

(click on “George Will Archives”, and “’ Final Solution’, Phase 2” (2 May 2002)

Anti-Semitism's malignant strength derives from its simplicity -- its stupidity, actually. It is a primitivism which, Wisse wrote, makes up in vigor what it lacks in philosophic heft, and does so precisely because it "has no prescription for the improvement of society beyond the elimination of part of society." This howl of negation has no more affirmative content than did the scream of the airliner tearing down the Hudson, heading for the World Trade Center.
Today many people say that the Arabs and their European echoes would be mollified if Israel would change its behavior. People who say that do not understand the centrality of anti-Semitism in the current crisis. This crisis has become the second -- and final? -- phase of the struggle for a "final solution to the Jewish question." As Wisse said 11 years ago, and as cannot be said too often, anti-Semitism is not directed against the behavior of the Jews but against the existence of the Jews.
Will’s column starts :
Such is the richness of European culture, even its decadence is creative. Since 1945 it has produced the truly remarkable phenomenon of anti-Semitism without Jews. How does Europe do that?
Later in the essay:
Did not Hitler, the foremost avatar of anti-Semitism, fail? No, he did not. Yes, his 1,000-year Reich fell 988 years short. But its primary work was mostly done. Hitler's primary objective, as he made clear in words and deeds, was the destruction of European Jewry.
Finally:
Israel holds just one one-thousandth of the world's population, but holds all the hopes for the continuation of the Jewish experience as a portion of the human narrative. Will Israel be more durable than anti-Semitism? Few things have been.
As Mr Dan has commented earlier, anti-Semitism can by definition(?) exist without jews, since arabs are also semites. (But that is not what Mr Will meant, perhaps?)

Mr Will :
Anti-Semitism's malignant strength derives from its simplicity -- its stupidity, actually. … it "has no prescription for the improvement of society beyond the elimination of part of society."
Today that means the elimination of that part of society that is the state of Israel? If Israel is eliminated, then “all the hopes for the continuation of the Jewish experience as a portion of the human narrative” also will be eliminated?

But anti-Semitism will endure?

Where?

Against the arabs?

Or against those jews that will survive the “Final Solution, Phase 2”? Those that will get away to Europe or USA?

Muslim anti-Semitism? From those arabs and other ethnic groups that have found refuge in Europe and the USA because of the insistent fight against racism and xenophobia that foremostly jews of all political persuasions have undertaken there for decades, if not centuries? And in their own interest, at any particular time?

Or a newborn, “nationalistic” anti-Semitism that sees the jews from the defunct state of Israel
“… not as a rabble of contemptible immigrant hucksters, but as a powerful force that could take over a country, destroy the existing ruling class and socio-political system, and remake the country in a way favourable to themselves”.(see Mr Mills above.)

Or will it work the other way around? The jews will be seen as powerful allies in the multi-cultural project of de-establishing of the redundant welfare states of Western Europe, after the fall of Communism?

In the USA, they will assist in the establishment of the American Empire around the Earth?

I hope that Mr Wendel won’t consider these questions “out-of-topic”! After all, the question was “Why the Jews and the gas chambers?”

“Though it was madness, yet there was method in it”, to paraphrase Polonius.

The Hitlerian anti-Semitism wasn’t his invention. And the Holocaust was not the first – nor the last – war crime in history.

The method must be exposed, even if it is a part of our own madness.

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Roberto
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#68

Post by Roberto » 09 May 2002, 12:53

I see that ET is again giving vent to what makes him tick: Concern that he will one day have to share his fat Swedish pension with dark-skinned people from all over the world and second-class whites from Eastern Europe.

In order to forestall that, let’s stop making a fuss about anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, and let's all vote for Le Pen and his brothers-in-spirit in other European countries.

Did I read you correctly, my friend?

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#69

Post by Erik » 09 May 2002, 14:13

I see that ET is again giving vent to what makes him tick: Concern that he will one day have to share his fat Swedish pension with dark-skinned people from all over the world and second-class whites from Eastern Europe.

In order to forestall that, let’s stop making a fuss about anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, and let's all vote for Le Pen and his brothers-in-spirit in other European countries.
Well, if that is the case, then ET isn’t really ET anymore, is he?

You have hinted at one of the economic and social sources or grounds for racism and xenophobia in general, and anti-Semitism in particular.

I.e.: Will the jews be blamed for the demise of the welfare states of Western Europe?

The Nazis thought that Wall Street jews financed the October Revolution. And if the communists promised a new society without nationalism and antisemitism, why not?

Hindenburg helped Lenin to power in Russia, since the latter promised to make peace with Germany.

The jews of Europe have all the interest in the world to fight racism and anti-Semitism. The Holocaust is used in this context.

It is also used to pave the way to cheap labor to an ageing European population. Racism and xenophobia is alleged to lead the way to a new Auschwitz.

In the not-too-far-away future I might be obliged to share my not-too-fat pension with people from all over the world. Will my good nature and natural generosity stand this strain on my economic welfare? Or will I vote for a Führer out of my misery?

Will this Führer find it expedient to blame the jews?

Will Roberto’s irony (see above) refrain both me and the said “Führer”? Will Real History stop us?

This is ONE scenario. There are others, of course.

Out-of-topic? Not for Roberto’s debate starter : “Why the Jews and the gas chambers?”
Did I read you correctly, my friend?
If, as you have said, you are “genuinely interested in history”, you will consider that your “reading” of ET will mean dire straits for the future, too, if it is correct.

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Roberto
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#70

Post by Roberto » 09 May 2002, 14:38

If, as you have said, you are “genuinely interested in history”, you will consider that your “reading” of ET will mean dire straits for the future, too, if it is correct.
What ET fears most is probably exactly what will happen.

If you look at how the industrialized nations have prospered over the decades at the expense of the underdeveloped world, you may even consider it just that this be so.

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#71

Post by viriato » 09 May 2002, 14:52

To Roberto:

I have one question regarding your reference book edited by Benz. If Frank Golczewski speaks about 2700000 deaths in pre-1939 Poland and Gert Robel speaks of 700000 deaths in the territories annexed by the USSR in 1939/1940 (2800000-2100000) than the total of deaths of the annexed polish territories would have been some 380000 (700000-140000 roughly from Lithuania-80000 roughly from Latvia-100000 roughly from north Bukovina and Bessarabia*). Am I right? Also is it possible these 380000 persons simultaneously being counted by both Golczensky and Robel when the book states the total of jewish victims? Or on the contrary do the authors take in account the problem?

*My sources are Richard Overy to the numbers of Lithuania and Latvia (he further speaks of 1000 deaths in Estonia) and this same forum and book to the numbers of the romanian territories.

And here you have a good but still incomplete site of historical demographic data:

http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat

Unfortunaly the data doesn't distinguish ethnic, language or religious divisions...

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#72

Post by Erik » 09 May 2002, 17:04

If you look at how the industrialized nations have prospered over the decades at the expense of the underdeveloped world, you may even consider it just that this be so.
The poor people of the underdeveloped world will go where the (their?) money goes? "Follow the buck"?

Yes, that seems "just"!

But just to whom? To those that inevitably will be left behind? Will they be compensated?

Or will this process be another phase of exploitation of the underdeveloped world?

This time their "raw labor", when the raw material is exhausted?

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Roberto
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#73

Post by Roberto » 09 May 2002, 18:47

viriato wrote:To Roberto:

I have one question regarding your reference book edited by Benz. If Frank Golczewski speaks about 2700000 deaths in pre-1939 Poland and Gert Robel speaks of 700000 deaths in the territories annexed by the USSR in 1939/1940 (2800000-2100000) than the total of deaths of the annexed polish territories would have been some 380000 (700000-140000 roughly from Lithuania-80000 roughly from Latvia-100000 roughly from north Bukovina and Bessarabia*). Am I right? Also is it possible these 380000 persons simultaneously being counted by both Golczensky and Robel when the book states the total of jewish victims? Or on the contrary do the authors take in account the problem?

*My sources are Richard Overy to the numbers of Lithuania and Latvia (he further speaks of 1000 deaths in Estonia) and this same forum and book to the numbers of the romanian territories.

And here you have a good but still incomplete site of historical demographic data:

http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat

Unfortunaly the data doesn't distinguish ethnic, language or religious divisions...
Viriato,

As far as I understood:

1. Robel established 5.1 million Jews living on the territory of the Soviet Union within the borders as of June 1941 and 2.3 million survivors of the war, which means that 2.8 million perished. In order to establish the number of Jews killed in the Soviet Union proper, he deducted the victims among the Jewish population of Bialystok and Eastern Galicia (counted under Poland) and of Bessarabia and North Bukovina (counted under Romania). This means that the Jewish victims in the Baltic Republics (ca. 210,000, according to Robel's calculations) are included in the figure of 2.1 million for the Soviet Union proper. For Bessarabia, Bukovina and the "old Romanian district of Dorohoi" he considers 110,000 to 115,000 Jewish victims, which means that the delta of 585,000 to 590,000 Jewish dead corresponds to the Bialystok district and Eastern Galicia.

2. The Jews lost in the territories of the former Polish Republic that were occupied first by the Soviet Union in 1939 and then by Nazi Germany in 1941 are obviously included in both Golczewski's figure of 2,700,000 for Poland within its pre-war frontiers and Robel's figure of 2,800,000 for the Soviet Union within its frontiers as of June 1941. This means that an addition of both figures would result in double counting of the Jews of Eastern Poland.

The editor of the study Dimensionen des Völkermords, Wolfgang Benz, took this into account, however, when he computed the total for all European countries in the introductory chapter of his book:

German Reich: 160,000 to 165,000

Austria: 65,459

Luxembourg: 1,200

France ("including foreign nationals"): 76,134

Belgium ("including foreign nationals"): 28, 518

Netherlands: 102,000

Denmark: 116

Norway: 758

Italy: 6,513

Albania: 591 ("deportees")

Greece: 59,185

Bulgaria (deported from Bulgarian-occupied areas): 11,393

Yugoslavia: 60,000 to 65,000

Hungary: 550,000

Chechoslovakia ("Reich Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia" plus Slovakia): 143,000

Romania: 211,214

Poland: 2,700,000

Soviet Union: 2,100,000

Total: 6,276,081 to 6,286,081


I hope this answers your questions. Thanks a lot for the link.

Roberto

Erik
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Location: Sweden

#74

Post by Erik » 15 May 2002, 00:21

Roberto posted a terrifying photo above, “captioned” as showing :
Mass graves of seven thousand murdered in Khmelnitski Proskurov, Ukraine, January 1943. _Museum of the Polish Army, Warsaw, Poland._
Prof Richard Wright led
…archaeological investigations of mass killings in Ukraine, perpetrated in 1942 and excavated 50 years later. The work was done to support three prosecutions made in Adelaide, South Australia, under the War Crimes Legislation.
Prof Wright asks :
The question is why was an archaeologist needed at all?
Even though no Australian has been found guilty by the courts of the atrocities we investigated, we have brought forward new material evidence of three particular episodes in the Holocaust that no persons, even those labouring on behalf of Holocaust deniers, have sought to contradict. Material evidence is harder to contradict than memories.


From Prof Wright’s update, quoted by Roberto:
I want to say that I found it unnerving that even the well-disposed have shown so little interest in our Ukrainian work. I hasten to mention exceptions, and acknowledge the interest of the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Macquarie University, and of the Australian Jewish Historical Society in Canberra. But that is it. Perhaps the reason is this. Material evidence may be harder to contradict than memories, but memories are more potent and demanding of attention - and, of course, more fleeting than archaeological evidence. But then again, perhaps what we did in the Ukraine is just too nasty, immediate and confronting. As a Jewish colleague said to me, we have forced ourselves to get familiar with the grainy black and white photos of Belsen. Now you are wanting us to look at the Holocaust in colour.
Yes, we have all to force ourselves to look at the Holocaust through all kinds of “nasty, immediate and confronting” aspects. We are also asked to believe what we see, and that what we see is the Holocaust.

Then we are faced with the question of definition: What is the Holocaust? Is it history, a detail in history, or Real History? Without precedent? Or an Intention in our Western Civilization(the school of Intentionalism)? A black hole in Universal History?

Even the doyen of Holocaust studies, Raul Hilberg, has been cited as saying that he is becoming more and more confused about what the Holocaust really is (and he is no Denier, you know!).

The Jewish colleague that Prof Wright cited above mentioned the “grainy black and white photos of Belsen”, and he probably meant photos of the bulldozers burying the victims of typhus and hunger.

Those photos are differently “captioned” nowadays, since it is agreed that there were no gas chambers at Belsen.

What is the Holocaust?


“Die deutsche Ausrottung der europäischen Juden war der erste vollendete Vernichtungsprozess der Weltgeschichte. Zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte der westlichen Zivilisation hatten die Täter alle eine Tötungsoperation im Wege stehenden administrativen und moralischen Widerstände überwunden”. (Hilberg “Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden”, sid 1115 (Fischer 1999)).

“The German extirpation of the european Jews was the first complete(d?) extermination process in world history. For the first time in the history of western civilization had the murderers removed all administrative and moral resistance to a killing operation”. (my translation)

“The attempt to extirpate them has been made under the most favourable auspices and on the largest scale; the most considerable means that man could command have been pertinaciously applied to this object for the longer period of recorded time.” (Benjamin Disraeli, ”Lord George Bentinck : a Political Biography”(1852). Kap XXIV, ”The Jewish Question”.)

There was a pre-Nazi “Final Solution”, according to Disraeli.

Consequently, the “Phase 2” that George Will is suggesting in the title of his essay…

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will.html

(click on “George Will Archives”, and “’ Final Solution’, Phase 2” (2 May 2002)

…ought to be numbered “3”, perhaps?

Will writes:

<<Did not Hitler, the foremost avatar of anti-Semitism, fail? No, he did not. Yes, his 1,000-year Reich fell 988 years short. But its primary work was mostly done. Hitler's primary objective, as he made clear in words and deeds, was the destruction of European Jewry.>>

Will agrees with Hilberg.

But the Palestians would perhaps disagree? They are likely to see themselves as “destroyed” by “European Jewry”?

What has this to do with the horrible photo and the horrible finds in the Serniki and Ustinovka archaeological excavations?

“Holocaust&Warcrimes” is the forum name. “Why the Jews and the gaschamber?” is Roberto’s name for this conference.

<< Historian Omer Bartov believes that the most frightening thing is “the impossibility of learning anything from the Holocaust …of putting its facts to any use ”. For him the Holocaust renders vain all questions about learning and progress. It is, he fears, “precisely the meaninglessness of the event …the utter uselessness of it all, the total and complete emptiness …that leaves us breathless, bereft of the power of thought and imagination ”>>.(Bartov, O. , Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing and Representation, New York, 1996.)(Quoted from ”Tell ye your children”, published by the THE SWEDISH GOVERNMENT OFFICES
LIVING HISTORY PROJECT, written by STÉPHANE BRUCHFELD AND PAUL A. LEVINE).

”…the impossibility of learning anything from the Holocaust…”! Yet : ”Tell ye your children”!!

”…of putting its fact to any use.”! According to Finkelstein, its facts are put to use.

We must – one way or the other – try to understand the photo and the findings of Mr Wright.

Roberto :
While not required to provide proof of facts that have already been proven beyond reasonable doubt, archaeological evidence is likely to shut up ideologically motivated crackpots for good.
Prof Wright has some qualifications, though :
“Archaeology had nothing to do with the first strategy - identification of alleged perpetrators - but much to do with investigating material evidence for the alleged events.”
Does it make a difference who the perpetrators were? Isn’t it a Holocaust just the same? The horror of it all is undiminished?

What is the difference between a crime, a war crime and the Holocaust?

The Holocaust is not just a “sum” of a crime and a war. Hilberg’s definition – and Disraeli’s – is more than that.

That is perhaps why revisionists – “ideologically motivated crackpots”, according to Roberto – never have questioned the mass shootings and murders illustrated by Prof Wright’s excavations.

The history of human warfare is full of such mass murder since homeric and OT times, at least.
Numbers 31
15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. 16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the Lord 's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
The Holocaust is this history, too, but at the same time something “beyond”.

Its historians still incorporates the victims of these actions in the “German” Holocaust, i.e. it was part of the Final Solution according to Nazi plans. The gas chamber phase was introduced because of the “impractibility” and the “demoralizing” consequences of mass shootings (to “spare the nerves” of the german soldier).

Why kill women and children in this way?

In olden times (see OT quote above) it made sense to kill those who might become avengers. The widows might tell their baby boys who their fathers were, and what “honor” demanded.

“Tell ye your children”; the teachers at Muslim free schools of Europe are suspected of indoctrinating their pupils in Jew-Hatred and preparating them for terrorism.



In the slave camps it made “sense” to kill “useless eaters”.

During the Sovjet “campaign” of terrorist-extermination in Afganistan it was alleged that the Russians dropped “mined” toys from the air over Afghan guerilla territories in order to create “useless eaters” by crippling children.

You would think that sparing women and children during the war operations would reduce the resistance capacity of occupied territories by the same logic(?).

But then there are those mass-graves.

Since the Jews were to be exterminated as a race, every individual Jew was a target of the Final Solution – is that the answer to the “why” of these killings of women and children?

Military sense had to stand back for ideological fanaticism?
NARRATOR: The following summer Richard returned to the Ukraine. One of the graves he excavated was near the village of Ustinovka and was pertinent to the case of Heinrich Wagner.The allegations were chilling.

RICHARD WRIGHT: Wagner was Chief of Police in a small town called Izraylovka. He had these instructions to kill the Jews.A hole was dug about a half an hours walk out of town, on a bit of high ground, and he was there while the Jews turned up and were shot and then complained that the children of mixed marriage were not there and personally went back and collected them, about 19 children, took them up to the grave in a cart and the eye witnesses said that the children were thrown into the grave and those that weren't dead were shot.
http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/stories/s124137.htm

Prof Wright describes the mass grave at Ustinovka :
We found about two metres down 19 children, all lying higgledy piggledy. One of them was shot in the head but the youngest was only six months by growth of the teeth. And these bones were in such a poor state you could often not tell whether they had been shot or not, but there they were lying higgledy-piggledy, no adults. But there was something like 20 centimetres of soil underneath the children and then, suddenly, there were the adults ... and I think it was between 100 and 150 was our estimate.
Apparently the SIU investigators had interviewed the mother of three of those children (the father was a Jew, she was not), who had said she returned from the fields for lunch one day, and her children were not in the house. She asked the neighbours whether they had seen the children. The neighbours told her they had been taken away to be shot.
Why were they shot? Because they were jewish. The mother of those three children must have thought they were safe, since she wasn’t jewish.

But her husband was already killed? And all the “unmixed” jewish children, along with their parents?

Did she know this, that day she came home “to lunch”?

Or was the villages or “towns” strictly separated by racial distinction in this part of Ukraine? No communication? Who told the neighbours that the children were to be taken away to be shot? Wagner “personally”(see quote above)?

It reminds me of a story told in Sereny’s “Into that Darkness”(1974). Franciszek Zabecki, the station master at Treblinka, and spy for the exiled Polish Government in London, related the panic that spread in the town of Treblinka when the Germans brought 20 empty train wagons to the railway station. “Now they are coming for us!” people thought, and everybody sent their wives and children away in safety(?). There were only grown men left in the region. “Then you had to send your family away, too?” asked Sereny. And since Zabecki was such an honest man (according to Sereny) he couldn’t lie : “No, I had too much to do. Besides, it would have been too impractical – with cooking, and so on!” (I quote from memory).

The Everyday Holocaust? Or the Banality or Commonplace of Evil? Genocide that is “all in a day’s work”?

Or is somebody lying?

Still, the graves are there. The children have been shot.

Here is a quote from Prof Gros, the author of “Neighbors” :
The issue of Jedwabne is unusual, because it is a little as if, during our conversation, we didn't notice the remains of an infant lying on the table, and here we have been carrying on with our discussion for 50 years, without seeing this. After all, this is an essential event in the history of the occupation! We will see this in the years to come. In light of this event, that history will be different.
http://www.wsp.krakow.pl/konspekt/gross/gross_e.html

Is there a parallell to Jedwabne?

Prof Wright says (above) :
I want to say that I found it unnerving that even the well-disposed have shown so little interest in our Ukrainian work.
Why this difference between Serniki/Ustinovka and Jedwabne?

I cannot find any mention of his findings even at the Ukrainian National site of Ukar.

On the other hand is there a strong reaction to a mis-captioned photo in Time Magazine, concerning an alleged public gang rape of a Jewish(?) woman, allegedly committed by Ukrainians during the war.
http://www.ukar.org/levyts01.shtml

Prof Wright was very careful to make sure that the Germans were pointed out as the perpetrators. Firstly, because :
Archaeology had nothing to do with the first strategy - identification of alleged perpetrators - but much to do with investigating material evidence for the alleged events.
And the Australian team shared responsibility on the excavations with Sovjet collegues.
To do the work, the grave was divided into two halves, with the Australian team at the end located by archaeological methods, and the Soviets at the other.
The part of the grave that was NOT located by archaeological methods, but nevertheless located by the Soviets, was perhaps the part that supplied the German cartridges from 1941, which presumably exculpate the Russians? (I.e, that it could be a grave from the Stalinist purges. Besides, why should Stalin kill women and children?)

In order to make the exculpation stronger, there were radiocarbon datings from the victim’s hair.
(Prof Wright allows some room for the “first strategy” after all – see quote above.)

The excavations at Jedwabne also discovered German ammunition – but pre-WW2, and not in use by Germans at the time of the massacre. But the Einsatztruppen perhaps had more primitive and old armament?

Prof Gros, from the link above:
However, as far as the exhumations are concerned, I also don't think they were conducted properly. But the message of the book is not changed by the numbers-300 or 1600 persons murdered-though obviously, it would be good to know how many people actually died at the time. Since this is an exceptionally difficult story, such certain knowledge would make it easier to come to terms with, as well as facilitate discussions conducted as conversations oriented toward content rather than toward details (by reason of true or supposed ill will). During the exhumations, not everything was dug up. We need to remember that this was not a professionally-conducted exhumation. An international observer having enormous knowledge of this subject, with whom I spoke in Jedwabne and after Jedwabne (I wrote about his accounts in the Gazeta Wyborcza), stated that on the basis of the work conducted there, it is absolutely impossible to determine the total number of persons buried. Professor Kieres attempts to present this in some sensible manner, saying that the exact number of victims is of no great significance, because what we have found out up until now is entirely sufficient for us to treat this crime as one of the most horrible magnitude. After all, remains of children and old people were found, and in general, it is known that what was described in Wasersztajn's account did in fact happen.
(The historian Sara Bender would agree with the last sentence, at least:)

http://www.radzilow.com/haaretz.htm

But why is Prof Gros dissatisfied with the exhumations? They discovered too few victims?
“…the message of the book is not changed by the numbers-300 or 1600 persons murdered-though obviously, it would be good to know how many people actually died at the time. Since this is an exceptionally difficult story, such certain knowledge would make it easier to come to terms with, , as well as facilitate discussions conducted as conversations oriented toward content rather than toward details (by reason of true or supposed ill will).”
Since the exhumations at Serniki/Ustinovka were professionally done, they “provided stunning support” for the witness relations. This would presumably “facilitate discussions…toward content rather than towards details”.

But – as quoted –
“I want to say that I found it unnerving that even the well-disposed have shown so little interest in our Ukrainian work”.
Perhaps Serniki/Ustinovka is waiting for its historian – a Ukrainian Gros?

What will happen then?

Here is what Finkelstein thinks:

http://wings.buffalo.edu/info-poland/cl ... Finkl.html

Charles Bunch
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Posts: 846
Joined: 12 Mar 2002, 21:03
Location: USA

#75

Post by Charles Bunch » 15 May 2002, 00:54

Then we are faced with the question of definition: What is the Holocaust? Is it history, a detail in history, or Real History? Without precedent? Or an Intention in our Western Civilization(the school of Intentionalism)? A black hole in Universal History?

Even the doyen of Holocaust studies, Raul Hilberg, has been cited as saying that he is becoming more and more confused about what the Holocaust really is (and he is no Denier, you know!).
He's said no such thing. It's bad enough that you go on and on without really saying much of anything at all, but when you do say something definite it is frequently erroneous.
What is the Holocaust?


“Die deutsche Ausrottung der europäischen Juden war der erste vollendete Vernichtungsprozess der Weltgeschichte. Zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte der westlichen Zivilisation hatten die Täter alle eine Tötungsoperation im Wege stehenden administrativen und moralischen Widerstände überwunden”. (Hilberg “Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden”, sid 1115 (Fischer 1999)).

“The German extirpation of the european Jews was the first complete(d?) extermination process in world history. For the first time in the history of western civilization had the murderers removed all administrative and moral resistance to a killing operation”. (my translation)

“The attempt to extirpate them has been made under the most favourable auspices and on the largest scale; the most considerable means that man could command have been pertinaciously applied to this object for the longer period of recorded time.” (Benjamin Disraeli, ”Lord George Bentinck : a Political Biography”(1852). Kap XXIV, ”The Jewish Question”.)
This is not a definition of the Holocaust. It is Hilberg discussing what he considers some salient points about the events.

(snip)
Does it make a difference who the perpetrators were? Isn’t it a Holocaust just the same? The horror of it all is undiminished?
Obviously it makes a difference. That's why we seek out murderers.
What is the difference between a crime, a war crime and the Holocaust?
Many things, but a sentient being might begin by noting the first two do not necessarily involve murder.
The Holocaust is not just a “sum” of a crime and a war. Hilberg’s definition – and Disraeli’s – is more than that.
Hilberg's words were not a definition of the Holocaust, and you've offered nothing by Disraeli in that regard either. Perhaps you are confused by what a definition is?
That is perhaps why revisionists – “ideologically motivated crackpots”, according to Roberto – never have questioned the mass shootings and murders illustrated by Prof Wright’s excavations.
That's deniers who are thus defined. And some of the more mindless have questioned the Einsatzgruppen murders. The rest wisely choose to husband that small amount of credibility accorded to all before they open their mouths, preferring instead to deny gas chambers.


I would comment on Wright's archeological confirmation of the Nazi murders at Serniki and Ustinovka as well if I could figure out what your point is. That's one of the potential dangers of making vague speculations rather than stating a clear point and then arguing it.

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