The Holocaust - do we need to know?

by eyeslice 197 Replies latest jw friends

  • fleaman uk
    fleaman uk

    Yes we do need to know as much as possible about these most horrific crimes against Humanity!

    Ive been to Auschwitz,a truly terrifying place.Not in any real tangible sense,just the sheer frightening sense of History.The worst bit imo is the railway sidings.Just ordinary tracks,but you recognise that when that Train came to a halt the Killing was about to start.

    Someone mentioned "The World at War".I would say everyone should watch the "New"Episodes about the Final Solution.Poignant stuff.

    I will be watching these programmes with Interest.

    Please God (?) these Events wont be repeated.

  • avishai
    avishai

    Albright had Jewish roots she did'nt know about until late in life. nota religious jew. hardly a conspiracy.

    My name is Samuel Abishai Davidow. Verrrrrryyyyy Jewish. but I was raised as a dub, not a Jew. Yes, I like the food. Lox. Matzoh balls, Gefilte fish. I love Cantor music. Other than that, that no more makes me a Jew or part of a vast Jewish conspiracy Than if my name was Guido Puccini and I happened to like gregorian chants and ravioli and you wanted to call me catholic. The name don't make it so, and to insinuate that part of a Jew conspiracy because of your name or the size of your nose (Mine is HUGE with one helluva hook. Proud of it) is EXACTLY what hitler did. Got it, bigot?

    *Avishai of the descended from Red sea pedestrians and Damned OK with that class*

  • Kenneson
    Kenneson

    I can remember way back when on JWD when there was a great debate on the Holocaust. I recall one Holocaust Denier, who became a little obnoxious. After repeated warnings, Simon finally banned him.

    This is why we have to remember. As the survivors die off, there will be no one left who was there to speak out. It is necessary to preserve all the materials available NOW so that the deniers will not be taken seriously. For them, there were no gas chambers, only labor camps. The numbers of those who died have been exaggerated and they died from disease, starvation, etc. but not by gas. What they don't tell you is that no matter how many died or how they died, they weren't there in those camps on their own free wills as volunteers. The case of the deniers is a whitewashed lie.

    NEVER AGAIN!

  • Realist
    Realist

    jwbot,

    by religious association of either the person itself or the parents. how do you think the nazis detrmined who a jew was? simply by looking at the ancestry.

    avi,

    i know albright told that fairytale...believe it if you wish.

    most of the politically active jewish people are not religiously very active. doesn't change their will to support each other.

    their success doesn't require a conspiracy ... it is the result of hard work and cooperation between them. headquaters are unnecessary. JWs help primarily JWs and similar jews support preferentially jews when it comes to putting people in important positions.

    but perhaps you can come up with an alternative explaination to the distribution of clinton's administration...i am open to suggestions.

  • z
    z

    Realist

    Bigot like you made the Holocaust

  • upside/down
    upside/down

    Some of the comments here are pretty rough, yet it seems once again if yu sift through the different communication styles and personality quirks- WE ALL AGREE!

    Hurting and Killing people by other people in the name of ideology is almost always BAD.

    Let's not go to war over it!

    u/d

  • avishai
    avishai
    most of the politically active jewish people are not religiously very active

    And you know this exactly how?

  • Abaddon
    Abaddon

    Realist

    I have a crushing sense of deja vu approaching your comments on this thread. You know my feeling regarding the base motivation behind your pursual of such arguments. I don't think you are a racist, but I do think you get off on iconoclasm and alternative views because of the the intellectual superiority it makes you feel.

    However, as I showed in our last discussion on this topic, your desire to feel intellectually superior by holding a minority (but correct in your opinion) opinion is strong enough to actually lead you to be intellectually sloppy when supporting these minority arguments.

    You using a website which regarded The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a genuine document was a classic example of this.

    ... but by now its primarily about money and getting sympathy for Israel. had the victims not be jews but lets say arabs or 'only' russians, polish and gypsies no one would care about it more than about cambodia, rwanda, mao, stalin etc. Who hears about these attrocities?

    For a start, I have heard of Cambodia, Rwanda, Mao and Stalin. You are arrogant to assume that other posters are so ill-informed as to not be aware of these events at least in outline.

    So part of your above statement is just meaningless posturing to make your position sound better.

    Secondly I don't think you are able to prove that people would not have cared about the Holocaust if it had been directed at Arabs, Russians, Poles and Gypsies; indeed most readers of this Forum know that Gypsies as an ethnic group were a specific target, and at least some will be aware of the anti-Slavic policies and propaganda of the Nazis. The public opinion about Israel's current conduct toward Palestine, and the split in world opinion over the the invasion of Iraq show people are concerned about the 'Arabs'.

    So, another meaningless thing for you to say.

    One paragraph and it means nothing; not a good start to your argument Realist.

    ... it is good to fight against intolerance and hatred but in this case the purpose seems to be a different one.

    Yes, so you say but you seem far more concerned about campaigning against the purpose you claim exists (and you can only make a claim) than about intolerance and hatred. I am forced to reach this conclusion as every-time the subject comes up you always respond in this fashion. So your attempt to validate your peacenik credentials is unconvincing.

    ...for the size of their population jews have an unproportional influence in US and european politics, media and industry. indeed i few that as somewhat probelmatic as it allows them to violate international law in the middle east and overprotect their interests world wide.

    The policies of the State of Israel are worthy of criticism. The presence of a Jewish lobby group in the US is unarguable. The bit you miss, the large number of voters in the US who favour support of Israel due to their beliefs in a modern State of Israel being part of Biblical 'end-time' chronology is however far more important in terms of voters than any Jewish lobby group.

    Could you please provide some figures to back up your claim of unproportionality in European politics?

    But anyway, I do not see how current affairs can in anyway mitigate the Holocaust. Why is the current political debate relevant in discussing whether or not people need to know about the Holocaust?

    Yet another non-point in your argument.

    ... also, there is a difference between trying to educate people about the danger of totalitarianism and intolerance and the holocaust industry. The Wave by Morton Rhue was an example of an excellent book that does show joung people how easy and dangerous it is to fall for radical movements...way more educational than the usual holocaust stories.

    Nice to see that you have assumed there is a "Holocaust Industry". I assume you mean other than the one whereby people profited as a result of participating in the Holocaust?

    1. What profits has the Indusry you refferd to made Realist, if it is an Industry?
    2. How much have individual Jews profited by it, on average?
    3. And why are you not so vocal in condemning those who run the Holocaust denial Industry?

    As for the danger of falling for radical movements, you seem to fail to see that your own agenda in this respect is radical. Do try not to swallow the camel...

    ... and if you think that stories about how millions of people were moved and systematically exterminated are less educational than your conspiracy theories that seek to minimise the Holocaust... I think you must be trying to educate people about different things than I would wish them taught about...

    stalin did not persecute jews...he more or less randomly killed 15 - 20 million.
    to repeating the same holocaust stories for the last 60 years. people are not left with awareness of how easy it is to fall for totalitarism but with how poor the jews were and how evil the germans (which is true but getting old after 60 years).

    What a wonderfully unique view. Would you mind pulling your head out of your nationalistic arse for one minute? You might be able to see something; first of all "Germaness" is not, as you fallaciously seem to claim, seen as a major contributing factor to the Holocaust.

    In fact I cannot think of one claim ever made that the Holocaust could not have happened in another situation and nation if the circumstances were the same.

    Yet again your desire to minimise the importance of what you dismiss casually as "the same holocaust stories" leads you to make fallacious arguments.

    Do you realise you have not made ONE valid point yet?

    show me where stalin persecuted jews because they were jewish. he eliminated everyone he viewed as possible threat...among them many political commissionaries and other leading politcal figures (like trotzky)...that they happened to be jews was coincidental.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia_and_Soviet_Union#Stalin_and_allegations_of_anti-Semitism

    Statistics and anecdotal evidence, however, do not explain away the special venom that Stalin and his henchmen showed toward the Jewish Bolsheviks they were sending to their death. Stalin reportedly was convulsed with laughter when Paulus, an NKVD operative, reenacted Zinoviev's last moments by rolling on the floor crying "Oh God of Israel hear my cry!" Vyshinsky, the chief prosecutor for all of the major show trials, likewise took pains to humiliate Rosengoltz, one of the defendants who was found with a passage of Hebrew sewn into his overcoat by his wife when he was arrested. While this does not mean that Stalin procured these former comrades' deaths because of anti-Semitism?he had far more concrete and "rational" reasons for wanting them dead?it does show how strong anti-Semitic attitudes remained.

    A caricature from Soviet magazine "Krokodil", January 1953The so-called Doctors' plot of 1953, on the other hand, was a deliberately anti-Semitic policy: Stalin targeted "corrupt Jewish bourgeois nationalists," eschewing the usual code words like "cosmopolitans." Stalin died, however, before this next wave of arrests and executions could be launched in earnest. A number of historians claim that the Doctors plot was intended as the opening of a campaign that would have resulted in the mass deportation of Soviet Jews to Birobidzhan had Stalin not died on March 5, 1953. Days after Stalin's death the doctor's plot was declared a hoax by the Soviet government.

    Earlier, in January 1948 Solomon Mikhoels, actor-director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (AKA GOSET) and chairman of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was killed in a suspicious car accident. Mass arrests of prominent Jewish intellectuals and suppression of Jewish culture follow under the banners of campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" and anti-Zionism. At least thirteen prominent Yiddish writers were executed on August 12, 1952, among them Peretz Markish, Leib Kwitko, David Hoffstein, Itzik Feffer, David Bergelson, Der Nister in the event known as "The Night of Murdered Poets" ("Ночь казненных поэтов"). In the 1955 UN Assembly's session a high Soviet official still denied the "rumors" about their disappearance.

    These cases may have reflected Stalin's paranoia, rather than state ideology ? a distinction that, of course, made no practical difference as long as Stalin was alive, but which became salient on his death.

    ...

    But by the end of 1948, it became clear that despite the popularity of the communist doctrines, Israel would not become a socialist state. Disappointed and angered, the Soviets switched sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict and began suppporting the Arabs against Israel, first politically and later also militarily; this policy was maintained throughout the Cold War.

    As Israel was emerging as a close Western ally, the specter of Zionism raised fears of internal dissent and opposition. During the later parts of the Cold War Soviet Jews were persecuted as possible traitors, Western sympathisers, or a security liability. The Communist leadership closed down various Jewish organizations and declared Zionism an ideological enemy. The only exception were a few token synagogues. These synagogues were then placed under police surveillance, both openly and through the use of informers.

    As a result of the persecution, both state-sponsored and unofficial anti-Semitism became deeply ingrained in the society and remained a fact for years: ordinary Soviet Jews often suffered hardships, epitomized by often not being allowed to enlist in universities or hired to work in certain professions. Many were bared from participation in the government, and had to bear being openly humiliated. Soviet media usually avoided using the word "Jew," and many felt compelled to hide their identities by changing their surnames.

    Yet another bit of nonsense you've spouted there Realist...

    ... the jews themselfs contributed to it by segregating themselfs from the rest of the population.

    And now you are really beginning to get me annoyed. Do you realise that claiming the Jews 'contributed to it' is apologetic and mitigatory nonsense of the lowest order? So, because they (you claim) contributed to it, does that make it any less worse?

    If it doesn't make it less worse than how can claiming it be a valid argument?

    Still no valid points Realist.

    by religious association of either the person itself or the parents. how do you think the nazis detrmined who a jew was? simply by looking at the ancestry.

    Yes... they killed people because of who they were, not what they believed. I find it telling you use the fact that all people of Jewish decent do not believe the same thing to simultaneously point out the racial nature of the Holocaust whilst simultaneously referring to a group who do not all believe the same thing as being involved in a conspiracy. Doublethink, cognitive dissonance, call it what you will, you are using to mutually contradictory arguments at different points in your posts.

    i know albright told that fairytale...believe it if you wish.

    Well, some do;

    http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/970207/secstate.html

    http://www.beth-elsa.org/be_s0509.htm

    And some don't;

    http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/Mad.html

    Please note that the site which disputes the claims of ignorance also campaigns for Slobodan Milosevic release as apparently he's innocent of the deportation and deaths he's accused of;

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milosevic

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_the_Former_Yugoslavia

    Mmmmm... so;

    • the Holocaust's death toll (as you previously have claimed) has been exaggerated,
    • there was never any explicit plan (as you have claimed) to wipe-out the Jews until very late in the war when they did it because the war was going bad and it was the Jews fault there was a war (as you have previously claimed),
    • you use websites that quote forged anti-Zionist propaganda to support your arguments,
    • and the only website I have thus far found that supports your claim Albright did know her family history says that Slobodan is a vewy misunderstood man.

    Can you see a fucking pattern here or what?

    most of the politically active jewish people are not religiously very active. doesn't change their will to support each other.

    Ah, so you claiming that Jewish people will support people of differing beliefs just because they are Jewish? What if the 'politically active' have on average a different set of beliefs and core values to the majority of non-political but religious Jews. You wouldn't be lumping them under a generalised heading? Why not call them 'they', or 'the Jews'. You seem to feel they are a faceless indivisible group.

    Oh... running total... you've not made one valid point yet...

    their success doesn't require a conspiracy ... it is the result of hard work and cooperation between them. headquaters are unnecessary. JWs help primarily JWs and similar jews support preferentially jews when it comes to putting people in important positions.

    And the gays. And the Arabs. And the Germans. Listen to yourself man.

    but perhaps you can come up with an alternative explaination to the distribution of clinton's administration...i am open to suggestions.

    First of all you can prove the ancestry and religious adherence of the list you provided. I have no intention of proving your arguments as thus far they tend to turn out to be biased or fallacious, so validate the list and I'll come up with an explanation if one is required.

    Realist, you present fallacious arguments that mitigate the extent of the Holocaust, claim that learning about the Holocaust leads to anti-Germaness rather than anti-Nazism, and essentially conform to the behaviour of Nazi apologists and revisonists, apart from the fact you say you are not one and get offended if people say you are.

    You fail to see how such arguments (unsupported as they are - remember every single thing point you've tried to make thus far in this thread is rubbish) can be offensive to people. If you were able to PROVE something, then even if people didn't LIKE what you said, it would be justifiable. But you can't, can you?

    Like I say, I think you get off on iconoclasm and alternative views because of the the intellectual superiority it makes you feel. Sadly the quality of your arguments in this case doesn't support such vanity, but merely offends people and makes light of millions dead.

    Mary

    Uh, you forgot to end your sentence with "Heil Hitler".

    Amazing thing is Realist doesn't seem to be aware that despite all his claims to not being anti-Jewish, his arguments and claims have more in common with Nazi revisionists and apologetics. He doesn't think he's being a Nazi; he thinks he is clever, that he has proved the Holocaust wasn't that big a deal, that there's a Jewish conspiracy which isn't a conspiracy but it just functions like one, and that the teaching of the Holocaust make people think Germans are evil rather than warning against such ideologies.

    We are all, apparently, fools for not seeing he isn't really anti-Jewish but is in fact a possessor of the 'real deal' despite the fact his arguments don't hold up.

    Of course, he's going to point out how wrong our point of view is but without actually proving any of the main points of contention, and he's likely to whine about his freedom of speech and how unfair it is that Holocaust denial is pounishable in Germany by jail time. Poor little misunderstood Realist...

    avishai

    God the lengths your anti-israel and anti Jew rhetoric go to are disgusting. It's a pattern Realist, plus your logic does'nt stand up.

    ...

    Go hang out with JJRIzzo. At least he was an honest bigot.

    No, Realist is all-wise and knowing and we, despite the fact his arguments are without exception, crap, need to correct our opinions.

    Avishai, given the horrendous loss you've suffered due to neo-Nazis I cannot imagine how angry pseudo-apologetic mitigations of Nazism and it's 'gift to world history' like this must make you feel. I can barely stay civil as it is.

    There simply aren't words to adequately express my sympathy for your loss.

  • Realist
    Realist

    z,

    bigot = fanatic?

    i am not fanatic...i am merely stating the obvious.

    avi,

    most intellectual jews like most intellectual christians are only members of the religion on paper....i know this from personal experience. perhaps you can show me the religious activity of e.g. albright, berger, rubin, tenet,...

    i am always open to new expainations.

    abbadon,

    i don't feel superior in any way when discussing the holocaust...but i do enjoy a real debate over a lame one.

    You are arrogant to assume that other posters are so ill-informed as to not be aware of these events at least in outline.

    where do you get that idea from? i would assume most posters on this thread have heard about these things and have not stated anything to the contrary. the differnce being that you hear about these attrocities once a year...you hear about the holocaust once a day.

    Secondly I don't think you are able to prove that people would not have cared about the Holocaust if it had been directed at Arabs, Russians, Poles and Gypsies

    ok how much time is devoted to commemorate the poles, russians, gypsies, handicapped vs the jewish victims? how much time is devoted to remember the attrocities committed against the arabs in palestine or the victims of the iraq embargo? how much time to the victims of the carpet bombings in vietnam, germany, japan? the victims in rawanda? ect. ect. no comparison imo. had it not been for the jewish victims the holocaus would not be more discussed than the mass murder committed by stalin (perhaps a little more since germany lost the war but i hope you get my point).

    me being against intolerance and hatred doesn't make me close my eyes to reality. the jews were the victims of the hlocaust but that doesn't make their actions any more innocent or guiltfree than that of any other population. what is going on in israel is a crime and is is committed with influence of the jewish people in the US gov.

    Could you please provide some figures to back up your claim of unproportionality in European politics?

    in germany the jewish lobby is immensly strong. within the EU germany has thus vetoed against any anti israeli actions such as trade sanctions. same but to a lesser extent is true for austria. if i have time during the week i will search for the number of jewish members of parliament in germany...its about a fifth or 6th of the members.

    In fact I cannot think of one claim ever made that the Holocaust could not have happened in another situation and nation if the circumstances were the same.

    oh please...you seem to miss some important parts of holocaus literature then!

    Do you realise you have not made ONE valid point yet?

    that is in contrast to you?

    Why is the current political debate relevant in discussing whether or not people need to know about the Holocaust?

    becasue the holocaust is used as a tool by israel and jewish lobbies to justify their actions and to get reparation payments.

    While this does not mean that Stalin procured these former comrades' deaths because of anti-Semitism?he had far more concrete and "rational" reasons for wanting them dead

    exactly. many political leaders in russia were jews. thus a large number of jews were among the victims.

    1. What profits has the Indusry you refferd to made Realist, if it is an Industry?

    there is quite a number of people making a living out of the holocaust. moviemakers, story tellers, reporters,...

    1. How much have individual Jews profited by it, on average?

    the individual jews have not profited much...the survivors got compensated as far as this is possible. important is the support for israel and jewish organisations that is based on the holocaust.

    1. And why are you not so vocal in condemning those who run the Holocaust denial Industry?

    you mean the ones that get imprisoned or lose their job because of publishing their views?

    And the gays. And the Arabs. And the Germans. Listen to yourself man.

    if the it isn't so than explain the strength of the jewish lobby within lets say the US gov. I asked avi the same question...

    i am very open to a better explaination of their representation among important positions.

    i will continue the discussion perhaps on thursday...have a good one.

  • LittleToe
    LittleToe

    Realist:You do realise that by the same stroke of politico-genetic manipulation the Germanic people are implicated in all sorts of things. The royal family of Britain is of Germanic descent, many folks in the USA are also. I'd be interested to see if the members, on that list you provided, also have Germanic blood running through their veins. Boy wouldn't Hitler have loved that one.

    The point is that no-one really hates the Germanic people as a nation (unless they are using the cliched "vacation bathtowel ploy" of reserving deckchairs), though some manifest a serious chip on their shoulder, giving rise to the British expression "don't mention the war". For some reason some folks take this personally, rather than appreciating that it's the Nazi ideology that is condemned, not the Germanic race.

    Avi:I hadn't heard of your loss before. I am numbed to hear it, and so sorry!

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