Holocaust and Historiographical Issues

[notyoueither]

It's been pointed out by LotM several times, MrFun. It's the way the Nazis went about hunting down the Jews, and the self-destructive extent they followed through with their program that marks that genocide for distinction.

To everything he has said I would add only the following, from the POV of a person of European descent living in a Western country... It was 'us' who did it. I mean 'us' in an extended cultural sense as a citizen of a Western nation. So, to 'us' it is a big deal, and a bigger deal the closer you get to Germany.

To illustrate the differences, IIRC the Holocaust is not very important in the Orient or Africa, or so I am led to believe. In many places in the Far East the conduct of the Japanese during that same period is of far more importance historically.

[MrFun]

Ok -- thanks for your thoughts.

But I also thought about something else . . . .

To what extent did a number of Jews felt that they could only survive by helping administer the ghettos and concentration camps of Nazi Germany? Such as the kapos, for instance.
They were only deluding themselves by thinking they were indispenable in the eyes of the SS and other staff.


Also, nye brought up the basic perspective of Asians in regards to the Holocaust, which seems to make sense. An event always seems more important to the people involved, than those from the outside -- generally, speaking, I guess.
But what is also interesting is that Japan wants the world to focus on her World War II involvement as being victims of a nuclear holocaust, rather than remembering the crimes that Japan committed against the Chinese civilian population, as well as POWS of China, Great Britain, India, United States, and Australia.

I guess this brings up the question as to how does the process of identification based on victims and perpetrators affect human history?

[chequita guevara]

One of the things you need to consider is that one of the reasons why we think the Holocaust was so bad was that it was done to white people. nye says that because its "us" who did it, it's more in our minds. I disagree, as "we" have done a lot more than just the Holocaust, but the only one that really seems to bother us is the Holocaust.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Caligastia
The holocaust is probably over-hyped in America because some of the powerful media outlets here are controlled by jews.

I just wanted to point out that Cali assures me that he isn't racist bigot

[Ben Kenobi]

You aren't educated by birth. It's something you chose to have. You don't (often) choose to be a Jew or a Roma. Furthermore, they did not try and kill off intellectuals in other countries.

Che:

So genocide is okay, if you restrict yourself to the confines of your own country?

Secondly, the Germans controlled Poland, so technically it could be considered part of Nazi Germany.

Third, we come back to the definition of a group. I chose to be a Christian, if people were to kill Christians, would this not be considered genocide?


2. Organised by the state, eg systematic.

http://www.yale.edu/cgp/report94-97_v3.html

They estimate 1.7 million. Seems rather credible.

http://www.bigpond.com.kh/users/dccam.genocide/qcahc.htm

Seems like a pretty good essay.

Although this work is not yet complete, the results to date are quite startling. So far, 20,492 mass graves dating from the Khmer Rouge regime, spread all across Cambodia, have been precisely surveyed. According to the data, these mass graves contain the remains of 1,112,829 victims of execution. (See Table 1, next page, for provincial breakdown.)

As for efficiency, they killed the educated people as well as others. So did the Nazis, they killed other people in addition to the Jews, the handicapped, political criminals, etc.

I'm curious as to people's limits, how many people do you have to kill to have it count? 1 million, 2 million? I think a much better argument is to look at the features in common, how people get stripped of their humanity, the Nazis did so with the Jews, so did the Khmer Rouge do to the Cambodians. We see the same inside the US with both the blacks and Native Americans.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
One of the things you need to consider is that one of the reasons why we think the Holocaust was so bad was that it was done to white people. nye says that because its "us" who did it, it's more in our minds. I disagree, as "we" have done a lot more than just the Holocaust, but the only one that really seems to bother us is the Holocaust.

well i would point out two things

1. Jews (like Italians) werent always considered "white" in the US. They have "whitened" as they have assimilated - the majority of the Nazis Jewish victims were far from assimilated.

2. If whiteness of the victims were at issue, then wouldnt we be equally concerned with Stalins crimes ?- his victims were slavs (at least as "white" as eastern european Jews) Balts, Jews, etc.

No i think its proximity to the perpetrators thats at issue.

[Ben Kenobi]

But again, to what point does it make any sense to make these comparisions -- they were all humans, and they were all killed injusticely, no matter what group they belonged to.

I agree with Mr. Fun. Well said.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
One of the things you need to consider is that one of the reasons why we think the Holocaust was so bad was that it was done to white people. nye says that because its "us" who did it, it's more in our minds. I disagree, as "we" have done a lot more than just the Holocaust, but the only one that really seems to bother us is the Holocaust.

It's not the only one that bothers us though. Granted, I missed saying it was done by 'us' to 'us', I realised that shortly after posting. However, it is a relatively recent example of how badly our modern states can go haywire and how badly haywire they can go.

As for being the 'only' one to bother us, that is not true at all. Where I am from there is widely shared regret about how Amerindians were treated. Even though we did not send the cavalry, the effects of our contact with them had catastrophic consequences, often despite good intentions. There are many other examples of historical trends or events that bother 'us', some of them widely shared and some of them localised. The Holocaust is not the only one.

However, as LotM has pointed out, the Holocaust is distinctive for the intent, the methods, and the extent it was pursued. I have pointed out that who did it, and you have brought up who it happened to as important also. It's a whole package. You can't say that one or the other element is the sole explanation for why it is regarded as important, or who will regard it as being so; although, the who's are most often the most important element in what is regarded as noteworthy.

btw, it would not be that they were white that makes it important to 'us'. It is that it was 'us' who did it to 'ourselves' AND what was done as well as the way it was done. It is 'our' history on both ends and up the middle, and that is why it would be more important to 'us'.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Che:

So genocide is okay, if you restrict yourself to the confines of your own country?

Secondly, the Germans controlled Poland, so technically it could be considered part of Nazi Germany.

Third, we come back to the definition of a group. I chose to be a Christian, if people were to kill Christians, would this not be considered genocide?


2. Organised by the state, eg systematic.

http://www.yale.edu/cgp/report94-97_v3.html

They estimate 1.7 million. Seems rather credible.

http://www.bigpond.com.kh/users/dccam.genocide/qcahc.htm

Seems like a pretty good essay.



As for efficiency, they killed the educated people as well as others. So did the Nazis, they killed other people in addition to the Jews, the handicapped, political criminals, etc.

I'm curious as to people's limits, how many people do you have to kill to have it count? 1 million, 2 million? I think a much better argument is to look at the features in common, how people get stripped of their humanity, the Nazis did so with the Jews, so did the Khmer Rouge do to the Cambodians. We see the same inside the US with both the blacks and Native Americans.

we seem to be talking past each other. I thought the original question was "was the nazi destruction of the Jews a unique genocide" NOT "was the destruction of the Jews uniquely genocide"

To the latter the answer is unequivaically NO. You can commit genocide against any large group, not just one defined by birth. You can commit genocide within one country's borders. You dont have to be efficient, or modern, or civilized to commit genocide. In none of these cases is genocide "OK". However some genocides are more noteworthy to historians than others - and raise issues that others do not. Is that case with regard to the extermination of European Jewry - was it truely unique, or are we misled because of our western perspective. No one is arguing that the other instances are not genocides (well I won't speak for Guevera re:Cambodia)

[TCO]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
LoTM:

From Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

http://almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html

Unique? Well, then I have an argument and a comparison. What about the Soviet Union in the 20th Century under Stalin? Was this not a civilised country of advanced peoples?

Secondly, why should it matter if the nation is civilised or not? Should we not equally condemn genocide if performed in Cambodia or Rwanda?



So the Turks were justified in killing the Armenians for 'strategic reasons'?

That's pretty feeble. I'm sure the Nazis saw the Jews as threatening the 'strategic interests' of the state.

No. The Russians are quasi-asiatic. and very backwards in places. Oh...and Lenin was shipped in by the Germans. They are at the root of all the evil. Kill all the men. and send the women over here for "punishment".

[axi]

Che: I didn't know that there are gypsies in the United States. I thought that crossing the ocean would break apart their habits and communal life.

We have lots of Gypsies here, I guess more than 100.000 in a population of 10 million. They really stick out of the rest of the people becuase they still insist in living a nomadic life in a modern setting (they are living in anything between a house and a tent, with trucks being very popular among them). Them not wanting to conform means them being regarded more or less as "illegal aliens", even though they are full citizens. They marry early, have alot of children, don't send them to school, and indulge in black market and drug trafficking. Plus they are dark skinned and they are dressing in an awful flashy manner.

I am always amazed at how close most of them fit this stereotype, as if they are intentionally trying to be marginalised. Perhaps their culture of nomadic pride and freedom is putting up an extra barrier, which permits them to submit to a sedentary society that's so harsh to them anyway, while other groups of people who don't have that element (immigrants f.e.) are more ready to submit. Perhaps the fact that they are living in their actual homeland (although I guess that for a Roma the whole Europe is a homeland) makes them overlook the need to conform to a parallell society that's so different than theirs.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MrFun
Interesting thoughts . . .

As Chegitz briefly pointed out the period of the 'nadir of race relations' in United States, which is generally the years 1880s through 1930s, 6,000 to 10,000 blacks were lynched over a period of 50 - 60 years.

In some ways, there are interesting parallels of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and other forms of systematized extreme hatred that became prevalent in all parts of the world in the early 20th century.


The lynching era of the United States, however, was not on any systematic scale approaching that of genocide in other parts of the world.


And what about homosexuals who were victims of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany?
Homosexuals were seen as unfit to live in human society under Nazi rule. That they were inhumanly immoral.
I shudder whenever I see condemnations of homosexuals today, that sound like echoes from era of Nazi Germany.

And the Gypsies -- although they were a smaller group of people than the Jews, didn't they suffer proportionately more than the Jews from the Holocaust?

But again, to what point does it make any sense to make these comparisions -- they were all humans, and they were all killed injusticely, no matter what group they belonged to.

Because there are many people who are tired of hearing about the holocaust - their goal is NOT to raise awareness of other genocides (which I would applaud) but to minimize the seriousness of the holocaust - whats the big friggin deal, this happened all the time to everyone, lets go back to talking about something else - lets stop hearing about these friggin Joos. Lets stop thinking that the physical safety of the Jews is a particular concern for the West. Lets stop thinking that the US should get credit for opposing the Nazis - lets talk about colonialism instead. Lets make antisemitism respectable again, like it was in the good old days.

(needless to say not all of the above arguments are held by the same people)

[Ramo]

the extermination of the Roma by the Nazis comes as close to the extermination of the Jews as any event in history, and I admit to feeling uncomfortable making a distinction. If you say that it is equivalent to the Jewish holocaust I wont make a fuss. But I will point out that the argument HAS been made that it is still different in this respect - the Nazis killed the Roma they knew about in the places they ruled. They want beyond this for the Jews. For example they famously pressured the fascist regimes in Italy and Hungary to turn over their Jews to the Germans, against the will of those two governments. To my knowledge they did not do the same with respect to Italian or Hungarian Roma. They searched for hidden Jews, attempting to pass as gentiles. I am not aware of similar efforts wrt Roma. And they made the persecution of Jews central to their regime and its ideology, in a way they did not do wrt Roma.

While similar extradition efforts may not have occured, on the other hand, the genocide against the Roma was far more successful than the genocide against the Jews. Proportionally, the Roma had the rawer deal.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Ned
It seems to me that the teacher is trying to de-emphasize the Holocost. Why?

No. He is trying to get them to THINK. And to examine the ways in which history can be slanted and/or used for political purposes. I have been after Fun's cherry azz to take historiography for a while.

[TCO]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Id rather not discuss this line of thought further. I would also recommend Fackenheim's "To mend the world" to you.

I think you are really smart. Both for recommending a book and for your comments about theology, et. al. I wonder why I never noticed you before.

All that said, Cal has some points that tell true to me. As do some of yours.