Did the Holocaust happen?

[abub]

if you were alive in germany during the late 30s and early 40s, you had no choice but to participate in the holocaust, directly or indirectly.

also, i highly suggest that people visit these camps for themselves. it's fascinating to see the layouts and different sections of the camps used for different (brutal) purposes. on a recent trip to germany i visited Sachsenhause (outside of berlin) and Dachau. truly amazing, yet horrifying, sights.

[scrappy]

Quote by: McAiden The Holocaust was about the Jews, so we are talking about the Jews. You must end up with a lot of short, uninteresting threads. I think the first Crusade was to re-capture the Temple treasure for Christianity. Is that not so? Maybe you could start a "History" topic.

it wasn't just ABOUT the jews mate, we're talking about gypseys, slavs, homosexuals and handicapped people. Although the death toll for these ethnic groups were less then the jewish death toll, it was still a disgraceful attempted genocide nethertheless - and their deaths should be regocnised just as much as the jew's.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: scrappy it wasn't just ABOUT the jews mate, we're talking about gypseys, slavs, homosexuals and handicapped people. Although the death toll for these ethnic groups were less then the jewish death toll, it was still a disgraceful attempted genocide nethertheless - and their deaths should be regocnised just as much as the jew's.

Fine, we can talk about them in proportion to the precentage of each group that was murdered by the Nazis. I've listed them in my post above.

As minimally valid as your point may be, I have to question your motive in attempting to dismiss the reality that the Jews, as a group, suffered a unique and disproportionate effort to wipe them out completely at the hands of the Nazis. My personal suspicion is that by doing so, you hope to minimize the moral rationale for the founding of Israel, and therefore Israel's right to exist.

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[Nono]

Quote by: abub if you were alive in germany during the late 30s and early 40s, you had no choice but to participate in the holocaust, directly or indirectly

Well.... That's a bit like saying that all US citizens "participate" in the war in Iraq. The verb is subject to interpretation. Few Germans had any direct knowledge of the death camps, let alone personal participation. That said, rumours did ensure that a lot of people ended up knowing more or less that something of the sort was going on.

If what you're saying is that people had no choice but to support the Nazi state, that's true (not that most people would have considered doing otherwise). There was, though, a very small handful of absolutely heroic individuals who simply refused to have anything to do with it and actively resisted. They generally didn't live very long.

One resister who did survive the war (because he was never caught) was Willy Brandt, who became Social Democratic chancellor of West Germany in the 1970s. He risked his life many times as a messenger between the Norwegian resistance and anti-Nazi agents in Berlin. For his courage he was later smeared by German right-wingers as a "traitor".

[jose]

Quote by: scrappy the godo it wasn't just ABOUT the jews mate, we're talking about gypseys, slavs, homosexuals and handicapped people. Although the death toll for these ethnic groups were less then the jewish death toll, it was still a disgraceful attempted genocide nethertheless - and their deaths should be regocnised just as much as the jew's.

to true

[goldfrapp]

Quote by: Nono If what you're saying is that people had no choice but to support the Nazi state, that's true (not that most people would have considered doing otherwise).

Much like in this country at the present moment with our torture camps.

[Rainbow]

Quote by: Sonart And the conspiracy contingent wades in. This oughta be good. So, who was behind it, in entirety?

I believe that next generations to come will have that question answered.
A. Hitler's decisions fill out some portion, only.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Rainbow I believe that next generations to come will have that question answered. A. Hitler's decisions fill out some portion, only.

The next generations to come won't give a rip. It's ancient history, and there's no there there.


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[underbear1]

Recalling that Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies, Gays, People with Disabilities, Twins, Communists, Prostitutes also were rounded up, tortured, worked to death in slave camps, and thrown into cyanide "showers", does not diminish what the holocaust was for Jews, it records honestly others also were Nazi scapegoats.

[Chris the Chees]

Quote by: underbear1 Recalling that Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies, Gays, People with Disabilities, Twins, Communists, Prostitutes also were rounded up, tortured, worked to death in slave camps, and thrown into cyanide "showers", does not diminish what the holocaust was for Jews, it records honestly others also were Nazi scapegoats.

But the holocaust wasn't for 'Jews' it was for all that did not fit into the 'nazi' model ideal for an aryan reich.

[scrappy]

Quote by: Sonart . As minimally valid as your point may be, I have to question your motive in attempting to dismiss the reality that the Jews, as a group, suffered a unique and disproportionate effort to wipe them out completely at the hands of the Nazis. My personal suspicion is that by doing so, you hope to minimize the moral rationale for the founding of Israel, and therefore Israel's right to exist. .

what on earth are you talking about? my point isn't minimally valid, it's increadibly valid. Like I said, the holocaust wasn't for 'jews' it was for ethnic and social groups - as chris the chees said - that wern't 'pure' and didn't fit with the nazi aryan race/idea. That's what a lot of people get wrong. When you go to a holocause memorial day, its only for jews when it SHOULD be for slavs, gays, ect.

I don't attempt to dismiss the reality that the jews suffered increadibly. I know full well what happened in the holocaust. By posting this topic in the first place, i am mearly playing the advocate.

And as for Isreal, well i know a lot of people who don't agree with what isreal are doing and I know a lot of anti-zionist jews...and they're certainly not holocaust denyers. In fact, i've heard a few anti-zionist jews say "Hitler...he had the right idea". personally i think that's quite odd hearing that from a jew...but what ya gonna do?

[Nono]

Quote by: scrappy i've heard a few anti-zionist jews say "Hitler...he had the right idea".

Do I believe this? No I don't.
If you scoured the world you might come up with a few unhinged Jews who would say something like that (just as you'd find a handul of Armenian loonies who, when questioned, would say they thought the Ottomans should have cracked down a lot harder).
But the probability of them being within your earshot, scrap, is negligeable.

So, with the help of Sonart and a few others, we've now managed to turn this into a discussion about Zionism and Israel. Good going guys.

Zionism was one of the many Wilsonian nationalist projects of the early 20th century. I sometimes think it's too bad the original Zionists couldn't have worked something out with the Ottomans for massive Jewish immigration that didn't involve an actual nation state reserved for the Jews, sort of a larger-scale version of what Jews used to have anyway from Baghdad to Casablanca.

[Rainbow]

Quote by: Sonart . The next generations to come won't give a rip. It's ancient history, and there's no there there.

You are (most likely) correct.
However, it may serve as an additional material for historians, though.

[Trotsky]

Quote by: McAiden The Holocaust was about the Jews, so we are talking about the Jews. You must end up with a lot of short, uninteresting threads. I think the first Crusade was to re-capture the Temple treasure for Christianity. Is that not so? Maybe you could start a "History" topic.

The Holocaust was not "about" the Jews, it was about a bunch of madmen actually believing their own bullcrud and attempting to purify a nation of its "flaws". The flaws were Jews, Slavs, Communists, mentally and physically disabled, Homosexuals, Roma, Poles and Russians. It should not matter what or who these people where or weren't. The only thing that matteres is they were people.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Rainbow However, it may serve as an additional material for historians, though.

And the moon may really be made of green cheese, just below a 5 foot layer of dust. All we have to do is fly back and excavate.

Quote by: nono So, with the help of Sonart and a few others, we've now managed to turn this into a discussion about Zionism and Israel. Good going guys.

The topic is, Did the Holocaust Happen. Yes, it did, and the vast majority of the Holocaust... not simply being worked to death as slave labor or in miserable prison camps as with the Soviet gulag, but the systematic murder on a massive scale with the goal of eliminating an entire people ...was visited upon European Jews. The numbers of gypsies, homosexuals, disabled, communists, freemasons and Jehovah's Witnesses -- combined -- who were systematically murdered adds up to barely a third of the number of Jews. So the obvious question becomes, why deny or minimize it through context?

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[scrappy]

Quote by: Nono Do I believe this? No I don't. If you scoured the world you might come up with a few unhinged Jews who would say something like that (just as you'd find a handul of Armenian loonies who, when questioned, would say they thought the Ottomans should have cracked down a lot harder). But the probability of them being within your earshot, scrap, is negligeable.

why would i lie about something like that? thats why i said "i personally find that odd comming from a jew". He was obviously an extremist anti-zionist, and yes there are probably few of them around. mate i live in london, london has it all. so the fact that there is one of them in my earshot, mate, is probable

[Nono]

Quote by: Sonart The obvious question becomes, why deny or minimize it through context?

I agree. Indeed the subject of the holocaust is inseparable from that of anti-Semitism.
But sorry, getting into Israel and the whole Middle-East tra-la-la is a derailment of this thread, tempting though it may be.

[Nono]

Quote by: scrappy why would i lie about something like that? (...) He was obviously an extremist anti-zionist

Quote by: scrappy in the passage in question i've heard a few anti-zionist jews say "Hitler...he had the right idea"

Make up your mind, scrap -- "he" or "a few".
Your boat is a-leakin' there fella.

[Nathan Struth]

Holocaust happened, end of discussion.....

[Aeris]

Quote by: Nathan Struth Holocaust happened, end of discussion.....

I stand in awe of your debating prowess.