Questions on The Holocaust- This is not a holocaust denial thread
- This is not a holocaust revisionism thread
- I have multiple questions that came to mind when reading an exchange from this thread: https://leftypol.org/leftypol/res/2924947.html
- Here is an (abridged) exchange between two anons:
Anon A:
>"the holocaust" refers to the nazi genocides against slavic peoples as well as jews, not just the genocide against the jews.Anon B:
<Wrong. The Jews are always the center of the Holocaust narrative.This raises the first question. Descriptively, does the phrase "The Holocaust" refer only to the genocide against the jews of Europe, or does it also include the related and overlapping genocides against other groups like Slavs, Romani, Poles, as well as the mass murder of political groups like Communists?
Another exchange in that thread can be abridged as follows:
Anon C:
>nobody really gave a shit about the Holocaust back then either. People only became obsessed with the Holocaust around the 1960s because of Jewish-Zionist psyops.Anon D:
<yes they did. 100 years from now people like you will be saying nobody gave a shit about palestinian genocide until 2050. but that won't make it true.This raises the second question. Did people actually care about The Holocaust when it was a contemporary and ongoing event, or did nobody really care until the 1960s?
Personally I think evidence leans towards "The Holocaust" referring to all the nazi mass murder, and not just the jews, though I am open to persuasion.
Furthermore I think people did care about it when it was a contemporary event, and the soviets seem proud of their work in liberating the concentration camps, as well as the Nazi-occupied countries like Belarus, Poland and Ukraine.
>>2928633>Did people actually care about The Holocaust when it was a contemporary and ongoing event, or did nobody really care until the 1960s?Obviously they did or nobody would have fought Hitler.
>>2928665>Finkelstein didnt claim that nobody cared about the holocaust until the 1960s–he claimed that the centrality of the holocaust in the (specifically american) public imagination of ww2 didnt come about until then.So they didn't care as much.
>>2928715Well, the Soviets didn't really care either. And if they "didn't care as much," we may as well just call a spade a spade and say they didn't really care at all.
>>2928721>the soviets didn't care about the holocaust that literally targeted themhahaha
>>2928772Yeah, they didn't care about the Jews either. Stalin was cacaing on those rootless cosmopolitan Jews during the 1940s and 1950s.
>>2928790the holocaust targeted the USSR primarily
>>2928790>20 years of hitler screeching about judeobolsheviks and building up a war machine to destroy the USSRversus
>umm shut up goy the holocaust was only about jews, ummm fucking antisemitic stalin and ummm fucking rootless cosmopolitans proves it!!!! >>2928799No, it didn't lol. Half the dead Jews were Polish.
>>2928800Yes, the Holocaust was centrally about Jews. That's the historical consensus. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with that consensus, but that's just what it is. Take it up with Holocaust historians like Raul Hilberg, not me.
>>2928803every single soviet citizen killed in operation barbarossa is part of the holocaust
>>2928803>Yes, the Holocaust was centrally about Jews. nope that's the zionazi consensus.
nazis: we were just killing the jewish bankers n shit
zios: oy vey it was all about us poor jews, there were no other victims
everyone else recognizes slav, communist, romani, gay, etc were also targeted
>>2928897So Raul Hilberg is a "zionazi?"
The Destruction of the European Jewshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_the_European_Jews<The Destruction of the European Jews is a 1961 book by historian Raul Hilberg. Hilberg revised his work in 1985, and it appeared in a new three-volume edition. It is largely held to be the first comprehensive historical study of the Holocaust. According to Holocaust historian, Michael R. Marrus (The Holocaust in History), until the book appeared, little information about the genocide of the Jews by Nazi Germany had "reached the wider public" in both the West and the East, and even in pertinent scholarly studies it was "scarcely mentioned or only mentioned in passing as one more atrocity in a particularly cruel war".<Hilberg's "landmark synthesis, based on a masterful reading of German documents", soon led to a massive array of writings and debates, both scholarly and popular, on the Holocaust. Two works which preceded Hilberg's by a decade, but remained little known in their time, were Léon Poliakov's Bréviaire de la haine (Harvest of Hate), published in 1951, and Gerald Reitlinger's The Final Solution, published in 1953.[1]<Discussing the writing of Destruction in his autobiography, Hilberg wrote: "No literature could serve me as an example. The destruction of the Jews was an unprecedented occurrence, a primordial act that had not been imagined before it burst forth. The Germans had no model for their deed, and I did not have one for my narrative." >>2928902anyone who thinks targeted romani, slavs, communists, homosexuals, and other non-jewish groups targeted by the nazis aren't also part of the holocaust is basically a zionazi, yes. i don't care if it's the leading westoid scholar on the matter.
I read pdf related a while ago and the author notes in the introduction
>There are a number of words I will try to avoid because of the serious mis-conceptions they might lead to. The terms ‘Holocaust’ and ‘Shoah’ are not useful since neither has any analytical value. ‘Holocaust’ (derived from the Greek holókauton , or burned sacrifice) has a religious connotation unbefitting of the event it is supposed to refer to, and users of this term may mean by it either the persecution and murder of Jews alone, or Nazi German violence against any group more generally. The word ‘Shoah’ carries undertones of natural disaster. Importantly, ‘Holocaust’ and ‘Shoah’ have also been criticized as “teleological and anachronistic” terms that convey a retrospective view that makes complex processes appear “as a single event.”
So the term "Holocaust" appears contentious even amongst academics for its ambiguity. Another term I've seen is Judeocide, mainly by Marxist historian Arno Mayer who also wrote a book on the Holocaust, which is a lot more specific, but less common.
Gerlach also has a chapter in the book where he discusses the fate of some 6 million Soviet POWs, about half of whom were killed in German custody, and notes that there is not a single complete volume dedicated to this act of mass murder, unlike the 6 million Jewish victims of Nazi terror who are discussed in an innumerable amount of tomes. So "The Holocaust" could be said to center the Jewish victims if you look at how much work is dedicated to the study of this victim group specifically.
>>2928633I'm so fucking tired of debating about this with nazis. Endless ad nauseum posting about this by low I.Q. retards spamming memes.
>>2929326> So "The Holocaust" could be said to center the Jewish victims if you look at how much work is dedicated to the study of this victim group specifically.Also as materially played out in for example reparations to Jews and Israelis, often in obscene ways, yet not so for the Russian victims and their descendants, the veneration for Israel whilst the demonization of Russia.
holocaust is jews only, thats the meaning of the word.
>>2929349and yet that anon keeps telling people who want to fix this that they're wrong because "umm the holocaust was about jews only". so it's circular arguing for them.
What’s the point of arguing over something none of us were there to witness first hand? You might as well argue over who the sea people were
>>2929326> the term "Holocaust" appears contentious even amongst academics for its ambiguity.correct. this is why academics are stupid and anyone with a brain knows that the nazis had a lot of victims in addition to jews.
>>2929374you didn't witness me impregnating your mother and yet we all know it happened
>>2929377Or you could operate in the present and cast off the past, it’s nothing but an albatross around your neck no matter whether it’s myth or fact
>>2929379I'll never consider you a burden, son, even though you turned out this way
>>2929400The whole point of the project is year zero
Also on the second point, Wachsmann notes in the epilogue of KL that, after the initial shock had waned, the horrors of the concentration camps no longer really found an audience. Jewish victimhood was subsumed into a more general story of Nazi terror and suppression. The two Germanies were at the frontline of the emerging cold war, so constant talk of Nazi atrocities was politically inconvenient to their reintegration into the two newly formed blocks. West-Germany was keen on moving on from its Nazi past which caused general apathy towards the Jewish victims and the GDR constructed a national myth around the camps focusing on anti-fascist resistance rather than Jewish suffering. According to Wachsmann, it wasn't until the 60s and 70s that the Holocaust started to resemble something like it does today, except with a specific focus on the concentration camps, particularly Auschwitz, despite most victims meeting their fate outside of them. This as a result of well publicized trials such as that of Eichmann and other popular media.
Other victim groups like homosexuals, Roma, Sinti and "asocials" were rediscovered later. This all played out during the cold war so there was probably a huge east/west divide in this process and who was remembered by who and thus who was a victim of The Holocaust. The resurgence of Holocaust remembrance also coincides with Israel becoming a major player on the world stage, which is something that Finkelstein also notes. I think one could say people cared about the Holocaust, just not the Holocaust we're talking about in our time.
>>2928633воину–
освободителю
–слава!
To the warrior –
Liberator
I thought the world didn't know about the holocaust until the camps were liberated, so it was hard for anyone to care. I dispute that people care about Palestinians. Maybe they care in some abstract way, like people care about homeless people or the environment, but what they gonna do about it? Not much.
>>2929584Says me, don’t like it? We settle it in the parking lot
>>2929670Damnn, so it looks like Hitler outsmarted that liberal Stalin
That's why Stalin had to go crying to Western capitalists for Lend Lease
>>2929673Not really. Stalin didn't really have any other options. The Molotov Ribbentrop "pact" was to buy time by moving the front line west and the factories East. It ultimately didn't buy him that much time. Germany was a much more developed nation and even though both Russia and Germany took hard hits from WW1, Russia also dealt with a Civil War. I don't know why you would characterize things this way other than you are trolling.
>>2929520I think one of the common problems in the East-West divide in terms of Holocaust remembrance - which also gave rise to Holocaust denialism in response - is the notion that Westerners remember the Holocaust as the majority being death camps, that near everybody was industrially exterminated in gas chambers. In truth however, most Holocaust victims perished in rather mundane ways - death by overworking, diseases and mostly just mass executions behind the front lines by Einsatzgruppen, the victims being thrown in mass graves.
The Holocaust isn't unique in that sense that was an industrial genocide, that is only true for smaller portion of it (see Historikerstreit in Germany). The most effective way to carry out genocide hasn't changed that much. It was not different than, say Ruanda - line them up, shot them, hack them to pieces, throw them into a ditch. If you wanna go way back, this is also how the genocides were carried out under Ghengis Khan, which had more victims than the Holocaust, or what happened during the forceful Christianization of Europe in the Dark Ages.
>>2929678>It ultimately didn't buy him that much time.So Hitler outsmarted Stalin. I already knew that, bro. Try to keep up.
>>2929373it doesnt matter what wikipedia says. When americans are taught about the holocaust, they learn about the 6 million. Its why we read Anne Franks diary and not about poles or soviets
Did Aishwitz really have a swimming pool? Why?
>>2929688sure whatever you say kid. what else do you wanna talk about?
>>2929718but I'm american and i did learn about them killing 20 million soviets retard
>>2929720It's to give tourists something to do after watching the symphony orchestra play, of course. (obligatory /s)
>>2929740>sure whatever you say kidOf course it's whatever I say. I'm the one that's correct.
>>2929720Treblinka had a zoo.
>>2929375Anon, no one here is arguing that the nazis only killed 6 million Jews and no one else. The question is whether the term "holocaust" refers to all genocide comitted by the nazis, or just the killing of Jews specifically.
>>2929679>or what happened during the forceful Christianization of Europe in the Dark AgesDo you have any further reading on this? I know the process was violent but I haven't heard of massacres before.
>>2929720Camps have guards. The guards need recreational activities so they don't get depressed from murdering people all day.
Plus the swimming pool was primarily a water reservoir.
>>2929679Yeah, that's also what Wachsmann talks about. Except it's specifically the KL-system that is remembered, with Auschwitz at the center of it all. The Operation Reinhardt camps fell outside of this system and, being extermination camps, had hardly any survivors. There are people who think millions died at Dachau for example, because it was liberated by the western alies and featured so prominently in the media. Meanwhile most people probably could not mention Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek and Chelmno where most of what people think of when they talk about the Holocaust (but really the more narrow Judeocide in the case of these camps) actually took place.
You also get retards with sub-Wikipedia tier knowledge denying 6 million Jews were murdered, but notably they almost never do so for other victim groups, because they can't imagine that just Auschwitz could kill 6 million people and also it had a pool.
There was even during the mass murders themselves an east-west divide that ran across the frontline of Operation Barbarossa, though it doesn't quite match with the later cold war divide. The Barbarossa Jews were already facing the furies of the Einsatzgruppen for half a year before the liquidation of the Polish Jews started in February of 1942. The first massacres I think were perpetrated mostly by local nationalists in the Baltics and by the Romanians in Bessarabia, both regions that had been annexed by the Soviet Union during the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Mayer's main point in Why Did The Heavens Not Darken (in which he also makes a comparison to the Medieval crusades, kind of like you are) is that the Judeocide was forged in the crucible of the abortive holy crusade against the joint twin-evils of Judeo-Bolshevism and that many genocidal outburst were linked with frustrations of the imagined Blitzkrieg victory (the work is dated in many ways, but it's still an interesting perspective). Gerlach also highlights the anti-partisan aspect of the genocide, which becomes especially apparent when one considers that percentage-wise more Soviet Jews were murdered in regions under military administration than those under civil administration.
Finally, I agree that part of the Holocaust was not special in the sense of it having an industrial nature, many being killed by mass executions. However, the liquidation of the Polish ghettos was pretty much an industrial affair. The ghettos were relatively porous institutions and having thousands of starving people roaming the countryside would exacerbate the black market that Himmler was trying to crack down on to meet the export quotas on the General Government demanded by Goering. The murder of the Jews in camps like Treblinka meant fewer mouths to feed and fewer desperate people who might tempt Polish farmers to sell their wares to them instead of the occupier. It even eased pressure on the railway network, because providing the ghettos with their starvation rations for a few months took more railcars than shuttling its population to its death. The peak kill rate in the summer of '42 also far exceeded that of the Rwandan genocide, so even quantitatively one could say the event had a uniqueness (see pdf).
Sorry if this is all over the place or reads like an infodump, I find the topic fascinating and I just woke up Why didn’t the Romani and Sinta develop their own equivalent to Zionism?
>>2929805I don’t think Romania is an equivalent to Israel and stolen Hungarian land, feel free to convince me otherwise
>>2928633on the first point: the conflict is between people who distinguish between the ethnic cleansing of eastern europe and the final solution and those who don't. given the numbers of dead slavic and balkan peoples are in the 10s of millions it seems crass to exclude them from the holocaust figures given the term popularly refers to all the massacres, concentration camps, and death camps and all their victims.
>>2928633To me 'the holocaust' refers specifically to the program of extermination camps that were set up, this includes all victims of those camps, Jews, slavs, homosexuals etc, but I would say that stuff like Generalplan Ost and Aktion T4 are seperate from the holocaust (though linked in many ways of course)
>>2929806All of eastern europe are a bunch of ethnostates
>>2929838I think that's an even more confused definition. I know you said Generalplan Ost, T4 etc., were linked with the Holocaust, but which act of mass murder is which? Is something like the Babi Yar massacres part of the Holocaust because it targeted Jews or is it part of General Plan Ost because the Jews were Soviet Slavs? Was the liquidation of the Polish Jews in the extermination camps in the GG part of the Holocaust or was it part of German settler colonialism in Poland since part of the reason for the Ghettos being crammed with Jews was because of deportations to make room for German settlers in the Warthegau?
The KL-system was also established as an internment system for political opponents during the Machtergreifung rather than for the sake of mass killing, and its prison population was majority non-Jewish for the majority of its existence. It had even almost ceased to exist in the 30s with just a few thousand inmates. Despite that, even if you exclude the Jews that were simply murdered at Auschwitz without registration into the KL, the camps still account for almost a million deaths, with some of the first acts of outright systemic murder being against Soviet POWs and "commissars". The extermination camps were set up specifically for the mass murder of Polish Jews during Operation Reinhardt and the vast majority of victims (>95% except for Sobibor where it was about half) came exactly from those Polish ghettos, with the rest being Jews from elsewhere. Many of the T4 euthanasia personnel were also present at the extermination camps, so that is another link between two different victim groups. There were of course also genocidal acts that were not perpetrated by the Germans, but by their allies or by local nationalist groups and auxiliaries which complicates things even more. There was also not really a single experience for a victim group. For example, Jews in Romania proper fared much better than Jews in the areas it re-annexed from the Soviet Union.
Like yeah, obviously all this stuff is linked, but I feel like Nazi mass murder was
too interlinked to consider them apart like this at all. Nazi terror was extremely multi-causal (think food, loot, forced labour, anti-partisan activity, anti-communism, population transfers, you name it) and had a kaleidoscopic ideological base, so I think, maybe a bit paradoxically, we should either be hyper specific in who, when and where we are talking about or be incredibly general by simply referring to Nazi mass murder (whoever, wherever and whenever) as a whole to avoid confusion.
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