0th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
01-29-2015, 08:43 PM
I'm happy to be informed, if not outright corrected, in the almost hyperbolic tone of my OP. Trolling most certainly wasn't my intention and I really didn't mean for it to smack of Jezebel-style emotives. I don't have a drop of Jewish blood, and have no axe to grind.
My juxtaposition of Russia against the Holocaust wasn't intended as such, but I wanted to observe that Putin's mention in the news over Auschwitz's anniversary pretty much reflects his Godwin-esque depiction in the Western media over the past couple of years - such sound-bites as Russia's Anschluss, Europe's "Peace in our time" and "Obama's Munich" proliferate throughout the Western establishment. Is Godwin's Law that effective a mechanism for ensuring history doesn't repeat itself?
I stand corrected. 1st Ukrainian Front was what I should've wrote.
I've definitely heard of the Armenian Genocide and the Holodomor. The former, in particular, is intertwined with our history despite the relatively small Armenian community in Australia.
The argument I've heard brought up is that unlike those above massacres, the Holocaust stands out as a deliberate, state-sanctioned attempt to eradicate European Jewry. Rather than spontaneous acts of violence resulted from forced population control - or, in the case of the Holodomor, planned economic failure on a nation-wide scale, the Holocaust was a culmination of targeted, racially specified extermination, from Hitler's earliest postulations in Mein Kampf up to the systematic organisation that resulted from the Wannsee Conference.
In the same light, Japan killed far more Chinese in WW2 (predating 1939) than Nazism killed Jews. Far more Chinese went on to die under Mao. This doesn't translate into a recognition of genocide because Japan didn't have it as its agenda to exterminate the Chinese race. While lacking in the Holocaust's industrialised efficiency, Japan outstripped the SS in sheer barbarity - the Nanking Massacre saw cruelty that matched the Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front.
Why then, do the Jews deserve such enshrined exclusivity among mankind's record of genocides? We on RVF oppose the idea of inherent equality - this is pertaining to a highly successful group of people that, wherever they have scattered throughout the earth, have in equal parts formed the backbone of that society's infrastructure yet been victims of systematic persecution over 5000 years of existence. Think of the Zuckerbergs, Einsteins, Kafkas, Newtons, Asimovs and Baron Cohens that have been gifted to society, and how many more could have lived had their forebears not perished either in the Holocaust, or the Tsarist pogroms that came before.
I would never propose that one massacred Jew was worth more than a dead Armenian or Ukrainian. All genocides are as repugnant. That Jews have a track record for victimisation in proportion to their population is worth considering.
I actually asked this question when we had a delegation from the nearby Jewish school visit us in Year 10 (16 y/o) to speak about the legacy of the Holocaust. I'm surprised I had the gumption to bring that up. Anyway, their response was, and I paraphrase, 'well it's because the Holocaust was a specifically Jewish disaster, and that Jews took the lions' share of the toll. If the other groups that fell victim to it (i.e. Slavs, homosexuals, Roma, Communists etc.) wish to commemorate that, then they can do so separately'.
I think their implication, while not deliberately so, was that the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust were basically collateral. Mind you these kids were the same age as us.
The Holocaust remembrance movement is pretty strong here in Australia, for a country that wasn't directly affected by it - thousands of Holocaust survivors emigrated here after WW2. Personally, we went over it pretty thoroughly in high school History over 2 years (2nd year wasn't compulsory though), and again while covering Judaism as part of Religious Education in Year 10. This was on a greater level than state schools though, I think mine (private, White-Anglo dominant) was the sort that bred White-guilt, paradoxically enough.![[Image: biggrin.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
Still, that hasn't been deemed enough - we have since pushed for compulsory Holocaust education nationwide.
My juxtaposition of Russia against the Holocaust wasn't intended as such, but I wanted to observe that Putin's mention in the news over Auschwitz's anniversary pretty much reflects his Godwin-esque depiction in the Western media over the past couple of years - such sound-bites as Russia's Anschluss, Europe's "Peace in our time" and "Obama's Munich" proliferate throughout the Western establishment. Is Godwin's Law that effective a mechanism for ensuring history doesn't repeat itself?
Quote: (01-29-2015 05:06 PM)rover Wrote:
that was Soviet Red Army that freed the camp. The "Ukrainian Army" was mostly fighting on the Nazi side.
Quote: (01-29-2015 02:24 PM)Seboist Wrote:
That's because there was no "1st Ukrainian army", it was the 1st Ukrainian Front (previously known as the Voronezh Front) and much like all other red army formations, it consisted of every swinging dick from the SSRs from Russians,Ukrainians,Kazakhs,Georgians,etc(Russians were the largest chunk though). All three of it's main commanders(Konev,Zhukov and Vatutin) were Russians.
The notion that it was a "Ukrainian army" is a recent troll job on the part of the government of Poland and what's more amusing is that the Germans recruited western ukrainians as personnel for these camps.
I stand corrected. 1st Ukrainian Front was what I should've wrote.
Quote: (01-29-2015 02:10 PM)Libertas Wrote:
No one's ever heard of Holodomor, the Armenian Genocide, etc. etc. Niall Ferguson makes a point of all of these that the 20th century was the century of the progress of prosperity while also at the same time the bloodiest and most brutal in all of human history. How these two contradictory happenstances occurred side by side is explored in his book War of the World which I want to read this year.
I've definitely heard of the Armenian Genocide and the Holodomor. The former, in particular, is intertwined with our history despite the relatively small Armenian community in Australia.
The argument I've heard brought up is that unlike those above massacres, the Holocaust stands out as a deliberate, state-sanctioned attempt to eradicate European Jewry. Rather than spontaneous acts of violence resulted from forced population control - or, in the case of the Holodomor, planned economic failure on a nation-wide scale, the Holocaust was a culmination of targeted, racially specified extermination, from Hitler's earliest postulations in Mein Kampf up to the systematic organisation that resulted from the Wannsee Conference.
In the same light, Japan killed far more Chinese in WW2 (predating 1939) than Nazism killed Jews. Far more Chinese went on to die under Mao. This doesn't translate into a recognition of genocide because Japan didn't have it as its agenda to exterminate the Chinese race. While lacking in the Holocaust's industrialised efficiency, Japan outstripped the SS in sheer barbarity - the Nanking Massacre saw cruelty that matched the Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front.
Why then, do the Jews deserve such enshrined exclusivity among mankind's record of genocides? We on RVF oppose the idea of inherent equality - this is pertaining to a highly successful group of people that, wherever they have scattered throughout the earth, have in equal parts formed the backbone of that society's infrastructure yet been victims of systematic persecution over 5000 years of existence. Think of the Zuckerbergs, Einsteins, Kafkas, Newtons, Asimovs and Baron Cohens that have been gifted to society, and how many more could have lived had their forebears not perished either in the Holocaust, or the Tsarist pogroms that came before.
I would never propose that one massacred Jew was worth more than a dead Armenian or Ukrainian. All genocides are as repugnant. That Jews have a track record for victimisation in proportion to their population is worth considering.
Quote: (01-29-2015 02:10 PM)Libertas Wrote:
And also the Jews weren't even the only groups targeted in this very atrocity, yet it's only the Jews you ever hear about. Can't remember the Gypsies getting their own state as a result of all of this.
I actually asked this question when we had a delegation from the nearby Jewish school visit us in Year 10 (16 y/o) to speak about the legacy of the Holocaust. I'm surprised I had the gumption to bring that up. Anyway, their response was, and I paraphrase, 'well it's because the Holocaust was a specifically Jewish disaster, and that Jews took the lions' share of the toll. If the other groups that fell victim to it (i.e. Slavs, homosexuals, Roma, Communists etc.) wish to commemorate that, then they can do so separately'.
I think their implication, while not deliberately so, was that the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust were basically collateral. Mind you these kids were the same age as us.
The Holocaust remembrance movement is pretty strong here in Australia, for a country that wasn't directly affected by it - thousands of Holocaust survivors emigrated here after WW2. Personally, we went over it pretty thoroughly in high school History over 2 years (2nd year wasn't compulsory though), and again while covering Judaism as part of Religious Education in Year 10. This was on a greater level than state schools though, I think mine (private, White-Anglo dominant) was the sort that bred White-guilt, paradoxically enough.
Still, that hasn't been deemed enough - we have since pushed for compulsory Holocaust education nationwide.