I have a family member that fled when he was 12 y/o (now 86) with his brother, while his father, mother, sister and 2 brothers were executed. Yet nor he or his family were ever reimbursed or even acknowledged. Unfortunately he never made it big, nor he was lobbying in the US :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallikratis to whoever wants to read a bit more on that. If any blogger etc wants to get in touch with him (he has a lot of stories to tell) let me know. He won't charge or get paid, he'll just welcome you to his house and treat you. (I can also translate for free).
Native population of European countries, forced to "work" in German agriculture and industry, inhabitants of annihilated villages are the forgotten victims. There are no monuments to them, no lobby groups, they received no compensations except physical and mental, oftentimes fatal, traumas.
WW2 was a western world international trauma with no-one unscathed, and various groups suffering to different unimaginable degrees.
But the Holocaust, in its extreme brutality and relentless focus on racial genocide by a civilised Western nation, was a different level altogether.
Could we please stop using the term "Nazis" when referring to WWII Germans? A nazi is a member of (Hitler's) NSDAP party, while the war was conducted by GERMANS, not just party members. When you read any texts from say the fourties, no one is speaking of fighting the Nazis - they're fighting the Germans. People who still remember the war also don't ever use term Nazis. It was introduced later to dissociate the German nation from probably the most unimaginable attrocity in human history. Don't fall for the manipulation.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=german%2C+nazi...
Where I live (Poland), people referred to German occupiers as "Germans", and it is also how they spoke of themselves. For example, the sign on streetcarts said "only for Germans", not "only for Nazis" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_f%C3%BCr_Deutsche).
Also, on your chart, you can see an over 50% drop of the usage of term "German" in 1945 (without any significant change for "Nazi"). It might have been caused by the US realization that the Western Germany will be an ally from now on, and change of rethoric.
The meaning of 'Germans' is much more context-dependent of course, to the point that I've noticed others and myself disambiguate by saying 'from Germany', because 'German' (Duitser) in itself has connotations (similar to jew/jood, or perhaps negroe/neger I guess).
Of course, being Dutch, many people will intentionally opt for the more rude version to get a rise out of people or 'be edgy'.
You can feel good, moralize as long as you like, take stabs at political opponents.
But it does nothing towards avoiding repeat of tragic events. How would anyone learn on "crime without punishment"? And that's exactly it, you're not punishing any people, not proportionally to damage done anyway, and ideas don't feel pain.
We all have tribal instincts, and we are "predictably irrational", meaning that we can be manipulated by skilled pupetteers.
Tribalism is on the rise once again right now and I find it unsettling.
Edit:
>But it does nothing towards avoiding repeat of tragic events. How would anyone learn on "crime without punishment"? And that's exactly it, you're not punishing any people, not proportionally to damage done anyway, and ideas don't feel pain.
I totally disagree. The punishment of Germany post WW1 lead directly to WW2. The extended hand that followed WW2 is largely responsible of the peace we've had for 70 years in Europe.
It turns out that punishment and preventing recidivism do not always go hand in hand.
Moralizing people doesn't prevent them from behaving badly when it's convenient to them. The perspective of punishment works much better.
For the Holocaust, very few people were punished. For Turkish genocide, noone was punished. Makes genocide a low-risk tool on a political table, if you ask me.
> It turns out that punishment and preventing recidivism do not always go hand in hand.
I utterly fail to understand how do you imagine it to work. Imagine I'm a politician in power and I have an idea that some of my country's residents are eligible for genocide. What's there to deter me and my fellow citizens? Certainly not the perspective of punishment. Then what?
Hell, in recent history, Croats got away with ethnic cleansings. You just have to be buddies with right countries.
More generally, the possibility of punishment does little to diminish violence, because people who perform it generally expect not to get caught.
People look very closely to what happens in their neighboring countries when deciding what to try and what to avoid. It is not true that one politician, who does not expect to get caught, is a sole responsible and everybody else is passive.
"Country Y had revolution and country X didn't. Turns out country Y never recovered economically and didn't make much progress. I will probably cut down on protests"
"Country C had ethnic cleansings and country B had reasonable ethnic policy. Country C did not suffer any punishment and is now successful. Country B suffers serious ethnic tensions and is an undesirable place. I would demand going harder on minorities"
You may be shielded from those narratives, living in a stable country. Guess what, not all of us do.
1) Human bonding (mother-child, family, and extended, symbolic tribes) is mediated in the brain by oxytocin. It turns out oxytocin also boosts xenophobia. Someone who claims to hail patriotism without being racist is therefore full of shit. They are two sides of the same coin, enlarging one enlarges the other.
2) Stigmatizing people for belonging to a group strengthens their tribal attachment to said group [a]. By punishing or threatening to punish a group of people, you enhance their tribal bonds and, per 1) their xenophobia, the very thing you're trying to rein in.
It's not about being moral, it's about effectiveness.
The only way to dispel tribal identity is to dilute it in a larger, weaker one, by being open to their members.
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a. Which is why laws against "the public display of religious signs" are counterproductive. Likewise, ostracizing people who vote for extreme, hateful politicians is counterproductive.
However, the goal of genocide or ethnic cleansings were not to punish, it was to make said people go away from you. To make them physically disappear.
Turks has no problems with Armenian tribal attachment because there are no longer any Armenians in Turkey (They however still have the problem with Kurds). The same thing with Croatia and Serbs. We have to admit that the plan worked.
Regardless, the story is the same all over the place. People's tribal instincts are amplified and manipulated by a few hateful/interested people, which turns peaceful crowds into genocidal herds.
The danger is the potential for excess that we have when thinking in terms of ingroup/outgroup, not a specific group (which is why it keeps happening all over the place, and sometimes victim tribes later become perpetrators of bigoted violence).
A desire for justice/vengance is understandable, BTW, but our intuitions are wrong when dealing with populations rather than individuals.
See also: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
Edit: Whether strong tribal identity among small groups lead larger groups of otherwise neutral people to resent them is an interesting question as well, BTW. I don't know if it is the case. Gypsies and Jews are historical examples, I don't know if there are counterexamples.
You talk about danger but danger for whom? One person's danger is another person's gain.
Cultivating cross-cultural resentment makes the world more violent, and less safe, for everyone.
Another example of the tragedy of the commons.
Yes, the world became more violent and hateful (Armenian terrorists blew something turkish up in France AFAIR), but that's outside of their borders. Inside borders they were a pretty successful country to date.
I suppose that resentment among Armenians towards Turks is still high to this day, I'm not saying that there will be more violence, but the threat is still there.
Note that I come from Belgium, whose historians are so ashamed of the Congo Free State genocide that they consider it a controversial topic that should not be taught in school. Were it not for Internet conversations, I'd be blissfully unaware of it as most Belgians are. There were more Congolese people killed under Leopold II than there were Belgians living at the time. There's been little to no backlash. So, indeed, sometimes it pays.
I sometimes wish I could have a more cynical take on things, but I have a strong fairness drive, spontaneously.
I know that Ashkenazim have a high prevalence of certain recessive diseases, which suggests that they tend, to this day, to be somewhat endogamous. I don't know how much of it is due to their own culture, and how much is due to the fact that they were up to WW2 stigmatized by the Catholic church for being, as a people, responsible for the death of Jesus (without which Christianity wouldn't exist, yet it was held against them, go figure...).
I also know that there's an derogatory Hebrew word, goy, for the out-group. But at the same time AFAIK before WW2 Jews were portrayed by racist nationalists as "filthy internationalists", i.e. an existential threat.
Regardless of the prior strength of the Jew identity prior, WW2 gave us a fiercely nationalist/tribal Israel (defined as constitutionally as a Jewish state, where interfaith or non-religious marriage are not possible, etc...), which in turn gave us the rise of the modern Jihad as a reaction to the oppression of Palestinians and the support of US/Europe to Israel (well, the Irak wars didn't help either).
I wish we could dispel that madness. At this point, territorial and tribal fights are a net loss, to every one but weapons merchants.
Yes, in the short term allowing X in country Y might make country Z feel like they can get away with X. But I think people generally have short memory, and anything beyond a generation (or two?) doesn't quite work that way.
To be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong or proposing an alternative theory. I just think there's lack of evidence that you're correct, and personally I'm deeply uncomfortable with any form of punishment that isn't well-supported by evidence.
I'll be a happy criminal around you. Why not take advantage if I know I'll get away with it?
I seriously doubt you know enough about break up of Yugoslavia to make such statements.
And furthermore, for war crimes such as genocide it is hard to tell who is to be punished, the officers, the regime, the soldiers, the population? They all took part in some way. So who exactly should we blame?
Who should we blame for Srebrenica? Netherlands? UN?
Or should we instead work towards rehabilitation and educate people and help people rather then just give out punishment?
If the punishments always work, there would be no need for jails.
Ethnic Serbs and Serbia are already blamed for Srebrenica, they were bombed and part of their country occupied.
But, Croats and Croatia are not blamed for ethnic cleansing in Srpska Krajina, they got what they wanted (mono-ethnic Croatia) and had no consequences by being friends with EU.
This tells us, "be sure that you're friends with powers before doing your genocide"
"Or just be strong and unyielding like Turkey was"
Having friends with connections always helps, same way USA is "spreading democracy" all over the world without consequence. Winners write history.
Also Belgrade was bombed due to issues on Kosovo not over Srebrenica which was done by Bosnian Serbs.
Srpska krajina was part of Croatia and full of all kinds of militia, a lot of people would have left out of fear of reprisal if nothing else when Croatian troops came in or just to live on Serbian controlled territory (which makes sense, you rarely want to stay on occupied territory unless you need to).
That is not to say there were no crimes committed, But killing people en mass and putting them into a big hole is much different then shelling a city. If you want to talk about Croats doing genocides go back to 1940ies.
Why Gotovina and Markac were not put in jail for ethnic cleansing is another story. Some could argue that it didn't happen some have other accounts.
To be honest most of the blame lies with Tudjman and Milosevic which together planned a lot of stuff that happened in Balkans both of which died without even a small punishment but managed to get people rallied up. I think punishments that extend to following generations just make the hate live longer and possibility of another war more real.
The point is we should not call out who is to blame 25 years later, but figure out how to continue to live together, and no, not all family of victims want retaliation and punishment, some people actually understand that bringing this up and finger pointing will just further the divide and make room for another war, all they want is bodies of their family members back and for this to never happen again. This can be made sure with dialog and education not just punishment.
I might be wrong, but I think punishment should always be last resort. Same when bringing up kids for example.
It is also doubtful that those who did vote for him expected him to kill all Jews and Romani people. The threats were certainly there but most people believe politicians to be hyperbolic and not follow through on everything they say.
At least I can say that my own ancestors who were murdered in Auschwitz did not expect that to happen.
I wish there were polls for support for Hitler after the successful conquest of Poland and France. The accounts from that period speak of enthusiasm bordering on mass hysteria.
I see both sides of the point being made here and we may have said all that needs to be said about it at this point but I just want to speak up and say that it's not in fact the norm to attribute a war to a political party, no matter what the electoral numbers.
The Wikipedia page on Holocaust victims (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims) has a list of the different groups targeted by the nazis. In addition to what other commenters have written there was also: freemasons, spanish republicans from the 36 revolution, soviet prisoner of wars, slovene and romani.
Interesting to note that nazis killed as much ethnic poles as polish jews.
But also note that this was about 90% of polish jews, and something like 10-15% of ethnic poles.
(90% from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland; 10-15% back-of-the-envelope from that plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Poles, giving a non-Jewish population of a little over 30,000,000.)
But once again the subtext: if a Jewish organization mentions the Holocaust, they have a special responsibility not borne by other organizations to ensure they don't take too much credit for their suffering, in which the majority of their population were swept from the continent of Europe.
That commenter is right to have none of this.
It's not just "the Jews", any educated westerner would balk at the very idea that the number can be questioned. It doesn't sit particularly well with me, since I find it hard to believe things I can't doubt, though the immensity of the evil of the Nazi regime is itself pretty obvious.
The value of efforts like these is that we can have a scientific record proving how many were killed and where, so that we can have an iron-clad defence to show people who could otherwise be swayed by holocaust denier tracts. Rather than turn away, say sorry, and comfort the few victims that come forward, we have to face head-on the actions of our ancestors, collect and document their deeds scientifically and build a proven historical record. Treating a historical subject, any subject, as taboo, leads to history being written by propaganda, and no matter how intentional that propaganda is, it makes us ultimately no better than the Nazis themselves.
My point is just that Holocaust denialism and anti-Jewish bigotry makes its wedge into discourse as classic F.U.D. People make a few unsourced, innocuous sounding comments, put in some well-known weasel words, wait to be challenged, and cry "cover up/bias".
that Jews somehow uniquely manipulate government through lobbying, that Jews don't accept any debate about the exact "6 million" number in the dominant narrative
No one said anything like that.
There's something implied there. For me, it's not mentioned simply because that's not the topic of the article. But what he seems to imply is that it was purposely omitted from the article - thus conspiracy/manipulation.
I interpreted it only as a complain that a vital piece of information isn't even mentioned, and more as an implication of quality issue than conspiracy.
I'm not flaming, and you know it. Nonetheless, if you think I'm a problem, just ban me and the problem will be solved. I don't want to be in a place where politics is totally OK to discuss until it's not for arbitrary reasons I can't guess or predict.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/holocaust-non-jewis...
"Say those close to the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, its progenitor, it is a number that was intended to increase sympathy for Jewish suffering but which now is more often used to obscure it."
http://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/214283/remember-11-mill...
The holocaust was about the Nazis reshaping German society in their image - justified by arguments of German supremacy. There's no denying that they held Jews in a category of their own, as Nazi propaganda painted them in all manner of horrible depictions and tried to blame them for the loss of the first World War, the collapse of the German economy and so many other things. But it seems inaccurate to deny either the victimisation of other demographic groups, or to deny that Jews were the primary target.
The deaths inflicted by the Nazi's were inexcusable but we cannot keep focusing on them alone if we are to have a true accounting and have people understand what leads to such outcomes.