Auschwitz Is Not a Metaphor | Hacker News Reader

Auschwitz Is Not a Metaphor

theatlantic.com

As a Polish person, the reason kids draw swastikas is precisely because of the taboo and rustling jimmies. They are not anti-semitic and likely don't really know anything about it.

These writers whose families weren't even directly affected by the war should get over themselves.

>My husband’s grandfather once owned a bus company in Poland. Like my husband and some of our children, he was a person who was good at fixing broken things. He would watch professional mechanics repairing his buses, and then never rehired them: He only needed to observe them once, and then he forever knew what to do.

> Years after his death, my mother-in-law came across a photograph of her father with people she didn’t recognize: a woman and two little girls, about 7 and 9 years old. Her mother, also a survivor, reluctantly told her that these were her father’s original wife and children. When the Nazis came to her father’s town, they seized his bus company and executed his wife and daughters in front of him. Then they kept him alive to repair the buses. They had heard that he was good at fixing broken things.

Right, apologies for not catching that. The point still stands though, you have to understand the context behind the usage before you attribute its meaning.

Trolls/kids will always go for the taboo, regardless of their actual beliefs... simply because they're taboos. Maybe if we stopped recoiling in fear everytime some idiot draws a swastika they'd stop doing it.

Actually, that's exactly what will happen in something like 20 years. Ancient history stops being taboo.

I can't really agree with that. Kids drawing swastikas in schools need to be clearly told that they can't do that, and the reason why. Ignoring such behavior is just going to normalize it and create an environment where anti-Semitism can thrive. (And please don't act like there is no anti-Semitism in Poland.)

Maybe I'm giving people too much credit, and I'm sick of arguing about this because, in my mind, seeing a bunch of swastikas isn't going to make me anti-semitic.

I even sometimes find it funny (especially when people draw the arms wrong); but maybe for others it really is just a way to spread their ugly hatred, and that's not at all what I'm trying to defend.

I think the problem with this argument is that we're both actually right, but only in certain situations.

I think you are missing the point. If you ignore people vandalizing things with swastikas, then you enable anti-Semites. It doesn't make much difference how anti-Semitic the people drawing the swastikas are. It's still creating a hostile environment for Jewish people and emboldening people with extreme views. And, yes, I think you are indeed giving people too much credit.

https://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1559236144582.webm

Sure. And there is anti polish sentiment in Israel[0]What is your point? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Kids do stupid stuff ( yes, even after they've been told not to; maybe especially so when they are expressly forbidden ). This is not news. What is interesting, however, is that near constant push to effectively shut down the entire conversation around holocaust and Israel by simply crying anti-semitism. That is a weak cry. And it is growing weaker every time it is used on non anti-semitic stuff. It is like crying wolf and being surprised no one listens when it actually comes.

You are right about normalization though. People hardly blink an eye since Golan heights annexation is now a morally acceptable land acquisition[1]. Crimea still is not. Go figure.

So yeah. Lets talk about kids drawing swastikas, because that is definitely, totally, the crux of the issue.

[0] https://www.foxnews.com/world/poland-ambassador-israel-tel-a... [1] https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/16/moral-case-israel-annex...

[edit]removed when : replaced with since

We can't have a debate about Israel unless kids are allowed to draw swastikas on desks with impunity?

The majority of the article is about the museum exhibit, in any case.

I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about people trying to "shut down" the conversation around the Holocaust. Are you some kind of Holocaust revisionist?

Heh. No. I am not some kind Holocaust revisionist. Incidentally, thank you for proving my point about trying to shut down this debate by immediately trying to pidgeonhole me with a useful label with sinister overtones and an implication that such a person cannot possibly be reasoned with. Cute.

How are we supposed to even begin to talk when you open with that? Intellectually, it is not an argument. But maybe that is not what you are interested in.

Note that you have not addressed previous point, which boils down to: kids are kids. Get over it.

You referred to a "conversation" that you'd like to have about the Holocaust. What conversation is that exactly?

"Get over it" is not really a point so much as a tone-deaf injunction. If ignoring bigotry made it go away, Jews would be the first people calling for that course of action.

Unfortunately, teens are not always as innocent about Nazism and the symbolism of the swastika as you might wish to think: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48672929

I am curious, are Katyn massacre memorials tend to be vandalized, say with Communist symbols?

We need to step up the swastika false flags, even when outed no one believes they're flase flags. It's beautiful, and super helpful to the cause of making people realize just how real soft attacks on vulnerable peoples are.

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