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  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
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  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    ^Depends on the length of "a moment".
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    1 minute.
  • QuickbladeQuickblade Member Posts: 957
    LadyRhian said:

    1 minute.

    I know all the "moment of silence" I've ever personally been present for have NEVER been as long as a minute. They are perhaps 10-15 seconds.

    There's 31,536,000 seconds in a standard year. So, a year for every 5 seconds to the victims of the Holocaust, give or take a few.

    Because of a link @jjstraka34 linked re: reparations, a quote in there was that an Israeli (I think it was Menachem Begin) would rather have one dead German for every dead Jew for reparations, rather than money.

    I looked it up, and Germany lost about 2 million civilians and about 3.75-4 million armed forces personnel, though the numbers are very "unreliable", depending on whose numbers you want to go with and how you define the losses, the totals could go as low as 4 million or over 12 million.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited January 2019

    LadyRhian said:

    1 minute.

    I know all the "moment of silence" I've ever personally been present for have NEVER been as long as a minute. They are perhaps 10-15 seconds.

    There's 31,536,000 seconds in a standard year. So, a year for every 5 seconds to the victims of the Holocaust, give or take a few.

    Because of a link @jjstraka34 linked re: reparations, a quote in there was that an Israeli (I think it was Menachem Begin) would rather have one dead German for every dead Jew for reparations, rather than money.

    I looked it up, and Germany lost about 2 million civilians and about 3.75-4 million armed forces personnel, though the numbers are very "unreliable", depending on whose numbers you want to go with and how you define the losses, the totals could go as low as 4 million or over 12 million.
    That part of the article was about just how positively Germany's reparations payments influenced the building of what Israel is today, from an economic and infrastructure standpoint. There were hardliners in the beginning who objected to it as blood money, and didn't believe a price could be placed on what happened.

    It's worth noting, however tragic, that the German population was at the bare minimum somewhat complicit in what happened to their country. The victims of the Holocaust were complicit in nothing.
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    Balrog99 said:

    Kamala Harris sounds like more of the same to me. Color me unimpressed...

    I'm pretty excited about her. She has a few problems, but I think her strengths outweigh her weaknesses.
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Not true, actually. Even in Germany itself, barely anyone was aware of what was actually happening in the death camps--they were completely secret to anyone until very late in the war, when the Allies stumbled upon them. Even if we accept the premise that a population can be complicit in the crimes of its government (especially dubious for a non-democratic one), the German population was not fully aware of what was going on.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited January 2019

    Not true, actually. Even in Germany itself, barely anyone was aware of what was actually happening in the death camps--they were completely secret to anyone until very late in the war, when the Allies stumbled upon them. Even if we accept the premise that a population can be complicit in the crimes of its government (especially dubious for a non-democratic one), the German population was not fully aware of what was going on.

    I'm not referring to the death camps, I'm referring to shrugging off everything that happened in the decade leading up to them:

    https://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

    Actually a pretty chilling excerpt given our own situation. It's a portion of a book the author wrote when interviewing Germans many years after the war. It's what happens when the population purposefully buries their head in the sand, either because they weren't mentally capable of confronting it, or didn't want to bother. Maybe NO population of people could have responded better. But we'll never know.
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659

    Not true, actually. Even in Germany itself, barely anyone was aware of what was actually happening in the death camps--they were completely secret to anyone until very late in the war, when the Allies stumbled upon them. Even if we accept the premise that a population can be complicit in the crimes of its government (especially dubious for a non-democratic one), the German population was not fully aware of what was going on.

    As with many things, I think this falls somewhat into the middle of your two statements.

    My understanding is that while the "troops on the ground" of the allies were generally unaware of the atrocities, the allies at large had some idea of what was happening. By 1943, the allies had total air superiority over Europe and thus, had a lot of good intel. Also, there are figures from the resistance cells in several of this countries (Poland for example, also France) that were relaying information about the concentration camps back to the allied powers. See Witold Pilecki as an example of someone who was involved in getting that information to the allies.

    Anyways - I'm not sure if the German population knew exactly what was going on in the camps, but they definitely noticed that Jews were being targeted, rounded up, taken away and werent coming back. The documentary Shoah gets into this a good bit. While the director's tactics are kind of awful at times (taping people without their consent, asking some leading questions, etc) - you get a real picture of people who lived in and around where Jews were taken, and they seemed to have an idea of what was happening (of course, since this was told in the 70s and 80s, it's hard to eliminate hindsight as a bias).
  • SorcererV1ct0rSorcererV1ct0r Member Posts: 2,176

    (...)that the German population was at the bare minimum somewhat complicit in what happened to their country. The victims of the Holocaust were complicit in nothing.

    Was the average Russian complacent to the Holodomor?

    Not true, actually. Even in Germany itself, barely anyone was aware of what was actually happening in the death camps--they were completely secret to anyone until very late in the war, when the Allies stumbled upon them. Even if we accept the premise that a population can be complicit in the crimes of its government (especially dubious for a non-democratic one), the German population was not fully aware of what was going on.

    The same applies to other things. On USA most whites hated slavery, not by humanitarian reasons but just because imagine you living an average life, with work, family, etc and suddenly you got "conscripted" to hunt fugitive slaves. On other countries was different. On Brazil, was the "capitão do mato", usually an mulatto that hunts fugitive slaves. Same with colonialism, the average British living an average life hate the idea of being forced into military service, forced to be months in a ship to reach an place with completely different weather and fight Zulu warriors.

    About nazi Germany, they was racist and committed many atrocities but they are not really the unique. Japan commited a lot of atrocities similar to Germany and some gross atrocities ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/former-sex-slaves-reject-japan-south-koreas-comfort-women-accord ) In fact, in some aspects, nazi Germany was more "tolerant" than US. For example, according to Nuremberg laws, someone with 75% white ancestry was white. On USA the One Drop Rule was the norm in many states. Not mention, that Germany citizenship was relative easily obtained for German descendants. To name some, Richard Darré(Argentine), Egon Abrecht(Brazilian) and Rudolf Ress(Egyptian), the German citizenship was far easier to be obtained for German descendants than for example Japanese citizenship. This not mentioning the Holodomor who was the biggest genocide in the history.
  • Mantis37Mantis37 Member Posts: 1,177
    David Wyman's book "The Abandonment of the Jews", which is apparently held in good standing by most historians, argues that the Allies knew about the Holocaust by 1942 but were rather slow in responding to it. This is particularly in comparison to the response to other refugee groups. The British were worried about Palestine, and Americans worried about anti-semitism and where refugees might be settled.

    A contemporary summary of the book's arguments can be found here:

    https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/wyman-jews.html?module=inline
  • QuickbladeQuickblade Member Posts: 957
    edited January 2019

    Not true, actually. Even in Germany itself, barely anyone was aware of what was actually happening in the death camps--they were completely secret to anyone until very late in the war, when the Allies stumbled upon them. Even if we accept the premise that a population can be complicit in the crimes of its government (especially dubious for a non-democratic one), the German population was not fully aware of what was going on.

    As with many things, I think this falls somewhat into the middle of your two statements.

    My understanding is that while the "troops on the ground" of the allies were generally unaware of the atrocities, the allies at large had some idea of what was happening. By 1943, the allies had total air superiority over Europe and thus, had a lot of good intel. Also, there are figures from the resistance cells in several of this countries (Poland for example, also France) that were relaying information about the concentration camps back to the allied powers. See Witold Pilecki as an example of someone who was involved in getting that information to the allies.

    Anyways - I'm not sure if the German population knew exactly what was going on in the camps, but they definitely noticed that Jews were being targeted, rounded up, taken away and werent coming back. The documentary Shoah gets into this a good bit. While the director's tactics are kind of awful at times (taping people without their consent, asking some leading questions, etc) - you get a real picture of people who lived in and around where Jews were taken, and they seemed to have an idea of what was happening (of course, since this was told in the 70s and 80s, it's hard to eliminate hindsight as a bias).
    Similar to the children in our camps of today, when they got "taken away", how did people know they weren't sent to another state, or deported, rather than just concentrated and executed?

    Not true, actually. Even in Germany itself, barely anyone was aware of what was actually happening in the death camps--they were completely secret to anyone until very late in the war, when the Allies stumbled upon them. Even if we accept the premise that a population can be complicit in the crimes of its government (especially dubious for a non-democratic one), the German population was not fully aware of what was going on.

    I'm not referring to the death camps, I'm referring to shrugging off everything that happened in the decade leading up to them:

    https://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

    Actually a pretty chilling excerpt given our own situation. It's a portion of a book the author wrote when interviewing Germans many years after the war. It's what happens when the population purposefully buries their head in the sand, either because they weren't mentally capable of confronting it, or didn't want to bother. Maybe NO population of people could have responded better. But we'll never know.
    "And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
    This does sound familiar to contemporary America.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,457

    LadyRhian said:

    1 minute.

    I know all the "moment of silence" I've ever personally been present for have NEVER been as long as a minute. They are perhaps 10-15 seconds.

    There's 31,536,000 seconds in a standard year. So, a year for every 5 seconds to the victims of the Holocaust, give or take a few.

    Because of a link @jjstraka34 linked re: reparations, a quote in there was that an Israeli (I think it was Menachem Begin) would rather have one dead German for every dead Jew for reparations, rather than money.

    I looked it up, and Germany lost about 2 million civilians and about 3.75-4 million armed forces personnel, though the numbers are very "unreliable", depending on whose numbers you want to go with and how you define the losses, the totals could go as low as 4 million or over 12 million.
    Traditionally a moment related to the movement of a shadow on a medieval sundial. There were 40 of those in an hour, so on average a moment was 90 seconds (that varied by season).

    The generally recognized figure for holocaust victims is 6m for the Jews. However, there were also considerable numbers of other victims that went through exactly the same process of transportation and execution in the death camps and I think those have to be counted - pushing the total to more like 11m. If you take a wider definition of those killed by the State the numbers go up a lot more. However, if we stick with 11m and multiply that by 90 seconds that would be equivalent to over 30 years of silence for the victims - time for plenty of sober reflection ...
  • AmmarAmmar Member Posts: 1,297
    Historians agree that a large number of Germans (at least one-third, probably significantly more) knew about the Holocaust, if not the exact details.

    I don't think it could have been kept more secret, the logistics involved were huge. Companies profited from the slave labor, there were many trains going back and forth, the army (the clean and honorable Wehrmacht is another popular myth) was heavily involved, ...
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    Ammar said:

    Historians agree that a large number of Germans (at least one-third, probably significantly more) knew about the Holocaust, if not the exact details.

    I don't think it could have been kept more secret, the logistics involved were huge. Companies profited from the slave labor, there were many trains going back and forth, the army (the clean and honorable Wehrmacht is another popular myth) was heavily involved, ...

    I remember reading an interview with a survivor a long time ago. I don't remember the exact words, but basically he was calling bullshit on the "Germans didn't know" myth. He said he was in hiding in '42 and he knew about the death camps. In the comic book Maus Speigelmann's father said the same thing about the Poles. He was passing as a Polish catholic and he knew early on what was happening at Auschwitz.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    That doesn't mean everyone or most people knew.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,964

    That doesn't mean everyone or most people knew.

    Indeed today a lot of people believe in some strange things. One would think everyone would know the Earth is round but nope some think it's disk shaped. Florida Man also has his own beliefs.
  • SorcererV1ct0rSorcererV1ct0r Member Posts: 2,176
    edited January 2019
    Even if the average German knew. What he can do? What the average Russian could do against Holodomor? What the average British could do against the treatment of Indians?

    Remember, thanks to FDR, only an unconditional surrender will be accepted, even an Coup d'état will not solve the problem. Note that some German soldiers surrendered to US and was send to USSR and USSR treated then pretty badly.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    Perhaps the difference is between "knowing" and "acknowledging"? You can know something without saying to yourself, "Yes, this is happening..."
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    For all intents and purposes, Germany basically declared war on the entire rest of the world within a few year time span.
  • SorcererV1ct0rSorcererV1ct0r Member Posts: 2,176

    For all intents and purposes, Germany basically declared war on the entire rest of the world within a few year time span.

    Was the German government. And most German officials opposed the decision to invade Russia. Hitler stopped listening to his Generals and insisted in a two front war.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694

    For all intents and purposes, Germany basically declared war on the entire rest of the world within a few year time span.

    Was the German government. And most German officials opposed the decision to invade Russia. Hitler stopped listening to his Generals and insisted in a two front war.
    Sounds like our own Orange Julius 45.
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    LadyRhian said:

    Perhaps the difference is between "knowing" and "acknowledging"? You can know something without saying to yourself, "Yes, this is happening..."

    Shoah has quite a few scenes dedicated to interviewing non-Jewish residents that lived near concentration camps. It's pretty stunning how some of them rationalize (probably without even meaning to) what happened. You see a lot of people that wind up almost blaming the Jews and telling unflattering tales of them from before the holocaust as some kind of mental gymnastics to avoid feeling bad/responsible for what happened (For the record - I'm not saying they were responsible. It's murkier than that).
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850

    LadyRhian said:

    Perhaps the difference is between "knowing" and "acknowledging"? You can know something without saying to yourself, "Yes, this is happening..."

    Shoah has quite a few scenes dedicated to interviewing non-Jewish residents that lived near concentration camps. It's pretty stunning how some of them rationalize (probably without even meaning to) what happened. You see a lot of people that wind up almost blaming the Jews and telling unflattering tales of them from before the holocaust as some kind of mental gymnastics to avoid feeling bad/responsible for what happened (For the record - I'm not saying they were responsible. It's murkier than that).
    In 1985, Roger Ebert called Shoah "one of the noblest films ever made". However, at nearly 10 hours in length, most will never sit through it. As recently as a few years ago, I know the whole thing was on Youtube. Here is his original review:

    https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shoah-1985
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694

    Marxism and the race problem

    https://urpe.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/marxism-and-the-race-problem/?fbclid=IwAR0PkTCw0vVSbQCtqe1wlIIvvUnBwmrOIoi2FfTgLiKKcMu6mirtI4F-938

    'Humanely euthanised': Roos to be killed to make way for development south of Perth

    https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/humanely-euthanised-roos-to-be-killed-to-make-way-for-development-south-of-perth-20190128-p50u4u.html?fbclid=IwAR3LI5KPeboif36SFB_bjmXyOiHAdocVr06wd-52am9FrCVczH6j4oMScvE

    ‘Disgusting’: Ex-Mountie who won first sexual harassment suit against the RCMP says little has changed

    https://globalnews.ca/news/4883775/rcmp-sexual-harassment-lawsuits/?utm_source=notification/

    Transgender youth more than 3 times as likely to attempt suicide; also report higher incidents of bullying, drug use, sexual assault

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/transgender-youth-times-attempt-suicide-report-higher-incidents/story?id=60616143&cid=social_fb_abcn

    U.S. Economy Lost An Estimated $6 Billion To Shutdown, S&P Says
    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-wall-shutdown-six-billion_us_5c4c957ce4b06ba6d3bd8d87?fbclid=IwAR0CDl0rnHmdgmk2BzF7rq-oHNT8reycDnjRqlEnFFkndJjLV1UIAPIC1HY

    Bill would make animal cruelty a federal felony

    https://www.wbtw.com/news/special-reports/bill-would-make-animal-cruelty-a-federal-felony/1732201620?fbclid=IwAR0x4U0MfGhMuBp8giMW92Qbs6H4ra0OJIeQ-YUuv_F_284Nofkt1eFgbas
    I approve.

    Holocaust Memorial Day: How the pink triangle became a symbol of gay rightsM/h2>
    https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/01/26/holocaust-memorial-day-pink-triangle/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Buffer&utm_campaign=PN&fbclid=IwAR1al5xniQGf5FYTA3gWZUWkaYe6j3f3H4ACr08aW6tFBLxV0rEInomq78s

    Authorities Warn People to ‘Bring Dogs Inside’ After Several Dogs Found Frozen Solid

    https://www.dogheirs.com/authorities-warn-dogs-freezing-to-death/?fbclid=IwAR0gBWsp1JuP26E1-tJnXakKsMIizbFuwComfIcZmgrsrI5Sgq4VDnwTyJs

    Church More Dangerous For Kids Than Transgender Bathrooms

    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2016/05/church-more-dangerous-for-kids-than-transgender-bathrooms/?fbclid=IwAR18_H8GkHWrVHv41MohPF_fi4-R11KrCb5jCAzRa7UriPn6Q3KTDUCnKiY
    A child is more likely to be molested at church than in a transgender-friendly bathroom.
    As the transgender bathroom hysteria rages across the nation, it is important to remember where the real danger is for children. And despite the hysteria, a church is much more dangerous for a child than a public bathroom.

    White Supremacist Pleads Guilty to NYC Sword Slaughter of Random Black Man

    https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/James-Jackson-Guilty-Sword-Attack-NYC-White-Black-Race-Kill-504737472.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_NYBrand&fbclid=IwAR2QhFiA-NH8_avSkIgcOtVKHWoODA-VrboNTWRVOpLMn0OyLhyMwp7erLs
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659



    In 1985, Roger Ebert called Shoah "one of the noblest films ever made". However, at nearly 10 hours in length, most will never sit through it. As recently as a few years ago, I know the whole thing was on Youtube. Here is his original review:

    https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shoah-1985

    That's a really good review of the documentary. It is over 9 hours long, and profoundly upsetting/difficult to watch. A few friends and myself watched it in 3 (or 4) sittings over about 5 months. Its also unique - a very personal work about something so terrible that almost every film/book/documentary doesn't want to addresss it in personal terms.

    I think just about everyone should watch it, and I would simultaneously blame no one for deciding not to put themselves through 9 hours of an emotional tempest.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited January 2019
    Donald Trump, he of "Two Corinthians" fame, is now advocating for teaching "biblical literacy" in schools. Maybe they can have a class about this passage:

    If a man commits adultery, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death- Leviticus 20:10

    Are we also going to have local schools with Koran and Vedas literacy?? Somehow I doubt it.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
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    Humboldt Broncos team bus hit semi running stop sign

    https://globalnews.ca/news/4897171/humboldt-broncos-bus-crash-sentencing-sidhu/?utm_source=notification/
    Whoever wrote that headline should lose their job. It makes it sound like the Team bus was at fault, when the first line of the article is, "The Humboldt Broncos team bus slammed into a semi-truck hauling peat moss at a rural intersection in eastern Saskatchewan on April 6, 2018, after the semi driver ran a stop sign."
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