Posted on 05/20/2009 6:59:19 PM PDT by wolf78
The Germans are responsible for the industrial-scale mass murder of 6 million Jews. But the collusion of other European countries in the Holocaust has received surprisingly little attention until recently. The trial of John Demjanjuk is set to throw a spotlight on Hitler's foreign helpers.
[...]
But it's already clear that this last big Nazi trial in Germany will be a deeply extraordinary one because it will for the first time put the foreign perpetrators in the spotlight of world publicity. They are men who have until now received surprisingly little attention -- Ukrainian gendarmes and Latvian auxiliary police, Romanian soldiers or Hungarian railway workers. Polish farmers, Dutch land registry officials, French mayors, Norwegian ministers, Italian soldiers -- they all took part in Germany's Holocaust.
Experts such as Dieter Pohl of the German Institute for Contemporary History estimate that more than 200,000 non-Germans -- about as many as Germans and Austrians -- "prepared, carried out and assisted in acts of murder." And often they were every bit as cold-blooded as Hitler's henchmen.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
The trial of John Demjanjuk is set to throw a spotlight on Hitler’s foreign helpers.
He will be dead before any trial actually starts.
Its ironic that a Spiegel, the German paper, has convicted Demjanjuk in the press after the Israeli Supreme Court already found him innocent of being at Sobibor (or any of the other camps in the indictment).
Yes, Germany - the same country that killed 9 million Ukrainians during WWII.
I think it is impossible to determine who went along willingly, who went along grudgingly and who quitely subverted the authorities. War is awful to the innocent who are forced to do horrible things to survive.
6 million Jews and 5 million others. Don’t forget the others.
Dr. Edmund Veesenmayer went out ahead to other countries to set up puppet regimes to facilitate partnerships with Hitler’s regime.
By that token, they couldn't have done it without the use of Jewish Kapos, are we going to lump them in there as well?
After this last big Nazi trial, perhaps the world can focus on the many more millions, Jews and other ethnics, that were murdered/killed by the Communists under Stalin's reign not only during the war but for many years thereafter. I'm searching my memory but I don't recall any headline grabbing trial of any Communist murderer.
There is no way the Germans killed 6 million Jews.
Maybe 1 million, but not 6.
Ukrainian gendarmes and Latvian auxiliary police, Romanian soldiers or Hungarian railway workers. Polish farmers, Dutch land registry officials, French mayors, Norwegian ministers, Italian soldiers -- they all took part in Germany's Holocaust.Hitler (Austrian, or half-Austrian, I forget), Himmler, and Eichmann brainstormed the idea, carried it out, recruited the first-line staff and network of informants, and used an IBM computer to coordinate the roundup.
A) American media routinely will refer to a defendent as a perpetrator, particularly if he is from the right...and last I checked, "Der Spiegal" was a private publication, not representing the German people. Are you asserting that Demjanjuk won't get a fair trial? If yes, on what basis?
B) Other than very old men of Demjanjuk's age, ALL THE GERMANS THAT PERPETRATED THE HOLOCAUST ARE DEAD.
C) To assert modern Germans are the same people as those ruled by the Nazis is absurd on its face--and frankly, ethnically bigoted.
D) You may as well say "poor blacks prove America is the same country that enslaved and oppressed people from Africa for centuries"...as your statement is the same non-nonsensical argument.
E) It is ironic in condemning modern, democratic, freedom loving, and peaceful Germany,(the best non-English speaking ally the USA has) you yourself exhibit the same sin as the Nazis: Ethnic prejudice and hatred.
Maybe 1 million, but not 6.
Been getting into Holocaust denial literature, have we?
Best estimates I've seen are that the Nazi regime purposely killed over 20 million civilians...of which 5 to 6 million were Jews. More Poles were killed than Jews, but, there were many fewer Jews too--but it is true that slavic peoples were all on the list too (after the Jews) for elimination by Hitler and his monsters.
For very well researched numbers from various democides*, check here: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
*"Democide" is a word coined for any and all purposeful murders of civilians by a government. This includes racially/ethnically motivated killings (genocide) and all other motivations.
Pat Buchanan, is that you?
You should go to Toledo..
IBM’s precursor to the computer, punch cards and sorters, the IBM Holleriths. No one realizes the infamous number tattooed on victoms arms corresponded to an IBM sorter card.
Wow - hold on there.
There were LOTS of innocents killed in WWII - about FIFTY million non-combat deaths.
Yes - that is right - FIFTY million innocent people killed and the big hit was in Poland and Ukraine with the greatest per cent of loss totalling about 17 million.
If you read the article at every paragraph, the writers acknowledge the Germans absolutely leading and key role. However, there ARE MANY documented accounts of how CERTAIN Latvians, Dutch, French, Ukrainians, etc. volunteered to brutalize and kill Jews—even though they were a minority in each of these places. Ukraine is acknowledged in the article as with people most reluctant to go along with the Final Solution....but only Denmark was solidly resistant. Some 92% of Denmark’s Jews survived the War—primarily through their being smuggled over to Sweden, or hidden by native Danes.
The primary point of the article is that how was it that even a few otherwise normal appearing and behaving non-Germans voluntarily participated in the Holocaust. Most of these people lived ordinary, non-sadistic lives before....and after the War (like Demjanjuk), so understanding the psychology of that time (an not just lazily, and prejudicially pretending it was just a “German thing”) is an important project.
As to Demjanjuk in particular? Modern German courts are as fair and careful as any in America. According to the article though, prosecutors have a ton of documentary evidence (and of such would not be easily available say, to a court in Israel). I believe only if the proof is solid, will Demjanjuk be convicted—and he’ll live his life out in a hospital anyway.
If however, as charged, Demjanjuk purposefully and willingly pushed thousands into their graves—I don’t care how old or sick the guy is, this needs to be proven and shown to the world—and he needs to be punished, if in nothing else but in reputation.
Anti-Semitism has a long (long) sordid history—all over the world—every country in Europe included. The Politically Correct idea that the Holocaust was just involving “those nasty Germans” (conveniently absolving all the rest of Europe) just doesn’t cut it any more.
Even in the USA, why was it that FDR didn’t allow in ships of Jewish refugees—sending them back to Europe? It’s well known that his class of elites were (and are?) seriously spiteful of Jews—even while he using them politically.
I’ve read stuff by Ollie North where he recounts while at the White House the serious anti-Semitic attitudes he found underneath the surface at the State Department...and this is not all that long ago.
I believe much (if not all) of the anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian rhetoric today on the left has one single motivation: Continued hatred of Jews, JUST for being Jewish.
“By that token, they couldn’t have done it without the use of Jewish Kapos, are we going to lump them in there as well?”
No we wont... and have not.
Unbelievably, leftist Jews need to make sure that Communist genocidal thugs are never punished and in fact, the Kapos (who were virulent bolshevics) allowed to walk by the same prosecutors in the Demjanjuk case.
In fact, the same prosecutors who let these admitted murderers walk actually destroyed evidence they knew would set Demjanjuk free - they chucked it in a McDonalds dumpster across the street from their offices.
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