You wrote:
“And deservedly so. Your comment might have been made in innocence, but it was also made in ignorance.”
No, not at all. I know a good deal about the subject actually.
“Nonsense. No Jew or Jewish organization (Simon Wiesenthal Foundation, YIVO, etc.) has ever claimed that only Jews suffered or that non-Jews were not also marked for extermination by the Nazis.”
That isn’t the issue in itself. What many eastern Europeans resent is the idea that the non-Jews are forgotten while today’s Jews promote Holocaust awareness - meaning really the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust.
“What irks many is that it has been mainly Jews and Jewish organizations that have researched these atrocities, published scholarly books and articles about them, pointed accusatory fingers at collaborators, and taken the dangerous step of hunting Nazis (including kidnapping them, if necessary) in order to bring them to justice. If you know of any homosexual organizations, or Gypsy organization that have done anything similar to this, please let me know.”
For obvious reasons homosexuals and Gypsies would have less reason or ability to do all of those things. Homosexuals would not want to expose themselves as such. Gypsies were dirt poor and scattered throughout Eastern Europe and never ended up with either a large immigration to the US or a newly founded Gypsy homeland.
“Baloney. Anyone interested in the subject can easily learn this.”
CAN learn it. Most people don’t know it. I know they CAN learn it with effort, but they don’t already KNOW it even though they are all but guaranteed to KNOW six million Jews died. Your choice of “can” instead of “know” proves my point. Even you have admitted that they don’t know it already. Everyone already knows about the six million Jewish dead.
“That it has not penetrated into popular consciousness is due precisely to what I mentioned above: to my knowledge, no homosexual or Gypsy has bothered to inform the public.”
What? You think the 5 million non-Jews killed were all gays and Gypsies? Are you insane? Also, most of us learned about the 6 million Jews from TV, school textbooks, an endless series of films, etc. We did not learn about it because of a Jewish organization per se. What you are proposing - that Jews have deliberately organized and “penetrated into popular consciousness” with their or their ancestors suffering is exactly what the bishop was talking about. You’re making it sound like propaganda (and I don’t mean untruthful propaganda either). And I think that’s what the bishop was getting at. You’re just proving my point.
“Why is it the fault of Jews that the proverbial man-in-the-street might not know about the attempted Nazi extermination of homosexuals, Gypsies, Slavs, and Freemasons? Why is this not the fault of surviving homosexuals, Gypsies, Slavs, and Freemasons?”
Oh, so justice has nothing to do with anything? It’s all about organizing and penetrating the popular culture with the best propaganda rather than telling the full truth of what happened to everyone? Thanks again for proving my point. Remember, the bishop said:
“It is not right to expropriate that tragedy for propaganda,” Pieronek was quoted as saying, adding that memorial days should be held for the “victims of communism, for Catholics, for persecuted Christians and so on.”
He continued: “But they, the Jews, enjoy good press because they have powerful financial means behind them, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the United States and this favors a certain arrogance that I find unbearable.”
You seem to be actually leaning toward those points - except instead of “powerful financial means behind them” you say “organization”.
“The reason Jews have concentrated on the specific Jewish experience with Nazism is because Jews in Germany were an integral part of German and European culture and were already noted for cultural achievements in medicine, music, philosophy, mathematics, etc., etc. and who fought patriotically for the Fatherland during WWI. Jews — not homosexuals — were (and still are) recognized as a unified culture, a “people.” Not so for homosexuals. Gypsies, indeed, are a people, but with a connection to European cultural achievements in art and science that were (and are) considered very different from that of Jews.”
Why EXACTLY are you fixated on homosexuals and Gypsies? I mentioned them perhaps but the bishops said much more. You are deliberately reducing the 5 million to gays and Gypsies (and to a lesser extent Slavs, and Freemasons).
“The Polish bishop also conveniently forgets that there was a great deal of Polish complicity with the SS Einsatzgruppen (mobile death squads) that would follow on the heels of the Wermacht as it blitzkrieged through town after town in eastern Europe, round up all the Jews and either shoot them outright, or poison them with carbon monoxide in special vans motorized vans.”
Uh, no. There can be no doubt that the Einsatzgruppen killed some Jews in Poland, perhaps 500,000 by mid-1941, but the mass killings of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen were mostly used in the USSR to slaughter Jews. In Poland they were as much used to kill Poles as Jews and the Poles did not help them accomplish this to any great extent. The Poles, in fact, except for small acts of informing on Jews, participated in the Holocaust less than other Eastern European peoples such as the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, some Russians, etc.
“Millions of Jews were murdered this way, as opposed to dying in camps. Jewish homes and wealth were then expropriated, often by local Poles. This is not even controversial scholarship today, and has all been documented by academic scholars such as Raul Hilberg, as well as by the French documentary filmmaker Claude Lanzmann in his 9-hour documentary “Shoah.” I recommend you see it; you’ll learn a lot and it may stop you from making foolish “flame-worthy” statement later on.”
I’ve seen the documentary. I saw it in the 1980s. And it changes nothing I’ve said. In fact nothing I have said disagrees with the documentary.
“The idea that SS Einsatzgruppen murdered millions of homosexuals in homosexual villages and towns across Eastern Europe in an attempt to erase a long-standing homosexual culture intertwined with the evolution of western civilization is ludicrous.”
Who ever suggested that there were homosexual villages? Who? Show me where I suggested that? Is that what the bishop said? No. I can see your desperation here. For you to go to those lengths - suggesting that I said there were homosexual villages where “millions” of homosexuals were murdered is so idiotic that quite frankly I can’t help but conclude you’re a moron. Are you really that desperate that you have to make up such an outrageous lie?
“You can replace “homosexual” with “Gypsy” and “Freemason” and it will be just as ludicrous.”
Yes, it is ludicrous - and no one suggested it except you. I mentioned that we sometimes hear about homosexual and Gypsy victims. They made up only a small portion of the 5 million victims who were not Jewish. I never suggested - nor did the bishop - that anything approaching your idiotic statement.
“Jews — not homosexuals, not Gypsies — were singled out for special treatment in propaganda attacks.”
Actually they were singled out but Jews - being much more numerous and feared and hated most were especially made the object of propaganda. The Nazis considered this necessary because the German Jews would have to be alienated in Germany itself before they could be exterminated.
“There are many extant examples of Nazi-era high-school physics textbooks that would ask students questions such as these: “If a Jew weighing 80 kilograms is hanging by the neck on a gallows, what is the tension on the rope? Draw a force diagram.” Julius Streicher made a special point of attacking Jews in “Der Sturmer”, not Gypsies or homosexuals.”
Uh, actually to Streicher, to the Jews and Gypsies were analogous sub-humans: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds5.htm
Streicher of course focused on Jews more than Gypsies, but he certainly degraded Gypsies often enough.
“Goebbels approved the making of a film called “Die Ewige Jude” (”The Eternal Jew”) in which Jews were likened to rats infesting a city; an infestation requiring extermination by poison gas. Jews were also attacked by a revival of an old Czarist-era anti-Semitic tract called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in which Jews were seen as acting in concert to take over the world through an international conspiracy of bankers and media moguls. I know of no similar tract accusing homosexuals or Gypsies of attempt to “take over the world.” I know of no similar event against homosexuals or Gypsies as the notorious “Kristallnacht.””
Why would there have to be? Both Gypsies and homosexuals were looked down upon already by most people in society. There was already anti-semitic sentiment in Germany but not enough to allow the killing of huge numbers of people. That’s why the Nazis had to produce their propaganda against the Jews to excite such hatred and loathing. That was not necessary against the Gypsies and homosexuals because they were already thought of as outsiders or sick. And none of those points you just made changes what I said or even comes close to refuting it. I said: “5,000,000 non-Jews died in the Holocaust and almost no one knows it.” All you’re doing is proving it bu going on and on about Nazi moves against Jews.
Now, you can continue being an idiot and making false claims that someone here suggested there were millions of homosexuals murdered in villages. The truth is that there were 5 million people - of all backgrounds - who were murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis that have largely been forgotten by the world while we all know about the 6 million Jews.
“I’m not claiming homosexuals and Gypsies weren’t made to suffer under the Nazis; I’m saying that I know of no similar action against them.”
And again, why would there have to be on the part of the Nazis when they could accomplish what they wanted without doing that?
“Instead of asking “Why didn’t Spielberg include equal time for homosexuals and Gypsies in ‘Schindler’s List’” it would be more productive to ask “Where are the films by homosexual filmmakers in Hollywood (there are many) about the suffering of homosexuals under Nazism? Where are the Gypsy filmmakers making films about the extermination of Gypsies during WWII?””
I’m sorry but that’s another idiotic statement. What Gypsy film makers? How many are in Hollywood? Seriously, can you name more than a few? Can you name any? The better question might be, “Why is it that Hollywood makes film after film about Nazis murdering Jews but laregly ignores the 5 million non-Jews?” I think that those who make films in Hollywood are simply not interested in making films about Christians be slaughtered by Nazis. They want to keep up the idea that Nazis and Christians were all but one in the same. Hollywood produces Holocaust films every few years if not every year. Whose story are they telling? Whose story are they not telling?
They want to keep up the idea that Nazis and Christians were all but one in the same.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I sense that there is a profound hatred of Christians by those in the highest levels of the film industry. And...I do think you have made a valid point. It does seem that they wish to create the idea that Nazis and Christians are the same.
Actually, no, you don't. You have a very superficial knowledge of it, based mainly on popular culture. You're also anti-Semitic, but that's another issue.
"What many eastern Europeans resent is the idea that the non-Jews are forgotten while today’s Jews promote Holocaust awareness - meaning really the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust."
Only eastern European anti-Semites harbor this resentment. Those who aren't blinded by bias, and who learn a little about the issue soon learn that even old books on the Holocaust, such as "The Destruction of the European Jews" by Raul Hilberg (1961) mentions other groups -- especially "Poles", "Slavs", and "Gypsies" -- many times.
"For obvious reasons homosexuals and Gypsies would have less reason or ability to do all of those things. Homosexuals would not want to expose themselves as such. Gypsies were dirt poor and scattered throughout Eastern Europe and never ended up with either a large immigration to the US or a newly founded Gypsy homeland."
You've been asleep for the past 30 years. In all major cities in the U.S., as well as in Europe, there are gay parades, gay clubs, gay travel agencies, gay movie theaters, "gay pride" days, openly gay actors, openly gay political candidates, etc. Gays, in general, also have a well deserved reputation for being well educated and literate. They LOVE to expose themselves. But in any case, your general argument, vis-a-vis gays, is ridiculous: if, as you apparently believe, gays don't want to tell the story of gay-suffering from Nazi atrocities to the public at large for fear of outing themselves and risking social ostracism and discrimination, then they certainly won't appreciate having the story told for them, about them, by a third-party such as straight Jews…why would they accept the risk of being outed by Jews as their story of suffering is told to the public, but not accept the same risk from outing themselves? Your argument is silly and makes no sense.
Regarding Gypsies: The Nazis had no certain knowledge of where the Gypsies came from, but they did generally believe that Gypsies were "blood relatives" of the Jews. All the more reason to exterminate them.
"CAN learn it. Most people don’t know it."
Most Americans don't know English grammar or trigonometry. So what. Nothing stands in the way of their learning anything except their own laziness or just plain lack of interest. You're lazy too, as I'll show at the end of this post. If this obvious state of affairs bugs you, you should spend less time bitching about what "the Jews" ought to be doing to right yet another wrong that you accuse them of, and more time teaching the poor benighted public what you believe they ought to know about the Holocaust.
"I know they CAN learn it with effort, but they don’t already KNOW it even though they are all but guaranteed to KNOW six million Jews died. "
Nonsense. Many were never even taught that. As many pundits pointed out, part of the significance of "Schindler's List" was that it introduced the whole idea of the "Six Million" to many Americans who really had no idea about anything regarding WWII or the Holocaust.
"Your choice of “can” instead of “know” proves my point. Even you have admitted that they don’t know it already. "
Wrong. I never "admitted" that they, in fact, did NOT know this. I made NO assumptions. I merely said that the information is out there; there's no censorship; and they are free to learn it, study it, criticize it, etc. on their own.
"Everyone already knows about the six million Jewish dead."
Except for those who do not.
"What? You think the 5 million non-Jews killed were all gays and Gypsies? "
I also never said that. You mentioned groups that had special significance for the Nazis as being sought out for extermination. Jews, Slavs, Poles, homosexuals, Gypsies.
"Are you insane?"
Why else would I waste precious time replying to an ignorant nitwit like you?
"Also, most of us learned about the 6 million Jews from TV, school textbooks, an endless series of films, etc. "
That's odd. That's where I first learned that Gypsies, homosexuals, communists, and the incurably ill had been slated for extermination: TV, school textbooks, and an endless series of films, etc. I guess you had lousy teachers. Sorry.
"“It is not right to expropriate that tragedy for propaganda,” Pieronek was quoted as saying, adding that memorial days should be held for the “victims of communism, for Catholics, for persecuted Christians and so on.”"
The bishop sounds almost as anti-Semitic as you. For a Jewish filmmaker, e.g., to tell a tragedy from a POINT OF VIEW, in which there is a focus on one major group -- the Jews -- with peripheral mention of the suffering of other groups, is not "expropriating" the tragedy. The good bishop probably just has a tin ear for storytelling. He confuses "telling a story from a point of view" with "reciting a dry chronicle of facts." I'm sure there's a place for the latter…it just happens NOT to be in a movie theatre.
"He continued: “But they, the Jews, enjoy good press because they have powerful financial means behind them, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the United States and this favors a certain arrogance that I find unbearable.”
You seem to be actually leaning toward those points - except instead of “powerful financial means behind them” you say “organization”."
Ah, the old "Jewish Financial conspiracy" bullshit. Tell me, uh, Vlad, do you and the bishop also believe in the old "blood libel" accusation against Jews? Do you believe that Jews sacrifice Christian babies in order to drink their blood over Passover? Just wondering. You and the bishop sound more and more like garden variety kooks.
"Why EXACTLY are you fixated on homosexuals and Gypsies? "
Why EXACTLY are you and that moronic bishop fixated on Jews?
"I mentioned them perhaps …"
You did not merely "mention" them.
"but the bishops said much more. You are deliberately reducing the 5 million to gays and Gypsies (and to a lesser extent Slavs, and Freemasons)."
Seems to me the bishop has said pretty much what you have said, and both of you have said very little. Summary: Jews "expropriated" the Holocaust by focusing on Jewish suffering, with only peripheral mentions of other groups singled out for extermination. Since the Jews are rich, powerful, and get everything they want from the even richer and more powerful United States, it behooves Jews NOT to tell the story of the Holocaust from a uniquely Jewish perspective (because such insistence on this perspective "annoys" east Europeans and Polish bishops who, for some reason, cannot or will not tell the story of the Holocaust from a perspective that they prefer), but to recite as a dry chronicle, every single group -- indeed, every individual -- who died from Nazi atrocities." That about sums up your position and the bishop's.
"Uh, no. There can be no doubt that the Einsatzgruppen killed some Jews in Poland, perhaps 500,000 by mid-1941, "
Um, "SOME Jews in Poland" = half a million?
By the end of the war, about 3 million Polish Jews had been killed (by Einsatzgruppen and extermination camps), plus another million Jews shipped to Poland from Greece, France, etc.
Einsatzgruppen wreaked havoc and terror on the road to the USSR during Barbarossa: The Baltic States, the "buffer territories", and Polish territory. Split-offs of Einsatzgruppen, called Einsatzkommandos -- specifically Einsatzkommandos C and D -- made much territory Judenfrei in Hungary and Romania -- as I said earlier, "Eastern Europe", and not just the USSR.
"but the mass killings of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen were mostly used in the USSR to slaughter Jews. In Poland they were as much used to kill Poles as Jews and the Poles did not help them accomplish this to any great extent. "
Your history is weak. See above. Einsatzgruppen were dispatched specifically to clear out Jews from territory. True, that didn't stop them from having fun with clearing out "Partisans", communists, and others. However, it is indisputable that the Einsatzgruppen were created specifically for the destruction of Jews. You're simply inventing facts if you claim that Jews were just "one of many" groups singled out by these killing units. Inventing facts…or in denial.
"The Poles, in fact, except for small acts of informing on Jews, participated in the Holocaust less than other Eastern European peoples such as the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, some Russians, etc."
Good, so you admit that Poles were complicit in the Holocaust (the bit about the Ukrainians and Lithuanians was meant as mere distraction from the point at issue: Polish complicity.)
"I’ve seen the documentary. I saw it in the 1980s. And it changes nothing I’ve said. In fact nothing I have said disagrees with the documentary."
You haven't openly disagreed with the documentary; you've merely left out many facts that the film brings up…such as Polish complicity with the mobile killing units.
"Who ever suggested that there were homosexual villages? Who? Show me where I suggested that? Is that what the bishop said? "
Talk about a tin ear! I was making a point: the SCALE of Nazi aggression against Jews was far larger than Nazi aggression against Gypsies and gays precisely because there were whole villages of Jews who were massacred; whereas there were NOT whole villages of homosexuals; THEREFORE, you cannot compare the fate of homosexuals during WWII with the fate of the Jews. Nazis weren't interested in exterminating "homosexual culture" because there was no such thing as a uniquely "homosexual culture"; whereas there certainly was such a thing as "Jewish culture" and the Nazis were certainly interested in exterminating it. It's stupid to say that these are commensurate.
"I mentioned that we sometimes hear about homosexual and Gypsy victims. They made up only a small portion of the 5 million victims who were not Jewish. "
And that, of course, is the significance. The 5 million you speak of were heterogeneous: gays, Gypsies, communists, partisans, Freemasons, liberals, etc. The other 6 million were homogeneous: all Jews. That rather proves that the Nazis considered the first group as generic "political enemies" (with the possible exception of the Gypsies, whom they considered to be related biologically to Jews); while they considered the second group to be a much greater biological, evolutionary, or some sort of "metaphysical" threat to the German people, and even to civilization as such. Jews were accused of destroying the German "Volk's" very relationship to "the German soil." "Streicher of course focused on Jews more than Gypsies, but he certainly degraded Gypsies often enough."
As I pointed out above, many Nazis considered them to be biologically related.
"Both Gypsies and homosexuals were looked down upon already by most people in society. There was already anti-semitic sentiment in Germany but not enough to allow the killing of huge numbers of people." There was already anti-gay and anti-Gypsy sentiment in Germany, but not enough to allow the killing of huge numbers of people. If a mass-distributed feature film was necessary to help incite murderous rage against Jews, we would expect something similar for these other groups, too. Odd that we don't find it. Odd that you overlook that fact.
"That’s why the Nazis had to produce their propaganda against the Jews to excite such hatred and loathing. That was not necessary against the Gypsies and homosexuals because they were already thought of as outsiders or sick." You don't know what you're talking about. Gays had huge acceptance by intellectuals and urban dwellers as part of the counter-culture movement in the 1920s. Many of the intellectuals and artists were themselves homosexual…in fact, some later renounced their homosexuality (or put it back in the closet) and embraced Nazism later on.
"And none of those points you just made changes what I said or even comes close to refuting it. I said: “5,000,000 non-Jews died in the Holocaust and almost no one knows it.” All you’re doing is proving it bu going on and on about Nazi moves against Jews."
I'm saying that you're full of shit and have ZERO proof that "almost no one knows it" except for the ravings of a typical anti-Semitic Polish bishop. Big deal.
"The truth is that there were 5 million people - of all backgrounds - who were murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis that have largely been forgotten by the world while we all know about the 6 million Jews." I have seen no evidence that these heterogeneous 5 million have been "forgotten by the world" -- after all, you seem to know all about them, so somehow you and the bishop escaped the fate of ignorance that you claim the rest of the world has suffers under -- except for an arbitrary assertion by you and a silly old anti-Semitic bishop. Do you have any proof? Does he? We're waiting.
"I’m sorry but that’s another idiotic statement. What Gypsy film makers? "
Well, that's precisely the question, now, isn't it? Since there are no Gypsy "intellectuals"; no Gypsy filmmakers; no Gypsy Nobel Laureates in literature; no Gypsy historians; no Gypsy "talk radio personalities"; no Gypsy ANYONE who can chronicle the story of the Gypsies, especially about a moment in history when their very biological existence was jeopardized, why is it the responsibility of Jews -- who do have intellectuals and filmmakers and writers and historians and many storytellers transmitting cultural continuity to future generations -- to be neutral in regard to their own story during the Holocaust, and to chronicle fully the story of the Gypsies…and the gays…and the communists…and the Catholics…and the Freemasons…?
You know what? What you and the bishop in Poland really want is simply for the Jews to shut up and tell NO story about the Holocaust -- after all, if you don't like the story the Jews tell about themselves and the Nazis you can always shut the TV off, shut the radio off, and not see the latest Spielberg Holocaust movie. You're OK with gays and Gypsies for precisely that reason: they're silent about their own historical sufferings. "How many are in Hollywood? Seriously, can you name more than a few? Can you name any? "
Sure.
1. http://www.pacwashmetrodiv.org/projects/nazipers/ Nazi Persecution of Polish Christians (working title) - a two-hour documentary film-in-progress
2. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_11_123/ai_n16462618/ Theologians and Nazis
3. http://www.myspace.com/nygypsyfilmfestival New York Roma/Gypsy Human Rights Film Festival
4. http://www.preventgenocide.org/edu/pastgenocides/nazi/parajmos/resources/ Various books and other resources on Nazi persecution of Gypsies
5. http://www.questia.com/library/book/the-nazi-persecution-of-the-gypsies-by-guenter-lewy.jsp The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (book)
Etc. etc. Lots more out there on the Web, even after a quick search on Google. All you have to do is get up off your duff and do some research. I found 5 resources in two minutes; in two hours, I can find fifty. Perhaps, Vlad, your ignorance of these resources is caused by that same laziness that apparently causes the vast majority of people (so you claim) to be ignorant of those 5,000,000 non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
What do you think?