The HolocaustFollow

What's wrong with what he said? There were collaborators. There were people who kinda sorta in the back of their minds didn't mind seeing the Jews carted away. There were many, many people who knew what was happening at death camps and said nothing and did nothing.

I prefer to believe that most of them were frightened. I know that some of them were simply indifferent. I don't see a big problem with acknowledging that.

Evil happens everywhere because it is allowed to happen everywhere. Is it that shocking to hear someone say that out loud?

I was pointing out the grammatical errors in a "serious" petition made by someone who is apparently from America. Chicago, I guess.

Since it's referring to more than one thing, it'd be "were not" and "accomplices".



Edit:
Double thought there. Should stop reading forums while watching Shield.

Edited, Apr 21st 2015 9:44pm by TirithRR

I didn't miss it. I was replying to it before you changed it. It originally said "How would you have written it" or something along those lines.

Edit:
How does making it grammatically incorrect make it "more real"?

Edited, Apr 21st 2015 9:46pm by TirithRR

I don't see where he mentioned the Polish government. I took it to mean everyday people who saw what was happening and failed to act.

Well, you're going to get one. I know you have no faith in anyone else's honesty, and that's one reason you're so angry; but some of us do believe in self examination.

When I was a kid I asked my mom about the death camps, about when people knew and how much they knew. The information was there, in the papers, but nobody was saying much about it, as she remembered. Maybe she was somewhat shielded by the grownups. But people knew that bad stuff was happening; the focus was just on winning the war and then dealing with whatever the Germans had been doing. There wasn't, or the perception was that there wasn't, much political leverage to use against a country with whom we were nearly and then actually at war.

I asked her about the internment camps here, when everyone of Japanese ancestry was hauled away not, as far as anyone could tell from a distance, unlike the Jews. Not a lot of white people protested that action, and a lot of them snapped up property that their neighbors and erstwhile friends had to abandon. That she did remember, and although she quoted the party line at first (national security, an atmosphere of fear so intense as to be irrational), she did admit to being uneasy and, when the details came out, ashamed.

Americans don't have a stellar record of peaceful co-existence with those we regard as too different. We've committed, or tried to commit, genocide twice (three times if you count the Chinese who immigrated here, and I tend to) and internment without proof of cause twice, all based on race. So when I say the real shame is in ordinary citizens who see what's happening and either do nothing or take advantage of the situation, I'm saying that I think the people of Poland and the Czech Republic and the Netherlands behaved like Americans. Like people do.

What would I have done? I like to think I would have spoken out, about any of the situations I mentioned. I have, in my life, protested what I considered to be injustice, to draw attention and hopefully embarrass the government enough to effect some change. That happened after protests became somewhat acceptable, though. In the decades after the war, possibly because of the war, the world changed and people stopped accepting what their governments did quite as easily as they had before. Very few had the nerve to speak out before, and those that did paid in various ways. Very few protested at the treatment of native Americans or the Chinese or the Japanese. There were more who protested against slavery, who agitated against it; but that was a situation that lasted for decades before any protest happened. There was no Horace Greeley at the Constitutional Convention, arguing passionately that freedom applies to all or none. There was debate, and then there was a decision - a consensus - to allow the subjugation of other human beings to continue.

What would I have done? Not much, probably. A sternly worded letter, maybe, or an overwrought novel. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be aware. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better. If we don't face our mistakes and try to do better, what do we have of any worth?

In the past, cheap cotton, now, cheap oil.

If you're looking to get your hoo-rah on over your Polish heritage, try picking a time period where your country didn't get partitioned (it's hard, I know). The relief of the siege of Vienna, maybe. Something with a bit of hussar in it.

I know, I waxed gbajish on it.

Glitch in the Matrix.

So is this thread like... a Polish version of Sweet Home Alabama, or something?

SpoilerIn Birmingham there was a Governor...

The story goes:

Neil Young made a song called, "Southern Man". Which had lyrics chiding southern folk about slavery and treatment of blacks.

Lynyrd Skynyrd made the song "Sweet Home Alabama" which had some lyrics referring to the "Southern Man" song and Neil Young. Including the line "In Birmingham there was they love a Governor, (boo, boo, boo). Now we all did what we could do." Implying that the people in the south didn't really want to treat blacks so badly, it was all the guy in charge's fault.

Edit:
So apparently I don't remember it well. *shrug*. See Samira.

Edited, Apr 22nd 2015 8:22pm by TirithRR