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posted by
lovelyladymonk
on January 27, 2007 at 7:21 AM
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Sometimes for generations "good and honest" citizens in society will behave
the silent majority. They won't dare to voice secret feelings and hatred, thier deeply hidden racism, except to whisper it to their children and grandchildern so that later in life the seed may take root.
Only if and when something like Nazi Germany or any other race loathing regime gains power, only then will they applaud. Still perhaps silently, still perhaps never doing more than to whisper in their homes, but they will make sure they do nothing to stop what is happening. Yes, eventually the evil of Nazi Germany became too big and horrendous for people to ignore, while at the same time it became too powerful and you risked death if you held your hand out to a fellow human being in need. But long before this people quietly applauded and hoped the Jews would finally realise how truly hated and despised they were...may be still are.
posted by
Kabu
on January 26, 2007 at 3:28 PM
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TAPS again
I think I'm correct in saying that the Nazi Einsatzgruppen had attached to their units about 5,000 Hiwis. These were White Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians and others.
All these men themselves came from countries where anti-Semitism was rife and rabid.
While the Germans looked on approvingly, local anti-semites in Vilnius, Lithuania, beat 2,000 Jews to death in a public square, with clubs, axes, pickaxes, spades, you name it.
Oh yes, the Nazis had their enthusiastic collaborators.
At the end of this story, I think I'll do a post on the German Police Battalions ; all of whom, and I mean all were enthusistic, volunteer killers. These weren't sadist in the normal sense of that word, but they killed because they liked doing it
posted by
ariel70
on January 26, 2007 at 2:14 PM
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Ariel
Its hard to understand how could anyone hate that much to collaborate in such a thing.
posted by
TAPS.
on January 26, 2007 at 2:05 PM
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taps
Sad to say, most Poles knew very well what was going on, and it really does grieve me to say it, so very many of them collaborated enthusiastically with the Nazi death squads.
It was of course, carefully designed policy to keep the Jews in the dark as to what was about to happen to them. In my exhaustive reearches into the subject, I was constantly amazed at how sucessful this policy was.
Time after time, one reads that even the new arrivals at the death camps did not believe that the smoke coming from the chimneys was from their families.
In later parts, you will see the savagery and the sublime beauty of character of the Jews' Polish Christian neighbours
This story may well offend those in here with German or Polish ancestors, but the truth must be told as it was ; not as we would wish it to be.
And in any case, we have no complicity in the evils committed by our forbears, hence no guilt on our part is necessary
posted by
ariel70
on January 26, 2007 at 1:57 PM
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ariel70
Both the Jews and the gentiles of Poland must have been existing in a state of denial. In the face of the overwhelming evidence, it is hard to understand how one could deny the reality, the seriousness of what was going on, or in the case of the non-Jews deny responsibility. Yet, grief usually begins with denial and people work through it differently. There must have been enormous amounts of guilt felt on all sides. "If only I had..........."
posted by
TAPS.
on January 26, 2007 at 1:45 PM
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