War and Peace

[MN Dave]

Some narrow-minded fanatics would, for sure.

Yes, well...

[Sean]

Hindus & Buddhists aren't in the Abrahamic tradition that refers to the old testament, so, though they should, nobody much cares because they don't understand about them.

[MishaK]

I think WWII had a clear moral winner: Poland. Attacked from three sides by the crushingly superior forces of Nazi Germany and Soviet Union (aided by tiny Slovakian forces), wiped off the map for the third or fourth time, suffering a devastating Nazi and Soviet occupation, abandoned shamefully by their British "allies" in the hands of the Soviets the Poles somehow managed to reborn from their ashes and are a hard nut to crack for Germany and Russia even today.

My hat off to Poland!

Poland cannot at all be considered a "clear moral winner" if you take into account how eagerly the Polish population assisted their German occupiers in exterminating the local Jews. They love shoving that part of their history under the rug.

[Florestan]

Poland cannot at all be considered a "clear moral winner" if you take into account how eagerly the Polish population assisted their German occupiers in exterminating the local Jews. They love shoving that part of their history under the rug.

Could you please provide some links or recommend some books about that?

[paulb]

Poland cannot at all be considered a "clear moral winner" if you take into account how eagerly the Polish population assisted their German occupiers in exterminating the local Jews. They love shoving that part of their history under the rug.

were they doing this more from a desire to escape the nazi killing machine by kissing butt, or did the polish really have this undercurrent of anti-semitism in their blood? Ora   mix of the 2.

[MishaK]

Could you please provide some links or recommend some books about that?

Can't do that in detail from where I am right now. But it is, for example, mentioned in passing in this article below (which is otherwise also interesting in context with the present discussion in this thread). Footnote 3 also provides info of documentation of one specific instance of Polish cooperation in the Holocaust:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21031#fn3

were they doing this more from a desire to escape the nazi killing machine by kissing butt, or did the polish really have this undercurrent of anti-semitism in their blood? Ora   mix of the 2.

Mainly the former, I'd say, though it is probably quite certainly somewhat of a mix. It has always been very puzzling to many why anti-semitism was institutionalized and turned into an overt extermination program in Germany first, when the Jews in Wilhelminian Germany had been the most enfranchised and assimilated, while popular anti-semitism was much stronger in Eastern Europe, which had had a history of pogroms and discrimination.

[Florestan]

Can't do that in detail from where I am right now. But it is, for example, mentioned in passing in this article below (which is otherwise also interesting in context with the present discussion in this thread). Footnote 3 also provides a link to documentation of one specific instance of Polish cooperation in the Holocaust:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21031#fn3

Thanks.

[Florestan]

In Eastern Europe there were four reasons. In the first place, the worst wartime crimes against the Jews were committed there; and although those crimes were sponsored by Germans, there was no shortage of willing collaborators among the local occupied nations: Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians, Croats, and others

That's true, of course. But some questions still remain. Was this a mass phenomenon or just local anomalies? Can the Polish people as a whole be held accountable for helping Germans to annihilate the Jews? What is the difference between comitting crimes under extreme physical and psychological stress and comitting crimes by one's own will or by inflicting that stress on others? Can we equate the executioner (Nazi Germany or Soviet Union) with his victims (Poles and Jews alike)?

(The article is excellent, though.)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

What is the difference between comitting crimes under extreme physical and psychological stress and comitting crimes by one's own will or by inflicting that stress on others? Can we equate the executioner (Nazi Germany or Soviet Union) with his victims (Poles and Jews alike)?

This moral question becomes even more acute in the thorny case of the 'Judenräte' (Jewish Councils) the Nazis set up in some occupied countries (Netherlands, Poland). These were organisations run by Jews who had, at first more or less unknowingly, to help at their own destruction. This was a classic case of 'divide and rule', because now Jews could accuse the (temporarily) more fortunate Jews for being deported.

[Florestan]

This moral question becomes even more acute in the thorny case of the 'Judenräte' (Jewish Councils) the Nazis set up in some occupied countries (Netherlands, Poland). These were organisations run by Jews who had, at first more or less unknowingly, to help at their own destruction. This was a classic case of 'divide and rule', because now Jews could accuse the (temporarily) more fortunate Jews for being deported.

Speaking of which, how about the "Jewish police" in the Warsaw ghetto, as pictured in "The Pianist"?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Speaking of which, how about the "Jewish police" in the Warsaw ghetto, as pictured in "The Pianist"?

Exactly, the hated, so-called 'Blue Police'.

[knight66]

Poland. Attacked from three sides by the crushingly superior forces of Nazi Germany and Soviet Union (aided by tiny Slovakian forces), wiped off the map for the third or fourth time, suffering a devastating Nazi and Soviet occupation, abandoned shamefully by their British "allies"

The UK used the invasion of Poland as it's Rubicon and seemingly then went into war, at least in part, to rescue Poland. After all the death and destruction, five years later Poland is traded away into darkness. Even at this distance in time, it makes me angry. After Churchill fought the concepts of appeasement for so long, he then appeased Stalin and by then he knew just the sort of person he was dealing with. It seems like the ultimate in betrayal. We went is to save them, then after all the struggle, we sacrificed them.

But there was so much exhaustion in Europe by then; it is difficult to put ourselves inside that situation and suggest we ought to have carried on and taken on Stalin, one of our supposed allies, and basically run the thing on for a few more years. I am not clear we would have had the resources to do it, or the resolve to make a full job of it.  

Mike

[Florestan]

But there was so much exhaustion in Europe by then; it is difficult to put ourselves inside that situation and suggest we ought to have carried on and taken on Stalin, one of our supposed allies, and basically run the thing on for a few more years. I am not clear we would have had the resources to do it, or the resolve to make a full job of it.  

That's of course only too true. Still, the Soviets were exhausted too and I wonder: had Churchill been more resolute and countered Stalin's maximalist claims with a resounding "No!" or at least "Not that much!", would the fate of Eastern Europe have been different? Just asking.

[knight66]

Yes, the imponderable what iffs. Easy for me to say, but I wish we would have tried.

Mike

[Ephemerid]

Speaking of which, how about the "Jewish police" in the Warsaw ghetto, as pictured in "The Pianist"?

I cannot recommend more highly Primo Levi's book, The Drowned and the Saved-- one of the best books by a holocaust survivor.  He refers to this as "the grey zone." 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I cannot recommend more highly Primo Levi's book, The Drowned and the Saved-- one of the best books by a holocaust survivor.  He refers to this as "the grey zone." 

I have it. Excellent book.

[Haffner]

And you call this a threat? 
By this logic, one could say that Hindus or Buddhists are also a threat to Christianity...

A real threat to Christianity was Islam, which at certain moments in history had the power either to conquer the Christendom or to force the conversions of whole Christian communities. The Jews never had neither the power nor the desire to do that.

I always wondered if the Jewish people kind of had to reject Chrsitianity, in a retaliatory, self-preserving manner...because Jesus basically cursed them (see the parable of the fig tree, and take note particularly the whole of the Gospel of John).

[Saul]

I am really a little helpless here. If I repeat the same point several times over but you keep ignoring it, what can I do? What Hitler and his friends embodied obviously went back a lot further than their contemporary political situation. It went back centuries, actually millenia. It wasn't anything new either. It was the same ages old claim for domination and superiority of some sort, racially, morally, religiously, whatever, the same kinds of mythological justifications that people have made up since before the dawn of times to group a following around themselves, head over to the next cave or country, smash those peoples' heads in and take their possessions. Or at least enslave them and rob them of their resources. The same kind of mindset that is behind colonialism, imperialism, or any other -ism or countless "religious" or "ideological" "crusades". Whatever the articular local and contemporary flavors of that particular ideological concoction were was just incidental and more or less irrelevant. Like any other ideologists, they just helped themselves to whatever elements seemed to serve the basic idea or purpose, whatever was the flavor of the day.

No, the German Nazi aggression and racial hatred towards people who are not German is not the same as other people's aggression to others. German racism was unique and different then other forms of Barbarism.

The atrocities carried out by the German Nazis are the worst kind of atrocities carried out ever by one group of people against another.

M, you attempt to level up German brutality with other nations' brutalities, and I will always catch you on this point and prove you wrong. Your attempts to diminish Nazi German barbarism will not be successful.

The only one the Germans have to blame for their dark history is themselves.

No one forced them to commit any crime, they chose to commit them.
And their crimes are the most horrific ever recorded in the history of man kind.

So Nazi Germany stands out as the most brutal and vicious dictatorial nation that committed the worst crimes against humanity in the history of the world.

[Haffner]

Here's a book that has caused alot of problems, especially for the author.

Mind you, I'm not particularly reccomending this book.

[MN Dave]

I always wondered if the Jewish people kind of had to reject Chrsitianity, in a retaliatory, self-preserving manner...because Jesus basically cursed them (see the parable of the fig tree, and take note particularly the whole of the Gospel of John).

Christianity was a tiny cult when it first appeared. Why would anyone care to or have to reject it?