I never said the eastern bloc nations denied the holocaust as such but they sort of twisted the facts of it to twist their own ideologies (i.e not emphasizing the particular anti semitic nature of it.)
At this point I have only a few questions about this whole holocaust business.
1. Were Jews the only ones targeted for the gas chambers? From what I understand there were no massive gas chambers at the concentration camps in Germany proper (Bergen Belsen,Dachau, Mauthausen etc.) Rather they were mainly in Aushwitz and other remote camps in eastern Poland.
Many people were targets of the holocaust (gays, Soviet POWS, Gypsies Jehovah's witnesses) but were Jews the only ones largely sent to gas chambers?
2. Why are there so many holocaust survivors? The people in those camps suffered horrendous conditions and were subjected to a genocidal regime. How did s many manage to live to tell the tale, and why did the Nazis permit any of them live to tell their tale to the liberators?
3. How did Soviet soldiers treat camp inmates? As we know the Soviet army largely behaved like the hordes of Genghis Khan when they were in Germany. Killing, pillaging and raping the whole live long day. Were they decent and humane to the inmates of Auswitz,Majdanek etc? I remember in Schindlers List the Soviet soldier on horseback told the inmates they were free and that was about it. Did they care for them or help them? For some reason I am having difficulty finding much info on it.
4. When did The Holocaust begin to be recognized in America? For some reason I don't think Holocaust remembrance day was celebrated in the immediate years after the war. It seems only in the past 40 years or so that many books, television programs and movies have been made about it.
In all the "post war" years I can think of perhaps three which touch on it: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) and the Sound of Music (1964.) (The last one dealt with potential Catholic victims of the Holocaust..a singing nun who cared for a gloomy and stern father of 8 (he must have had a nun fetish...the naughty man!) After being targeted only for being Catholic, the Von Trapp family had to flee to a convent and then to Switzerland to avoid the ever encompassing net of the SS.
I get the sense that in the aftermath of World War 2, people knew Hitler and the Nazis were evil, but had sort of a garbled understanding of why. Internet and television did not really exist then, so it would be difficult to really know about aushwitgz, gas chambers and 6 million dead. I think people knew about the camps, the medical experiments, shady rumors about lampshades and soap made from dead human beings, but did not have a whole ton of info on it otherwise.
I suppose with America's growing acceptance of multiculturalism, specific persecutions of people based on race or religion have just become much more important which explains a greater interest and platform in the Holocaust generally.
I may have said it before but I think its the defining "Bad" point in all human history. It is so because it utterly negated the idea that human societies become more humane the more knowledge and technology they accrue.
It is also sort of an eery indictment of western society including England and the USA, both back then and now. Hitler and the Nazis were shockingly unoriginal.
All they did was persecute the people that mainstream society already largely despised or did not care about. I honestly believe it could happen all over again in the USA or any western nation providing conditions were right, sad to say.
At this point I have only a few questions about this whole holocaust business.
1. Were Jews the only ones targeted for the gas chambers? From what I understand there were no massive gas chambers at the concentration camps in Germany proper (Bergen Belsen,Dachau, Mauthausen etc.) Rather they were mainly in Aushwitz and other remote camps in eastern Poland.
Many people were targets of the holocaust (gays, Soviet POWS, Gypsies Jehovah's witnesses) but were Jews the only ones largely sent to gas chambers?
2. Why are there so many holocaust survivors? The people in those camps suffered horrendous conditions and were subjected to a genocidal regime. How did s many manage to live to tell the tale, and why did the Nazis permit any of them live to tell their tale to the liberators?
3. How did Soviet soldiers treat camp inmates? As we know the Soviet army largely behaved like the hordes of Genghis Khan when they were in Germany. Killing, pillaging and raping the whole live long day. Were they decent and humane to the inmates of Auswitz,Majdanek etc? I remember in Schindlers List the Soviet soldier on horseback told the inmates they were free and that was about it. Did they care for them or help them? For some reason I am having difficulty finding much info on it.
4. When did The Holocaust begin to be recognized in America? For some reason I don't think Holocaust remembrance day was celebrated in the immediate years after the war. It seems only in the past 40 years or so that many books, television programs and movies have been made about it.
In all the "post war" years I can think of perhaps three which touch on it: The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) and the Sound of Music (1964.) (The last one dealt with potential Catholic victims of the Holocaust..a singing nun who cared for a gloomy and stern father of 8 (he must have had a nun fetish...the naughty man!) After being targeted only for being Catholic, the Von Trapp family had to flee to a convent and then to Switzerland to avoid the ever encompassing net of the SS.
I get the sense that in the aftermath of World War 2, people knew Hitler and the Nazis were evil, but had sort of a garbled understanding of why. Internet and television did not really exist then, so it would be difficult to really know about aushwitgz, gas chambers and 6 million dead. I think people knew about the camps, the medical experiments, shady rumors about lampshades and soap made from dead human beings, but did not have a whole ton of info on it otherwise.
I suppose with America's growing acceptance of multiculturalism, specific persecutions of people based on race or religion have just become much more important which explains a greater interest and platform in the Holocaust generally.
I may have said it before but I think its the defining "Bad" point in all human history. It is so because it utterly negated the idea that human societies become more humane the more knowledge and technology they accrue.
It is also sort of an eery indictment of western society including England and the USA, both back then and now. Hitler and the Nazis were shockingly unoriginal.
All they did was persecute the people that mainstream society already largely despised or did not care about. I honestly believe it could happen all over again in the USA or any western nation providing conditions were right, sad to say.
