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I lost my virginity after Caligula became emperor but I'm too much of a gentleman to say anything further.

Manchu wrote:I lost my virginity after Caligula became emperor but I'm too much of a gentleman to say anything further.

You too?

I see the last two have been eventful millennia indeed.

Polonius wrote:

Manchu wrote:I lost my virginity after Caligula became emperor but I'm too much of a gentleman to say anything further.

You too?

Man whores, the both of you.

I remember reading some Zionist article about how what they were doing and had done was ok according to the LoN.

Anyway, we digress.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:I remember reading some Zionist article about how what they were doing and had done was ok according to the LoN.

Anyway, we digress.

LoN?

GG

generalgrog wrote:

DeadlySquirrel wrote:I remember reading some Zionist article about how what they were doing and had done was ok according to the LoN.

Anyway, we digress.

LoN?

GG

League of Nations.

Sorry about that, I'm so used to writing that in history essays that I did it here too.

They let you write that way for a history essay?

Yeah, in the timed essays.

Oh that makes sense. Fortunately, I did mostly Chinese history so the names were quite short.

Polonius wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Glitch on one - Russian Jews (or I should say Soviet Jews), were actively slaughtered both in camps and "on site" as it were.

Oh, no doubt. But not as completely. Hardly any polish jews survived the war. Millions of russian Jews did.

My point is that entire populations and communities were lost, while enough of the culture survived to mourn the loss.

My great Grandmother is Polish, although her family left Poland sometime around 1908. They brought literally everyone in the family over before the SHTF, which is great for them. It's a shame not all of them were so lucky.

My Great Grandfather is apparently Latvian, and lived in a city called "Dvinsk", which changed it's name after they left. Both sides of the family seem to be relatively middle-class, and as far as we know, owned businesses in their respective areas.

Not sure what this has to do with anything, but I thought I'd share

Bakerofish wrote:Japan also waffles between acknowledging and outright denying their war atrocities up to now

USA? Mai Lai was a secret for a while

My country? the 1970s is still a controversial topic

people seem to not want to own up to the gak they do

I had some Japanese roomates that were surprised to hear about Korean comfort women. We were watching the news when the story came on about the comfort women wanting reparations and an apology. As it dawned on them what the story was about they were horrified and were asking me about it.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Well to be honest, whether it happened or not, the Jews tend to use it as an excuse for what they're doing to the Palestinians...

This is really really stupid.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Sorry about that, I'm so used to writing that in history essays that I did it here too.

Before your next timed history essay (?), I would take some time to learn the difference between the League of Nations and the United Nations, in addition to the difference between the ceding of Palestine to British Mandate, and the transfer from British Mandate to the State of Israel. You seem to have it all jumbled up at present. Just a heads-up.

Finished my history course last year, came out with an A. Third in my class

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Finished my history course last year, came out with an A. Third in my class

This does not attest to the veracity of the marking on your course.

I think you mean validity.

Take it up with the AQA examination board... Or was it OCR.

Mannahnin wrote:I think you mean validity.

I was referring to their lack of adhering to historical truth, if such a thing can be considered to exist.

Ah, I thought you meant Validity as in how accurately they measured what they were trying to measure.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Finished my history course last year, came out with an A. Third in my class

And with this all my hope for the educational system in the UK is lost forever.

streamdragon wrote:Agreed. Many people don't even realize that Hitler's first victims were actually Germans. Not necessarily German Jews, but plain Germans, usually those with birth defects or "mental ailments" or mental retardation. "Racial hygiene", as he put it.

It's more complicated than that. Dachau was build in 1933, as a place to put socialists, trade unionists and other political opposition. Then it moved on to various 'social defectives', so mentally handicapped people and homosexuals and the like who were routinely euthanised in these camps.

But it's hard to say that the holocaust had begun at that point. Political imprisonment was hardly a unique thing, and is still going on around the world today, and euthenasia of undesirables has a broad history across the world - the United States practiced it up until the 1970s.

That's kind of what the holocaust was. A series of steps into greater and greater depravity for more and more fethed up reasons.


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Manchu wrote:Well, I don't think it undermines anyone's suffering to say that the Holocaust affected Jews more than all other affected groups combined. A lot of groups have tried to co-opt the Holocaust. In an astoundingly egocentric statement, for example, John Paul II once claimed that the Holocaust was an attempt to attack Christianity "at the root."

I'll agree that groups like people suffering with Down's Syndrome are often overlooked. But these days, there seems to be a consensus that a person with Down's Syndrome has no value at all so I'm not surprised by that.

True, though I'll note that while the holocaust has caused people to be completely intolerant of anti-semitism, and that is an excellent thing, such a thing hasn't been extended to other victims of the holocaust. You can say things about the Roma, for instance, that you'd never be allowed to say about the Jews.

Not that it should take a holocaust to get people not to be bigoted...


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Frazzled wrote:Well, Schindler's List was actually about Jews. Shoah is a Jewish word and is focused on that as well. Discussing one group does not exclude other groups.

No but Schindler's List is one in a long line of films talking about the Jewish experience of holocaust. We've not seen films on other elements, at all.

This is not the fault of any of those films in particular, and is quite understandable in a lot of ways. It'd be very silly to tell Spielberg or Polanski to make their films about other racial groups in the camps. But the final effect should be understood.


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Polonius wrote:Well, it also depends on the goal of whatever history is being written.

A history of suffering wouldn't even begin or end with the Holocaust. Plenty of other actions caused more suffering over more time. (the holodmor, the Great Leap Forward).

But... the holocaust was the final straw that led to the establishment of the modern Israeli state. That's had a profound impact on world history since 1948.

It's not the suffering that makes the holocaust so relevant, but the aftermath.

By the way, that's one of the reasons behind middle eastern holocaust denial: to delegitimize the moral reasons behind establishing Israel.

No, I think there is a unique horror to the Holocaust. I mean, in terms of bodycount maths other events have beaten it, but they all basically come down to bad agricultural policy. There is one point in history where man used the power of industry to kill people on a grand scale, and for that reason the Holocaust stands alone.


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Rimmy wrote:the idea that the survivors of the Nazi regime who were NOT prisoners of the camps, but rather soldiers themselves, or perhaps their descendants, could very well feel so much guilt about surviving that ordeal or benefitting from it in any way that denial is their coping mechanism.

remember that grief will do many strange things to a persons psyche. "rational" thought is really a relative term. people NOT undergoing to major traumatic events in their lives would see denial of one of the worst human tragedies in modern times absolutely horrendous. Perhaps though to a person trying to survive that guilt, the "rational" thing to do, is put it completely out of your mind (no pun intended)

I think that argument would work if Holocaust denial were more common in Germany than elsewhere, but from what I can tell wherever there's anti-semitism, either from white power groups or certain muslim groups or whatever, there is some element of holocaust denial.


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Manchu wrote:Nope. I'm saying that hatred of Jews was a major, perhaps the major, galvinizing theme of post-1918 German nationalism. The Nazis capitalized on this and built their more broadly racist, social darwinist ideology around it.

That's a pretty decent summary.


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DeadlySquirrel wrote:The state of Israel didn't exist until after the First World War... And it was given to them by the League of Nations.

I think you need to refresh your reading on this subject.


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AustonT wrote:Suffice to say being critical of the state of Israel is not equal to antisemitism.

Absolutely. While I think a lot of people and nations, particularly in the Middle East, cry crocodile tears for the people of Palestine, I'm equally disgusted at people who are so concerned with what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust that they're willing to completely ignore the fate of the Palestinians.


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AustonT wrote:During the rise of Humanism European scholars very seriously debated the "humanity" of Jews. Yes, they actually debated whether Jews were human beings or not.

It's fascinating to read such great wit and humanity from the likes of Voltaire or Martin Luther, and then them say the most horrible things about Jews.

Didn't read all the pages of the thread, but just wanted to give my $0.02. Sorry if it is off-topic and too long, but I just felt like sharing. I grew up in Germany and really didn't think about it too much while I was young. I do pay attention to it now and want to be more aware of it.

I find the concept of Holocaust Denial mind numbing. To think that the Holocaust is one giant hoax is pretty much a testament of how capable the mind is when it comes to refusing reality.

I had the opportunity to visit Dachau in 2008. Few days had more impact on me than that day. It was a hot summer day in August when I visited. And maybe it was just my brain messing with me, but as soon as I walked through the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gates I had a chill that would not go away until after I left. If there is anything like the "I feel the taint of Chaos" from the 40K novels, this was it. Just standing there gave me a feeling of sadness and evil.

I was able to stick my fingers into the bullet holes covering the walls where people were lined up to be executed.





I stood inside the gas chamber, in the spot where people were huddled together to spend the last moments of their life before their bodies were dragged to the ovens next door. The gas chamber in Dachau was not very used, if I remember right there may have only been one "trial run" with it at full capacity. From the history I was reading there it seemed that it may have been more of a "proof of concept" that gassing would work.



The majority of prisoners there were executed by either hanging in front of the crematorium, or by being shot. Behind the crematorium were the walls where they were lined up and shot. People were shot at such a rate that they actually dug trenches to allow all the blood to drain that was saturating the ground.



The original ovens could not handle the number of bodies needing to be burned. They build these additional ovens that could handle 24 bodies at a time. And they also quickly became backlogged.



The Memorial at Dachau also does a great job acknowledging all the people that died there. There are memorial chapels that were build by many different creeds and faiths. I left a stone at the Jewish Memorial, prayed at the Lutheran Memorial, and walked away from the place with an impact that will last for a long time. Even writing this out today and thinking back to the time I spend there feels very heavy.

Not really sure why I am even writing all of this. But after being there and not only seeing these things, but feeling the spirit of this place as soon as I stepped past the last gate that so many people stepped through for the last time, it really makes no sense to me that there are people denying any of this.

Denying the Holocaust happened is pretty much denying you have any ability for logical reasoning.

AustonT wrote:

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Finished my history course last year, came out with an A. Third in my class

And with this all my hope for the educational system in the UK is lost forever.

I got an A in English.. our skoolz must be clever cos I is.

mattyrm wrote:

AustonT wrote:

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Finished my history course last year, came out with an A. Third in my class

And with this all my hope for the educational system in the UK is lost forever.

I got an A in English.. our skoolz must be clever cos I is.

IT'S YOUR NATIVE TONGUE!
and believe it or not: not mine.

AustonT wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

AustonT wrote:

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Finished my history course last year, came out with an A. Third in my class

And with this all my hope for the educational system in the UK is lost forever.

I got an A in English.. our skoolz must be clever cos I is.

IT'S YOUR NATIVE TONGUE!
and believe it or not: not mine.

The A was for Army but they upgraded him to Royal Marine coz he got a swimming certificate and strong forearms.

AustonT wrote:
IT'S YOUR NATIVE TONGUE!
and believe it or not: not mine.

On a serious note, I really did get an A for English, I was exceptionally good at it, I always have been good at spelling and such too, but I didn't study much, I put it down to reading so often. My spelling was excellent without having to practice it. Ever since I was about 6 I've loved comic books and spent hours reading them, and It hasn't stopped at 32. Although, I have since packed in on Marvel, it seems to have became visibly more childish..

Nevertheless I'm intrigued, what's your native tongue Auston?


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Sonophos wrote:

The A was for Army but they upgraded him to Royal Marine coz he got a swimming certificate and strong forearms.

The Navy, Jealous of our green berets world famed heroism and general physical might, say the acronym MARINE stands for "Muscles are Required Intelligence Not Essential"

I never met a dumb RM though, the mental examinations are standards are far higher than your average soldiers and squaddies.

By the by, I do have strong fething forearms!

Well since you asked: Dutch.
Until about 7 Dutch was my primary language, although I learned English with hooked on phonics at about 5. Now my ability to speak and understand Germanic languages is halting at best, but my Squaddies in Iraq thought I was possessed by Satan when I talked in my sleep. So aparently some traces remain. I've also found that it helped me learn a lot of Hebrew...surprisingly similar in some ways.


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I suppose it's fair to say that English has been my spoken language for most of my life...just fun to point out it's not my first tongue.