International Holocaust Remembrance Day thread

[Solomon2]

I'll start this one off. The following report shows Pakistanis are taught little or nothing about it: Pakistan is rated, "context only" - Pakistan's curricula includes the Nazis or WWII but nothing specifically about the Holocaust.

How the world teaches the Holocaust - or ignores it
Research comparing high school textbooks in 139 countries and territories shows that just 57 countries describe Holocaust directly.
By Haaretz | Jan. 27, 2015 |

Mentions of the Holocaust in high school textbooks in [Europe]. Screenshot from Georg Eckert Institute's report, 'The international status of education about the Holocaust.'

High school textbooks in China apply the language and imagery of the Holocaust to Japan's Nanjing massacres of 1937, while Japanese textbooks use similar language to depict the devastation caused by atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, according to a recent study comparing the way textbooks in 139 countries and territories teach the Holocaust – or ignore it.

Twenty-eight countries make no reference to the Holocaust in their curricula, including Western countries like New Zealand and Iceland as well as Bolivia, Thailand and Muslim areas including the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Iraq, the study found. In some of these countries, curricula do not stipulate specific content for history education.

The research, conducted by Germany's Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and published by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was released ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday, which commemorates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The study found that the curricula in countries like China and India show that historians "'tragedize' their own pasts by conspicuously re-contextualizing vocabulary customarily used to describe the Holocaust, including 'terrible massacres,' 'killings,' 'mass murders,' 'atrocities' and 'extermination,'" writesEckhardt Fuchs, the deputy director of the Georg Eckert Institute.

Another country that uses typical Holocaust terminology to describe local atrocities is Rwanda, in textbook descriptions of the genocide of 1994. In India, references to the Holocaust vary widely, depending on the political context in which the textbooks were published.

For instance, a textbook published when the federal government was under the control of the Left Front, an alliance of leftist parties, associates Germany's territorial expansion with European colonialism in Asia, while one that reveals sympathies with the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its attempts to establish an undivided India through militarization, industrialization and the "sons of the land" – ideals that echo those of the Nazis – doesn't mention the Holocaust at all.

The textbooks in 57 countries, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Poland, France and Turkey, describe the Holocaust directly, using the words "Holocaust" or "Shoah."

Fifty-four countries, including Norway, Algeria and Peru, provide only the context in which the Holocaust may be taught (for instance, by referring to World War II or National Socialism) or address the Holocaust only to achieve an educational objective that is not specifically related to the Holocaust, as Mexico, Colombia and Argentina do.

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Why Teach about the Holocaust?

Because the objective of teaching any subject is to engage the intellectual curiosity of students in order to inspire critical thought and personal growth, it is helpful to structure your lesson plan on the Holocaust by keeping questions of rationale, or purpose, in mind. Teachers rarely have enough time to teach these complicated topics, though they may be required to do so by state standards. Lessons must be developed and difficult content choices must be made.

A well-thought-out rationale helps with these difficult curricular decisions. In addition, people within and outside the school community may question the use of valuable classroom time to study the Holocaust. Again, a well-formed rationale will help address these questions and concerns. Before deciding what and how to teach, we recommend that you think about why you are teaching this history.

Here are three key questions to consider:

• Why should students learn this history?
• What are the most significant lessons students should learn from studying the Holocaust?
• Why is a particular reading, image, document, or film an appropriate medium for conveying the topics that you wish to teach?

The Holocaust provides one of the most effective subjects for examining basic moral issues. A structured inquiry into this history yields critical lessons for an investigation into human behavior. It also addresses one of the central mandates of education in the United States, which is to examine what it means to be a responsible citizen.

By studying these topics, students come to realize that:

• Democratic institutions and values are not automatically sustained, but need to be appreciated, nurtured, and protected.
• Silence and indifference to the suffering of others, or to the infringement of civil rights in any society, can—however unintentionally—perpetuate these problems.
• The Holocaust was not an accident in history; it occurred because individuals, organizations, and governments made choices that not only legalized discrimination but also allowed prejudice, hatred, and ultimately mass murder to occur.
• The Holocaust was a watershed event, not only in the 20th century but also in the entire course of human history.

Studying the Holocaust also helps students to:

• Understand the roots and ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping in any society.
• Develop an awareness of the value of pluralism and an acceptance of diversity.
• Explore the dangers of remaining silent, apathetic, and indifferent to the oppression of others.
• Think about the use and abuse of power as well as the roles and responsibilities of individuals, organizations, and nations when confronted with civil rights violations and/or policies of genocide.
• Understand how a modern nation can utilize its technological expertise and bureaucratic infrastructure to implement destructive policies ranging from social engineering to genocide.

As students gain insight into the many historical, social, religious, political, and economic factors that cumulatively resulted in the Holocaust, they gain awareness of the complexity of the subject and a perspective on how a convergence of factors can contribute to the disintegration of democratic values. Students come to understand that it is the responsibility of citizens in any society to learn to identify danger signals and to know when to react.

When you as an educator take the time to consider the rationale for your lessons on the Holocaust, you will be more likely to select content that speaks to your students’ interests and provides them with a clearer understanding of a complex history. Most students demonstrate a high level of interest in studying this history precisely because the subject raises questions of fairness, justice, individual identity, peer pressure, conformity, indifference, and obedience—issues that adolescents confront in their daily lives. Students are also affected by and challenged to comprehend the magnitude of the Holocaust; they are often particularly struck by the fact that so many people allowed this genocide to occur by failing either to resist or to protest.

Educators should avoid tailoring their Holocaust course or lesson in any way to the particular makeup of their student population. Failing to contextualize the groups targeted by the Nazis as well as the actions of those who resisted can result in the misunderstanding or trivializing of this history. Relevant connections for all learners often surface as the history is analyzed.

 

[Solomon2]

Common Questions about the Holocaust

• Was Hitler solely responsible for the Holocaust?
• Why didn't Jews leave when the Nazis came to power?
• Why wasn’t there more resistance from Jews?
• How did the perpetrators know who was Jewish?
• What happened if you disobeyed an order to participate in an atrocity?
• Wasn’t one of Hitler’s relatives Jewish?
• Why were Jews singled out for extermination?
• What did the United States know about the Holocaust and how did it respond?

WAS HITLER SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HOLOCAUST?
Hitler did not make the Holocaust happen by himself. Many Germans and non-Germans contributed to/or benefited from the so-called “Final Solution” (the term used by the Nazis for their plan to annihilate the European Jews). In addition to the SS, German government, military, and Nazi Party officials who planned and implemented policies aimed at persecuting and murdering the European Jews, many “ordinary” people—civil servants, doctors, lawyers, judges, soldiers, and railroad workers—played a role in the Holocaust.

This activity (PDF) explores the question in greater detail by considering the level of responsibility of individuals in all walks of life, both inside and outside Germany.

WHY DIDN’T JEWS LEAVE WHEN THE NAZIS CAME TO POWER?
Similar to their fellow citizens, German Jews were patriotic citizens. More than 10,000 died fighting for Germany in World War I, and countless others were wounded and received medals for their valor and service. The families of many Jews who held German citizenship, regardless of class or profession, had lived in Germany for centuries and were well assimilated by the early 20th century. From 1933–39, the German government passed and enforced discriminatory laws targeting Jews at a relatively gradual pace. Up until the nationwide anti-Jewish violence of 1938, known as Kristallnacht, many Jews in Germany expected to be able to hold out against Nazi-sponsored persecution, as they hoped for positive change in German politics. Before World War II, few could imagine or predict killing squads and killing centers.

Those who made the difficult decision to leave Germany still had to find a country willing to admit them and their family. The search for safe haven was very difficult. The Evian Conference of 1938 showed this when almost every nation in attendance declined to change its immigration policies. Even when a new country could be found, a great deal of time, paperwork, support, and sometimes money was needed to get there. In many cases, these obstacles could not be overcome.

These activity sheets illustrate some of the difficulties Jews faced in trying to leave Germany; they make clear that this seemingly simple question is actually very complicated.

• Documentation Required for Immigration Visas to Enter the United States (PDF)
• Documentation Required for Emigration from Germany (PDF)

WHY WASN’T THERE MORE RESISTANCE FROM JEWS?
The statement that Jews did not fight back against the Germans and their allies is false. Jews carried out acts of resistance in every German-occupied country and in the territory of Germany’s Axis partners. Against impossible odds, they resisted in ghettos, concentration camps, and killing centers. There were many factors that made resistance difficult, however, including a lack of weapons and resources, deception, fear, and the overwhelming power of the Germans and their collaborators.

HOW DID THE PERPETRATORS KNOW WHO WAS JEWISH?
German officials identified Jews residing in Germany through census records, tax returns, synagogue membership lists, parish records (for converted Jews), routine but mandatory police registration forms, the questioning of relatives, and from information provided by neighbors and officials. In territory occupied by Nazi Germany or its Axis partners, Jews were identified largely through Jewish community membership lists, individual identity papers, captured census documents and police records, and local intelligence networks.

WHAT HAPPENED IF YOU DISOBEYED AN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN AN ATROCITY?
Germans who refused to participate in atrocities were generally not punished, but risked peer, social, and sometimes professional exclusion or disadvantage. They could request other duties, such as guard duty or crowd control. There is no reliable evidence that German soldiers or police officials were killed for refusing to kill civilians. Non-Germans serving as auxiliaries and refusing to carry out direct orders to kill could be subject to discipline, dismissal, imprisonment, or even death.

WASN’T ONE OF HITLER’S RELATIVES JEWISH?
Rumors about Hitler’s ancestry were circulated by political opponents as a way of discrediting Hitler’s leadership of an antisemitic party. The rumors are derived largely —then and now—from the fact that the identity of Hitler’s paternal grandfather remains unknown. There is no reliable evidence, however, to suggest that the unknown grandfather was Jewish.

Read the Museum’s online Holocaust Encyclopedia article Adolf Hitler: Early Years, 1889–1913 to learn more.

WHY WERE THE JEWS SINGLED OUT FOR EXTERMINATION?
The basis for Nazi antisemitism—prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people—was the Nazis’ distorted worldview of human history as racial struggle. The Nazis falsely considered the Jews to be a race. They incorrectly believed Jews had a natural impulse, inherited through generations, to strive for world domination, and that this goal would not only prevent German dominance but would also enslave and destroy the German “race.” The Nazis believed that all of history was a fight between races, which would culminate either in the triumph of the superior “Aryan” race or in its total extinction. As a result, Nazi leaders considered the death of all Jews to be a precondition necessary for the survival and the eventual dominance of the so-called “German-Aryan” race. According to the Nazis, the Jews, as an “inferior” race, would use their supposed control of world finances and of world mass media to support Communist uprisings and to encourage other “inferior” races to overwhelm and triumph against Nordic-Germanic races.

Nazi antisemitism linked traditional negative and false images of Jews and their behavior with modern pseudo-scientific beliefs. Among these stereotypes were those derived from centuries-old Christian anti-Jewish thinking, which incorrectly presented Jews as murderers of Christ, agents of the devil, and practitioners of witchcraft. The Nazis linked these negative stereotypes to a “Jewish way of thinking” that they believed was based in genetics and, therefore, not subject to change. The Nazis used this belief to justify the discrimination, persecution, and, eventually, physical murder of Jewish people.

Consult the Museum’s online Holocaust Encyclopedia for more information. Start with the overview of Antisemitism, and then read the related articles on antisemitism through the centuries.

WHAT DID THE UNITED STATES KNOW ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST AND HOW DID IT RESPOND?
Despite a history of providing sanctuary to persecuted peoples, the United States grappled with many issues during the 1930s that made living up to this legacy difficult. These issues included widespread antisemitism, xenophobia, isolationism, and a sustained economic depression. Unfortunately for those fleeing Nazi persecution, such issues greatly impacted US refugee policy, reinforcing an official and popular unwillingness to expand immigration quotas to admit greater numbers of people endangered by Nazi persecution and aggression at a time when doing so might have saved lives.

Over the years, scholarly investigation into US responses in the era of the Holocaust has raised a number of questions, such as: What did the United States know? What did government officials and civilians do with this knowledge? Could more have been done? Scholars have examined US immigration policy, the reactions of the US government to reported atrocities, and sluggish efforts to organize operations aimed at rescuing European Jews.

Debates have sparked over key events, including the voyage of the St. Louis, the establishment of the War Refugee Board, the role of the American Jewish community, US media coverage of Nazi crimes and violence, and the contentious question of bombing Auschwitz. The topic continues to evolve with the introduction of new documentation and revised hypotheses.

Consult the Museum’s online Holocaust Encyclopedia for more information. Start with the overview of The United States and the Holocaust.


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27 January 2015 Tuesday
Ankara holds first official holocaust ceremony​

Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek will attend the first official holocaust ceremony in Ankara.

World Bulletin / News Desk

For the first time in Ankara, the genocide carried out by the Nazi regime will be remembered with an official holocaust memorial ceremony. The ceremony will also be attended for the first time by the Turkish Speaker of Parliament. Up to now all remembrance events had taken place in Istanbul.

As part of the 70th International Holocaust Remember Day, Cemil Cicke will be officiate the ceremony which will take place at the Bilkent University Concert Hall, which will also see members of the Jewish community in Turkey in attendance.

A statement from the Foreign Ministry said, “This 70th year realises the occasion of the holocaust, and primarily the Jewish people to who we respectfully share our commiserations with the families and the millions who lost their lives”.

Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek, who participated in the Prague Holocaust memorial programme, said in statement in Ankara:

“We hope that mankind has learned lessons from the darkest periods in history and that this atrocity never be repeated and that we must be united in preventing the conditions that led to this mind-boggling murder. What remains is that the anti-semitism that underlies the Nazi ideology continues today and that we believe in the importance of combating this ideology tirelessly.

In this spirit, our country has participated as an observer member in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance since 2008. As a result we have taken it upon ourselves to inform and rais awareness to our people regarding the holocaust which is supported through a variety of educational activities.

With the ruthless implementation of the genocide in World War II, Turkey has tried to assist the innocent as much as possible. During the War, many of our diplomats who were stationed in Europe showing immense courage saved the lives of a considerable amount of people. In this context our Minister for Foreign Affairs will represent our nation at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp today, as well as representatives from the Turkish Jewish community".

 

[Norwegian]

Another Hasbara troll thread. Please read this book on this controversial subject. Its written by a world renowned American Jewish author Norman Gary Finkelstein:

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, New Edition 2nd Edition: Norman G. Finkelstein: 9781859844885: Amazon.com: Books

As usual Holocash activists tried to use good old anti-semitism and holocaust-denial card on him as well, while failing miserably as Finkelstein is not only Jewish from both mother and father side, most of his own family died in Holocaust:

Based on his criticism of Holocaust exploitation, the Anti-Defamation League and others branded Finkelstein as a Holocaust denier, despite his being the son of two Holocaust survivors, most of whose family died in the Holocaust.

Norman Finkelstein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyway; Jews, Israelis and other pro-Israel, pro-Jew Christian Zionists are free to use above cliche cards on me

@Derolo @Archdemon @Natan @500 @MarkovChain @Solomon2 @F-15I @Cohen1984 @Hasbara Buster

 

[Solomon2]

Another Hasbara troll thread. Please read this book -

From the Amazon reviews:

...he doesn't agree with Israel, fine, neither do I. But to say jews 'use the holocaust' to propagate the same hateful stereotypes of jews always manipulating and scheming for their own benefit. He also indicates jews think they're the only victims of genocide!!! Who ever said that? I've never heard a Jew that!!! The US holocaust museum constantly speaks out and educates people on genocides all over the world, they were active in speaking out against Darfur, for instance. This creature should be ashamed of himself!!! What he's saying is no different than if he said the tragedies on American Indian reservations are just Indians making everyone feel sorry for them as an excuse to commit domestic violence or substance abuse. Or that African Americans are killing each other in the streets only to garner sympathy for slavery. He tries to make the case that jews bullied european governments for reparations but no other group has that right. who said nobody else has that right? european governments made big money off stolen jewish property. the very least they deserve is to 'bullied' into giving it back!!! he thinks palestinians have a right to bully to get their land back, doesn't he? if, say, American Indians decided to form a lobby to bully the hell out of the American government to get the proceeds of the coal and gold mining stolen from them by broken treaties, I'd be right there voting for them!!! This man lacks any human empathy for his own family and everyone else's. genocide leaves a scar in people's souls. Clearly this man doesn't know that because he doesn't possess one! Perhaps he should take his show on the road with David Duke, join the klan and get it over with.


...Too many claims in this book are false. For example, the claim that American Jewish "elites" "discovered" the Holocaust in conjunction with the 1967 war, rather than the 1948 war, plotting to amass power, is absurd, and coming from a son of survivors an obvious politically motivated calumny.
In 1948 most survivors were in limbo, often in German DP camps, kept out of Palestine by the British, and out of the US by immigration restrictions. In other words, in no position to either memorialize their lost relatives, nor lend much support to Israel. Much of their funding at the time came from the Jewish organizations which Finkelstein vilifies so much. By 1967 those very same survivors who in 1948 had been penned in DP camps, stateless and unwanted, had to a large extent immigrated to the US or Israel. While the Eichmann trials in 1961 were of great significance in reviving a buried past, the victory in 1967 helped them regain their sense of dignity.
Memorializing the many, many relatives that they had lost was a purely human impulse by those survivors that had resumed productive lives in the US, not a cynical machination by some abstract, malevolent Jewish cadre, as Finkelstein would have us believe. There is no need for wild conspiracy theories. Establishing memorials to individuals and groups who perished during conflicts is a prerogative that all nations are entitled to. Why Finkelstein judges it to be inappropriate only for European Jews escapes me.
While sarcastically dismissing the notion that the loss of several million Jews should be "sacralized" given continuous wars and bloodshed, Finkelstein seems to be equally averse to seeing the massive, amply documented Holocaust thefts from Jews - the real "Holocaust Industry" - treated as the property crime that it is. The alarm raised by Jewish organizations about improper uses of stolen Jewish money may have been rather scattershot, but perfect justice is unfortunately unattainable. This is by no means the most egregious case of bureaucratic overkill or inefficiency, if that is what it is. However, there is no question that Switzerland and many other nations - and industries - unduly benefited from the Nazi trade in Jewish lives and property, far beyond what can be quantified in abandoned Jewish bank accounts.
As to the involvement of Jewish organisations,it is important to keep in mind - and Finkelstein doesn't - that other nationals had their national governments to do the negotiating, which often got territorial concessions in addition to substantial slave labor compensation funds, such as for example Poland - a more expensive project since so many more survived!
In quibbling over the number and definition of survivors, Finkelstein as a fan of the Palestinian cause might study the definition of Palestinian - anyone who lived there for 2 years pre 1948 is forever refugee, including spouse and descendants. I also recommend he look into the funding going to the Palestinian Authority, and the origins of the millions in Arafat's and other terror leaders' private accounts.
Precise counts of Jewish survivors are virtually impossible to come by with all the wartime refugees and post-war flux of Jews attempting to resettle in Eastern Europe, most soon fleeing the new wave of Eastern European anti-Semitism expressed in murders of concentration camp survivors and looting of their property there (by the "hapless Poles", among others). Of all those Jews slated to be eliminated, those who survived are survivors of that attempt, some more fortunate than others, and are entitled to restitution of their property stolen in this act of malice and calculated greed.
I understand that there has been a raging controversy about the application of recovered funds. Whether to distribute according to need or ownership is a much discussed and vexing question, and this book adds nothing new other than hateful invective. Finkelstein obviously thinks Jewish communities in Europe ought to dissolve; others might disagree. It is to be noted that in a way the Jewish organizations have been "paying it forward", as mentioned above, funding Jewish communities during the war and survivors during its aftermath.
With his tin ear for literature as for so many other things, Finkelstein's clumsy attempt to implicate Eli Wiesel and Wilkomirski in this supposed plot - hoax! - is absurd. I suppose he would include "Austerlitz" by W.G. Sebald (a German non-Jew writing about a Jewish child survivor) as well - an excellent work of insight and empathy, qualities sorely lacking in Finkelstein.
In conclusion, with the intellectual as well as ethical obtuseness this book demonstrates behind its self-righteous tone of moral outrage, it is an unfortunate attempt to use the Holocaust and its aftermath to malign its survivors, the ultimate hoax. But then, this stuff obviously plays well.

....Finkelstein makes a lot of money suggesting that others (mainly Jews) make money "exploiting" the Holocaust. Most of my family was murdered by the Germans, some in particularly gruesome ways. All of the property of my family on both sides was lost. I have pictures of whole families (cousins) in their comfortable homes, all dead. Their homes and businesses were taken over by the citizens of Holland and Germany and Hungary. The wealth of the Jews was stolen by the very people who murdered them or their neighbors. Some people think the Holocaust was started out of greed for money. Read Ian MacMillan: Village of a Million Spirits: A Novel of the Treblinka Uprising.
Despite the fact that I have lost most of my family in the Holocaust, I have never got a penny out of it. No one paid me to write this review. Finkelstein wrote a book disparaging Goldhagen's Book: "Hitler's Willing Executioners" (which by the way was a best-seller in Germany and Goldhagen much respected) by way of respect for his father, who was a survivor. I think Finkelstein should be ashamed of himself for his bigoted and ugly theses, such as the one he espouses in this book. It is not justice to blame the victims.

 

[xenon54 out]

This really isnt necessary, you arent Aryan, he would do the same to you if you lived in Germany back then.

 

[Solomon2]

Another Hasbara troll thread...Anyway; Jews, Israelis and other pro-Israel, pro-Jew Christian Zionists are free to use above cliche cards on me

Do you hold that there is no value in studying the Holocaust?

 

[Pakistani E]

Holocaust was a European crime, committed by Europeans, on Europeans, for European ideals. No doubt there should be a reference to the holocaust but to say that Pakistan MUST teach about the holocaust is absurd. Genocides have been committed for as long as humans have existed. Besides, we have our own history to cover before we go on a wild goose chase on European history.

 

[Solomon2]

Holocaust was a European crime, committed by Europeans, on Europeans, for European ideals. No doubt there should be a reference to the holocaust but to say that Pakistan MUST teach about the holocaust is absurd. Genocides have been committed for as long as humans have existed. Besides, we have our own history to cover before we go on a wild goose chase on European history.

Exactly. And East Pakistan 1971 is a big black hole in Pakistani history that Pakistan had never learned from and likely never can because so much evidence is destroyed or locked away. That's just one of the reasons Pakistanis would benefit by studying the Holocaust.

Holocaust was a European crime, committed by Europeans, on Europeans, for European ideals. No doubt there should be a reference to the holocaust but to say that Pakistan MUST teach about the holocaust is absurd. Genocides have been committed for as long as humans have existed. Besides, we have our own history to cover before we go on a wild goose chase on European history.

Adolf Eichmann hoped his ‘Arab friends’ would continue his battle against the Jews
27 January 2015 9:56 Douglas Murray

Former SS and Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann (1906 - 1962) in Nazareth, preparing his defence in the trial brought against him for war crimes (Photo: Evening Standard/Getty)

Over Christmas I finally got around to reading Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth. I cannot recommend this book – newly translated from the German – highly enough. It challenges and indeed changes nearly all received wisdom about the leading figure behind the genocide of European Jews during World War II.

The title of course refers to Hannah Arendt’s omnipresent and over-praised account of Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil. I would say that Stangneth’s book not merely surpasses but actually buries Arendt’s account. Not least in showing how Arendt was fooled by Eichmann’s role-play in the dock in Jerusalem. For whereas Arendt famously portrayed the man in the glass booth as a type of bureaucrat, Stangneth shows not only that Eichmann was not the man Arendt took him to be, but that she fell for a very carefully curated and prepared performance. Putting together a whole library of scattered documents from Eichmann’s exile in Argentina in the 1950s, Stangneth puts the actual, unrepentant Eichmann back centre stage.

There are a number of startling discoveries in the book, not least among them being the extent to which Eichmann had kept up with the books and scholarship on the Holocaust as they came out so that by the time he was awaiting trial in Jerusalem he was fully on top of all primary and secondary material put to him. There is also the extent to which Stangneth is able to show (through accounts from various members of the South America Nazi circles) how well known the true identity of ‘Ricardo Klement’ actually was within the German expat community in those years.

But Stangneth’s principle scholarly triumph has been her ability to piece together and make sense of the extant transcripts and recordings known as the Sassen conversations. Together with Eichmann’s contemporary attempts at memoir-writing they bring a wholly new interpretation on his years in Argentina. These conversations – recorded by the journalist and Nazi Willem Sassen in the 1950s – came to light before Eichmann went on trial. But in Jerusalem Eichmann threw doubt on their authenticity and for this reason (as well as the complex dissemination and distribution of the transcripts plus disputes over ownership as well as attempts to disown them) the complete picture of these interviews has taken until now to come to light. Stangneth’s work on these materials is extraordinary and the results more than reward her considerable efforts. For instance she shows that those who participated in the conversations (including Sassen himself) tried very hard to cover over exactly what had gone on after Eichmann was abducted by the Mossad. And Stangneth startlingly shows the extent to which these discussions were far from being one-on-one interviews but were in fact semi-public events.

The nature of these events, and their content, is of considerable contemporary as well as historical relevance. For two reasons in particular. The first relates to the ongoing European discussion of free speech and Holocaust denial laws. Because Stangneth shows that as an increasing amount of information on the Holocaust came to light in the 1950s the immediate reaction of the remaining Nazis and neo-Nazis in South America was denial. Some of the Argentina Nazis sincerely believed that the Federal German Republic would not last and that their belief system might yet return to save the German people. But even these remote fantasists realised that the news of the Holocaust presented problems for their rehabilitation. And so they hoped to expose the Holocaust. Their first attempts were not only crude but were swiftly overtaken by an unstoppable flood of information and scholarship. By the mid-1950s even the most committed remaining Nazis clearly found ignoring the weight of evidence to be an uphill struggle. And so this group of Nazis in South America, brought together by Sassen, thought that Eichmann might provide the solution to their quandary. They believed that Eichmann would be able to help them not just because he had been the person most closely involved in the Nazi programmes against the Jews, but as the man cited at Nuremberg as having first used the six million figure. The Buenos Aires Nazis assumed that if they got Eichmann on record then they could show the world that the six million figure was a lie, or at least a great exaggeration.

By this point Eichmann was also thinking of breaking his cover in some way. In 1956 he once again attempted to write a book, this time provisionally titled Die anderen sprachen, jetzt will ich sprechen [The Others Spoke, Now I Want to Speak!]. But the conversations with the Sassen circle – which came from the same instinct of his to break his silence – turned out to constitute an attempt to square an impossible circle. For Eichmann saw the Sassen circle’s efforts to minimize the Holocaust as something like a spitting on his life’s work. Eichmann knew that the six million figure was accurate, and seems to have only gradually realised that his audience were hoping for something quite different from him. The discussions clearly broke down under this unresolvable issue. Among the reasons why I would suggest that this has some contemporary relevance is that it is the clearest possible reminder of how in open discussion even the people most committed to trying to prove the Holocaust did not occur (former leading Nazi officials) ended up being unable to disprove the facts. On that occasion – as so often – they slunk away.

But the second reason why Stangneth’s book seems relevant for more than historical reasons is because of what it tells us about a stream of poison which remains very much at the centre of current events.

In The Others Spoke, Now I Want to Speak! (the reference is to his former colleagues who – in another un-square-able moment – Eichmann believed had defamed him at Nuremberg) he had the opportunity to write about the recent Suez Crisis. Here is one passage Stangneth quotes which was new to me at least.

‘And while we are considering all this – we, who are still searching for clarity on whether (and if yes, how far) we assisted in what were in fact damnable events during the war – current events knock us down and take our breath away. For Israeli bayonets are now overrunning the Egyptian people, who have been startled from their peaceful sleep. Israeli tanks and armored cars are tearing through Sinai, firing and burning, and Israeli air squadrons are bombing peaceful Egyptian villages and towns. For the second time since 1945, they are invading… Who are the aggressors here? Who are the war criminals? The victims are Egyptians, Arabs, Mohammedans. Amon and Allah, I fear that, following what was exercised on the Germans in 1945, Your Egyptian people will have to do penance, to all the people of Israel, to the main aggressor and perpetrator against humanity in the Middle East, to those responsible for the murdered Muslims, as I said, Your Egyptian people will have to do penance for having the temerity to want to live on their ancestral soil… We all know the reasons why, beginning in the Middle Ages and from then on in an unbroken sequence, a lasting discord arose between the Jews and their host nation, Germany.’

There then follows an extraordinary and important passage. For Eichmann goes on to say that if he himself were ever found guilty of any crime it would only be ‘for political reasons’. He tries to argue that a guilty verdict against him would be ‘an impossibility in international law’ but goes on to say that he could never obtain justice ‘in the so-called Western culture.’ The reason for this is obvious enough: because in the Christian Bible ‘to which a large part of Western thought clings, it is expressly established that everything sacred came from the Jews.’ Western culture has, for Eichmann, been irrevocably Judaised. And so Eichmann looks to a different group, to the ‘large circle of friends, many millions of people’ to whom this manuscript is aimed:

‘But you, you 360 million Mohammedans, to whom I have had a strong inner connection since the days of my association with your Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, you, who have a greater truth in the surahs of your Koran, I call upon you to pass judgment on me. You children of Allah have known the Jews longer and better than the West has. Your noble Muftis and scholars of law may sit in judgement upon me and, at least in a symbolic way, give me your verdict.’ [pp 227-8]

Elsewhere Stangneth shows how open Eichmann must have been in his admiration for Israel’s neighbours. After Eichmann’s abduction his family apparently became concerned about his second son. According to a police report, ‘As Horst was easily excitable the Eichmann family was afraid that when he heard about his father’s fate, he might volunteer to fight for the Arab countries in campaigns against Israel.’ As Stangneth adds, ‘Eichmann had obviously told his children where his new troops were to be found.’ [229]

Of course for years after the war there were rumours that Eichmann had fled to an Arab country. He might have had a better time there. Other Nazis certainly did, including Alois Brunner – Eichmann’s ‘best man’ – who settled in Damascus after the war and who is now believed to have died in Syria as recently as 2010. Eichmann’s Argentina years were certainly filled with frustration and rage. What is most interesting is how mentally caught he remained even before he was captured, principally by the impossible conundrum of how to persuade the world to accept what he had done and simultaneously boast about his role in the worst genocide in history.

There is much more to say about this book. But I do urge people to read it. Not least for the way in which Stangneth sums up the problem with the only strain of Nazi history which really remains strong to this day. ‘Eichmann refused to do penance and longed for applause. But first and foremost, of course, he hoped his “Arab friends” would continue his battle against the Jews who were always the “principal war criminals” and “principal aggressors.” He hadn’t managed to complete his task of “total annihilation,” but the Muslims could still complete it for him.’

*

How does the above story make Pakistanis feel about Nazis, Jews, and the Holocaust?

 

[Kompromat]

RIP to the victims of European racism.

 

[OldenWisdom...قول بزرگ]

Finklesteins argument maybe incorrect but ramming holocaust down Pakistanis throats is being overzealous in selling the idea. An idea mind you that doesn't even help Israelis when committing similar crimes for the benefit of their own race. Even Europeans are going their old ways. Fascism persists so does holocaust industry.

 

[mujhaidind]

What about 100x non-white savages killed by civilized White Angels?

 

[Pakistani E]

Exactly. And East Pakistan 1971 is a big black hole in Pakistani history that Pakistan had never learned from and likely never can because so much evidence is destroyed or locked away. That's just one of the reasons Pakistanis would benefit by studying the Holocaust.

Adolf Eichmann hoped his ‘Arab friends’ would continue his battle against the Jews
27 January 2015 9:56 Douglas Murray

Former SS and Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann (1906 - 1962) in Nazareth, preparing his defence in the trial brought against him for war crimes (Photo: Evening Standard/Getty)

Over Christmas I finally got around to reading Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth. I cannot recommend this book – newly translated from the German – highly enough. It challenges and indeed changes nearly all received wisdom about the leading figure behind the genocide of European Jews during World War II.

The title of course refers to Hannah Arendt’s omnipresent and over-praised account of Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil. I would say that Stangneth’s book not merely surpasses but actually buries Arendt’s account. Not least in showing how Arendt was fooled by Eichmann’s role-play in the dock in Jerusalem. For whereas Arendt famously portrayed the man in the glass booth as a type of bureaucrat, Stangneth shows not only that Eichmann was not the man Arendt took him to be, but that she fell for a very carefully curated and prepared performance. Putting together a whole library of scattered documents from Eichmann’s exile in Argentina in the 1950s, Stangneth puts the actual, unrepentant Eichmann back centre stage.

There are a number of startling discoveries in the book, not least among them being the extent to which Eichmann had kept up with the books and scholarship on the Holocaust as they came out so that by the time he was awaiting trial in Jerusalem he was fully on top of all primary and secondary material put to him. There is also the extent to which Stangneth is able to show (through accounts from various members of the South America Nazi circles) how well known the true identity of ‘Ricardo Klement’ actually was within the German expat community in those years.

But Stangneth’s principle scholarly triumph has been her ability to piece together and make sense of the extant transcripts and recordings known as the Sassen conversations. Together with Eichmann’s contemporary attempts at memoir-writing they bring a wholly new interpretation on his years in Argentina. These conversations – recorded by the journalist and Nazi Willem Sassen in the 1950s – came to light before Eichmann went on trial. But in Jerusalem Eichmann threw doubt on their authenticity and for this reason (as well as the complex dissemination and distribution of the transcripts plus disputes over ownership as well as attempts to disown them) the complete picture of these interviews has taken until now to come to light. Stangneth’s work on these materials is extraordinary and the results more than reward her considerable efforts. For instance she shows that those who participated in the conversations (including Sassen himself) tried very hard to cover over exactly what had gone on after Eichmann was abducted by the Mossad. And Stangneth startlingly shows the extent to which these discussions were far from being one-on-one interviews but were in fact semi-public events.

The nature of these events, and their content, is of considerable contemporary as well as historical relevance. For two reasons in particular. The first relates to the ongoing European discussion of free speech and Holocaust denial laws. Because Stangneth shows that as an increasing amount of information on the Holocaust came to light in the 1950s the immediate reaction of the remaining Nazis and neo-Nazis in South America was denial. Some of the Argentina Nazis sincerely believed that the Federal German Republic would not last and that their belief system might yet return to save the German people. But even these remote fantasists realised that the news of the Holocaust presented problems for their rehabilitation. And so they hoped to expose the Holocaust. Their first attempts were not only crude but were swiftly overtaken by an unstoppable flood of information and scholarship. By the mid-1950s even the most committed remaining Nazis clearly found ignoring the weight of evidence to be an uphill struggle. And so this group of Nazis in South America, brought together by Sassen, thought that Eichmann might provide the solution to their quandary. They believed that Eichmann would be able to help them not just because he had been the person most closely involved in the Nazi programmes against the Jews, but as the man cited at Nuremberg as having first used the six million figure. The Buenos Aires Nazis assumed that if they got Eichmann on record then they could show the world that the six million figure was a lie, or at least a great exaggeration.

By this point Eichmann was also thinking of breaking his cover in some way. In 1956 he once again attempted to write a book, this time provisionally titled Die anderen sprachen, jetzt will ich sprechen [The Others Spoke, Now I Want to Speak!]. But the conversations with the Sassen circle – which came from the same instinct of his to break his silence – turned out to constitute an attempt to square an impossible circle. For Eichmann saw the Sassen circle’s efforts to minimize the Holocaust as something like a spitting on his life’s work. Eichmann knew that the six million figure was accurate, and seems to have only gradually realised that his audience were hoping for something quite different from him. The discussions clearly broke down under this unresolvable issue. Among the reasons why I would suggest that this has some contemporary relevance is that it is the clearest possible reminder of how in open discussion even the people most committed to trying to prove the Holocaust did not occur (former leading Nazi officials) ended up being unable to disprove the facts. On that occasion – as so often – they slunk away.

But the second reason why Stangneth’s book seems relevant for more than historical reasons is because of what it tells us about a stream of poison which remains very much at the centre of current events.

In The Others Spoke, Now I Want to Speak! (the reference is to his former colleagues who – in another un-square-able moment – Eichmann believed had defamed him at Nuremberg) he had the opportunity to write about the recent Suez Crisis. Here is one passage Stangneth quotes which was new to me at least.

‘And while we are considering all this – we, who are still searching for clarity on whether (and if yes, how far) we assisted in what were in fact damnable events during the war – current events knock us down and take our breath away. For Israeli bayonets are now overrunning the Egyptian people, who have been startled from their peaceful sleep. Israeli tanks and armored cars are tearing through Sinai, firing and burning, and Israeli air squadrons are bombing peaceful Egyptian villages and towns. For the second time since 1945, they are invading… Who are the aggressors here? Who are the war criminals? The victims are Egyptians, Arabs, Mohammedans. Amon and Allah, I fear that, following what was exercised on the Germans in 1945, Your Egyptian people will have to do penance, to all the people of Israel, to the main aggressor and perpetrator against humanity in the Middle East, to those responsible for the murdered Muslims, as I said, Your Egyptian people will have to do penance for having the temerity to want to live on their ancestral soil… We all know the reasons why, beginning in the Middle Ages and from then on in an unbroken sequence, a lasting discord arose between the Jews and their host nation, Germany.’

There then follows an extraordinary and important passage. For Eichmann goes on to say that if he himself were ever found guilty of any crime it would only be ‘for political reasons’. He tries to argue that a guilty verdict against him would be ‘an impossibility in international law’ but goes on to say that he could never obtain justice ‘in the so-called Western culture.’ The reason for this is obvious enough: because in the Christian Bible ‘to which a large part of Western thought clings, it is expressly established that everything sacred came from the Jews.’ Western culture has, for Eichmann, been irrevocably Judaised. And so Eichmann looks to a different group, to the ‘large circle of friends, many millions of people’ to whom this manuscript is aimed:

‘But you, you 360 million Mohammedans, to whom I have had a strong inner connection since the days of my association with your Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, you, who have a greater truth in the surahs of your Koran, I call upon you to pass judgment on me. You children of Allah have known the Jews longer and better than the West has. Your noble Muftis and scholars of law may sit in judgement upon me and, at least in a symbolic way, give me your verdict.’ [pp 227-8]

Elsewhere Stangneth shows how open Eichmann must have been in his admiration for Israel’s neighbours. After Eichmann’s abduction his family apparently became concerned about his second son. According to a police report, ‘As Horst was easily excitable the Eichmann family was afraid that when he heard about his father’s fate, he might volunteer to fight for the Arab countries in campaigns against Israel.’ As Stangneth adds, ‘Eichmann had obviously told his children where his new troops were to be found.’ [229]

Of course for years after the war there were rumours that Eichmann had fled to an Arab country. He might have had a better time there. Other Nazis certainly did, including Alois Brunner – Eichmann’s ‘best man’ – who settled in Damascus after the war and who is now believed to have died in Syria as recently as 2010. Eichmann’s Argentina years were certainly filled with frustration and rage. What is most interesting is how mentally caught he remained even before he was captured, principally by the impossible conundrum of how to persuade the world to accept what he had done and simultaneously boast about his role in the worst genocide in history.

There is much more to say about this book. But I do urge people to read it. Not least for the way in which Stangneth sums up the problem with the only strain of Nazi history which really remains strong to this day. ‘Eichmann refused to do penance and longed for applause. But first and foremost, of course, he hoped his “Arab friends” would continue his battle against the Jews who were always the “principal war criminals” and “principal aggressors.” He hadn’t managed to complete his task of “total annihilation,” but the Muslims could still complete it for him.’

*

How does the above story make Pakistanis feel about Nazis, Jews, and the Holocaust?

1971 wasn't a genocide. It was a civil war, with war crimes committed by both sides. Please study the conflict in detail before making the analogy.

And I don't understand the point of posting that article, I am not Arab and do not really care what they do.

 

[Steakhouse]

Over sale the holocaust only cheapen the crime the victim suffer under the nazi. German government never deny nazi atrocity, no need constant advertise the holocaust to the public, Hollywood done many holocaust movies that seen by hundred of millions worldwide.

 

[Solomon2]

1971 wasn't a genocide. It was a civil war, with war crimes committed by both sides. Please study the conflict in detail before making the analogy.

I heard Pakistani diplomats anguish about it back in 1971. The orders given the Army were terrible...whatever Pakistan was meant to be this isn't it...do I betray my oath of loyalty and join the Bangladeshi cause or not?

Did you ever think about what it means to act upon conscience rather than blow stuff off as mere history happening to somebody else? These diplomats did. They could have ignored events thousands of miles away and kept their nose to the grindstone. Instead they threw in their lot with a new nation, thus breaking their solemn loyalty oath as well as losing all seniority and pension pay. I doubt you've ever heard about such things, have you? Nazi Germans faced similar issues, though, and studying the Holocaust provides a useful analogy - and how to teach societies so they don't promote such massive state-sponsored murders again.

 

[MastanKhan]

I just read these comments on yahoo.com

"Israel" -
- a land occupied by descendants of Jewish converts of Iranian, Turkic and Mongolian origin from a bygone age who moved to Europe and were NEVER in or From Palestine and
whose descendants have now continuously stolen from and continually abused the Palestinian People.
"Israel" -
- a Residual Evil of Nazi Germany
- a practitioner of Eugenics like Nazi Germany
- a planner of ethnic cleansing like Nazi Germany
- the last bastion of Apartheid on Earth.
- an area with the "Chosen People" like Nazi Germany's "Aryan Master Race".
- the land of Eretz Yisrael like Nazi Germany's Lebensraum.
"Israel" -
- a place governed by people who make good Nazi concentration camp and gas chamber employees.
"Israel" -
- an eager, enthusiastic and incessant proponent of Evil.
"Israel" -
- an evil crime committed by Christians and Jews against Palestinians
after Christians committed crimes against Jews in Europe.
"Israel" -
- a main source of injustice in the World which has contributed to militancy throughout the Muslim world.
"Israel" -
- a land which is Strongly supported by many People
Just as strongly as
Nazi Germany was supported by many People.
"Israel" - a land where
- most claim that the detention/segregation, theft from and killing of Jews in Nazi Germany . was truly Evil and the Most Horrendous Crime - The Holocaust.
- many claim that the detention/segregation, theft from and killing of Palestinians by Jews . . in "Israel" is Most Appropriate - MOST Righteous and VERY GOOD !!
"Israel" -
- a crime in progress
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