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Mr. Groening at 93 is being prosecuted for being an accessory in the murder of 300,000 people sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau based upon the expanded interpretation of German criminal codes. That being said, Mr. Groening who does not admit guilt of directly killing prisoners he does feel that he is morally guilty and on that score there can be no argument. But Mr. Groening in his confessionals in the media and the courts is serving a more important objective than any German court could hope to serve. As a former guard, Groening's testimonies about the horror of the Nazi concentration camp should be the hammer on the nail to Holocaust deniers, and we should be thankful for his candor.
That is a unique and original view of his horrid crimes. I have to think about it but you may be right. This gives us a major addition to the anti-denier arsenal.
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Originally Posted by Mahrie
I don't know why anyone would try a 93-year-old man for atrocities that took place seventy-five years ago, when he would have been around eighteen - twenty-three years old. Whatever he did or did not do, he'll be taking up with God soon enough.
Why? To make clear to anyone who thinks, in this day and age that he or she cannot outlive and outrun responsibility for atrocities.
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Originally Posted by green_mariner
More needs to be told from the survivors of genocide. Not only of the Holocaust, but of other genocides as well. The point of learning about the Holocaust, and other genocides that have taken place, is to make sure this doesn't happen again.
As we speak another one against the Jews may be in the making with Iran being the perpetrator (link to thread). The world is busy creating fig leafs for allowing Iran to go nuclear so that it can resume profitable business with Iran. Or the world really doesn't care if 6,000,000 more Jews now in Israel are incinerated.
Either way, when the Holocaust was in its infancy the world engaged in hand-wringing and enabling, much as it is now.
You see this is what I meant in my previous post. Sympathy and excuses or outright denial are still commonplace among the left in the western world, as evinced by this kind of lunacy. No mention of gulags, either. I simply don't see why people feel the need to compare and qualify [?] human suffering in order to rank atrocities, especially in an effort to ensure that the Holocaust is always #1. Today there were many commemorations and protests about the Armenian genocide. So their collective suffering and extermination is less significant because what exactly?
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Originally Posted by Ummagumma
On the other hand, the Communists called for a Workers Paradise on Earth, Brotherly Love Between Peoples, The Great Future for Everybody, The End Of Oppression (I am using capital letters on purpose, as this was all very grand propaganda). They appealed to the best in people to make them do their dirty job. The Nazis appealed to the worst in people. A German soldier was being told that he must kill a Slavic or Jewish child because they were subhuman scum who took up space that Germany needed. A Soviet soldier was being told that he must kill a "capitalist enemy" to make the world a better place for everyone including the "capitalist enemy's" own children (as long as they grow up properly indoctrinated).
In a way, the Communism is like a Christian cult, the Nazism is like a Satanic one.
As to the number of people murdered by both regimes - Hitler was in power for 12 years, Lenin and Stalin were in power for 36 years, plus Russia has a long history of very bloody regimes regardless of ideology. Most of the deaths in Soviet Russia were from hunger / starvation / famine / diseases brought about by the civil war, revolution, and forced collectivization. This is not to say that Communists were not an evil regime, but in my mind they don't hold a candle to the Nazis.
You see this is what I meant in my previous post. Sympathy and excuses or outright denial are still commonplace among the left in the western world, as evinced by this kind of lunacy. No mention of gulags, either. I simply don't see why people feel the need to compare and qualify [?] human suffering in order to rank atrocities, especially in an effort to ensure that the Holocaust is always #1. Today there were many commemorations and protests about the Armenian genocide. So their collective suffering and extermination is less significant because what exactly?
Where do you see the sympathy and excuses ? I never said that Communism was not evil. I said that I can see how an otherwise decent person would joint it in a mistaken belief that they were doing a good thing, based on them accepting the Communist propaganda at it's face value, while I can't see a decent person joining Nazis based on the face value of their propaganda. The Communist propaganda was appealing to the best in people, Nazi ideology was appealing to the worst in people. Please don't twist my words.
Or look at it this way. The Inquisition was ultimately an evil organization, responsible for mass murder throughout it's history. Their propaganda, the explanation for their deeds, was that they were torturing the heretics' mortal bodies to save their eternal souls. Many devoted Christians supported it and many served in it. Now, using your logic, the Christians are evil. The way I see it, Inquisition duped some good, decent people into doing it's evil work by appealing to their best intentions, much like the Communists.
And yes, I still stand by my statement - there were many bad / evil regimes in the XX century, Communists, Fascists, a myriad of large and small dictators. But the Nazis are in a completely different class of evil.
As cruel and true and truly gruesome as these atrocities were,,,you have to remember it was a war and when its over, its OVER. Done. You can't prosecute in peacetime what happened during war.
I briefly worked with someone who was, he claimed, from Iran, and he readily volunteered his opinions about Jews -- much to my annoyance. If his opinions are indicative of how Iranians in general feel about Jews then anti-semitism is quite a serious issue in that country. Nevertheless, I'm quite skeptical about this fear-mongering about Iran's nuclear ambitions. After everything that's gone on the last 15 years or so, that people still take the propaganda churned out by the media at face value is unbelievable. Stop being so gullible. My own opinion about the Iranian people is that we have much in common with them as they are a part of the extended Indo-European family. They need to be liberated from their political and religious oppression -- not treated as enemies because certain special interests want the west to fight a proxy war against them.
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Originally Posted by jbgusa
The world is busy creating fig leafs for allowing Iran to go nuclear so that it can resume profitable business with Iran. Or the world really doesn't care if 6,000,000 more Jews now in Israel are incinerated.
I briefly worked with someone who was, he claimed, from Iran, and he readily volunteered his opinions about Jews -- much to my annoyance. If his opinions are indicative of how Iranians in general feel about Jews then anti-semitism is quite a serious issue in that country. Nevertheless, I'm quite skeptical about this fear-mongering about Iran's nuclear ambitions. After everything that's gone on the last 15 years or so, that people still take the propaganda churned out by the media at face value is unbelievable. Stop being so gullible. My own opinion about the Iranian people is that we have much in common with them as they are a part of the extended Indo-European family. They need to be liberated from their political and religious oppression -- not treated as enemies because certain special interests want the west to fight a proxy war against them.
How do you liberate a religious fundamentalist from religious oppression ?
I briefly worked with someone who was, he claimed, from Iran, and he readily volunteered his opinions about Jews -- much to my annoyance. If his opinions are indicative of how Iranians in general feel about Jews then anti-semitism is quite a serious issue in that country. Nevertheless, I'm quite skeptical about this fear-mongering about Iran's nuclear ambitions. After everything that's gone on the last 15 years or so, that people still take the propaganda churned out by the media at face value is unbelievable. Stop being so gullible. My own opinion about the Iranian people is that we have much in common with them as they are a part of the extended Indo-European family. They need to be liberated from their political and religious oppression -- not treated as enemies because certain special interests want the west to fight a proxy war against them.
Good post, 90 percent of the human population is very stupid and easily manipulated. Modern Israel is very much a parasitic state, the only reason Israel is even a country is because of American support. I don't have anything against anyone, if a nation can't defend itself, that nation should die out like every other country in human history who could not defend itself.
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I simply don't see why people feel the need to compare and qualify [?] human suffering in order to rank atrocities, especially in an effort to ensure that the Holocaust is always #1. Today there were many commemorations and protests about the Armenian genocide. So their collective suffering and extermination is less significant because what exactly?