People thought Hitler was a bit of a joke and the danger was overblown in the 1920s.
Hyperreality
joined 2 years ago
Oh, I know. As I said, partly due to the cold war. To be clear, not Jewish, but my grandmother spent time in Dachau. So she was arguably one of the victims who were partly ignored.
My point is that the extravagant anecdotes, like human skin lamp shades, or stories about the SS throwing sweets at children as they were buried alive, have become tropes. The kind of stuff does tend to grab your attention, so much so that people are likely to lose sight of the bigger picture, or worry about which proportion of a pile of emaciated corpses was or wasn't Jewish.
Anyway, if you haven't watched Come and See, I recommend it. Obviously, it's not a fun watch, but it gives you an idea of how gruesome the eastern front was and some of what they went through at the hand of the nazis.
Not your comment, obviously - you're right to point out that that Jews weren't the only or majority of victims of the holocaust - but to be clear for those reading and as the relative of a holocaust survivor, even though I'm not Jewish I'm obviously not going to go along with any narrative that suggest the Jews exagerated their treatment during the holocaust. That's a particularly deplorable but common narrative among the far right, especially in Russia, which they've partially been using to justify their war crimes in Ukraine. Hence why they see no irony in suggesting Zelenskyy is a Nazi, because they claim slavs were the true victims of the holocaust, with some even going so far as to suggest the Jews orchestrated the holocaust. Here's a relevant article on that:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify
Partly due to the cold war, I suspect. Also because if you're making a list of atrocities, the particularly gruesome stuff does tend to attract the audience's attention.
I 'recommend' Come and See for those wondering what the Eastern Front was like. Almost certainly the best war movie ever made. The only reason it doesn't rank higher in the best movies ever made, is because it's not great repeat viewing.
Here it is on the official Mosfilm youtube channel, with subtitles.
Oh hi! Mine was also in Dachau. Died years ago, though. You're right they're often forgotten.
She was also a 'partizan'. Although in her case, she was a teenaged girl who according to her was handed a pamphlet then arrested as she walked around the corner reading it. Given we're talking about the nazis and nazi collaborators, I doubt entrapment is the worst of the crimes, so seems plausible.
The thing with Dachau, and AFAIK other concentration camps, is that they weren't actually one concentration camp but an entire complex. Each Konzentrationslager comprised a Stammlager (the main camp), Aussenlager(outside camp), Nebenlager(subcamp), and Arbeitslager(work camp).
So it's likely that like my grandma, yours will have been sent to a subcamp, after being sorted in Dachau itself. That's one of the reasons there's less information about them. The 'main attraction' is so horrible, we forgot about all the subcamps where 'only' half of the prisoners died. She was probably the right age to do hard labour. Mine was almost certainly experimented on. Obviously she didn't talk about it much, there was that time grandma tried to jump out of the car when we tried to take her to the hospital, ah childhood memories.
Covid was a bit weird though. Everyone was stockpiling, and it reminded me of my grandma showing me her secret stash of sunlight soap in the upstairs cupboard. As a kid, it seemed innocent, but in retrospect it was pretty obvious she was always prepared for the worst to happen again.
It's interesting how trauma goes through the generations. Probably also explains some of the health issues we have as a family, given we now know that the children of holocaust survivors inherited epigenetic damage. Trauma's basically passed on through the children's genes.
Interesting how this has affected my view of the world, too.
Sorry, this was an overly long comment. I don't usually get to talk about this at dinner parties. It's a bit much and unrelateable for most people.
Here's a relevant article about Portugal:
The article's far more nuanced, but if you're going to ask a simple yes/no question, then yes heroin should be legalised. Done well, and if you adress the true causes of addiction, this is likely to result in the best societal outcome.
It is addictive, although not as much as opioids
Here's the thing. There's that famous study of Vietnam vets who used heroin. Turns out that 95% quit cold turkey and never relapsed. In Vietnam, their life was shit, so they used heroin to cope. Back in the US, their lives weren't that shit, so they simply stopped using.
Alcohol? If an alcoholic quits cold turkey, there's a high chance they'll drop dead.
This is partly why there's that 2010 study that ranked alcohol as being more dangerous than heroin.
Not the US, but I hear similar stories from Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Covid did a lot of damage, but it's not just that. It's not just phones either.
It's that teachers no longer enjoy the authority they once had(not just a teacher thing, people will happily argue with their doctor based off a 5 second google), and the relationship with parents is often poor or even combative so they don't work with the teacher. We're talking parents beating up teachers or thinking they know better than the professionals. Parents are also often and increasingly overstretched. I had kids whose parents I'd never see. Education is also often underfunded and underpaid, certainly if you factor in the hours you need to put in, especially as kids are more easily bored and you can't just hold a lecture.
There are staff shortages everywhere, but because there are staff shortages, new recruits often don't get enough support, which means they leave within the first few years, which means existing overstretched staff don't see the point in supporting new staff, which means new staff are even less supported, etc. etc.
I assume you're both using strikethrough, but it's not visible to me. So I'll just write:
the bleak reality of being a teacher
The GOP has told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It is their final, most essential command.
The deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba _was _a response to nuclear missiles being deployed to Italy and Turkey. This was also the prevailing wisdom during the cold war.
But thanks to information which was only released after the cold war, we now know the Soviets had already stationed nuclear weapons in East Germany, and that the US knew that they had deployed weapons to East Germany. In 1956 Kruschev had also made the infamous (but arguably misinterpreted) We Will Bury You speech. This was seen in the West as an explicit nuclear threat. The article above:
"He threatened in 1956, at the time of the Suez Crisis, to use nuclear weapons, and he very much regarded his threat as successful, so he saw nuclear blackmail as a valuable policy initiative and he needed, therefore, the nuclear missiles to back that up," he says.
The article mentions that due to increased tensions (the aftermath of Suez is less talked about because it was eclipsed by Cuba), Kruschev withdrew these nukes in 1958, but crucially the CIA did not know that till 1961.
Ie. Cuba was a response to American missiles in Turkey/Italy. But Turkey/Italy was a response to previous Soviet threats and deployments. The Soviets deployed missiles in East Germany because Kruschev (arguably correctly) had come to the conclusion his threats at the time of Suez had worked.
A reminder on Suez/1956:
Not so much the US saying 'rules for thee, but not for me', given their response to 1956 and Soviet nukes in East Germany had been tit for tat. More 'here's the red line' at a time when the US/NATO were on the backfoot, as evidenced by the invasion of Hungary, likely precipitated in part by the Soviets being emboldened after Suez. Another side effect of Suez was the French nuclear weapons programme. They were one of the big losers after Suez. The US nukes that ended up being stationed in Italy/Turkey had orginally been planned to be deployed in France, but France felt it needed its own deterrent after Suez.
Of course, Suez was in turn (partly) caused by the whole Israel switching sides thing. The Soviets ended up supporting the Arab world. Israel became a US ally, where previously they'd had close ties with the Soviet bloc. Czechoslowakian weapons had been used to fight for their independence. There was also obviously the whole Six Day War thing, where the Soviets had supplied to the countries attacking Israel. Luckily that region of the world is no longer part of a cold war between the US, Russia and their respective allies.
TLDR: Not 'rules for thee, but not for me'. More like total chaos, brutal real politik, threats, and red lines as the cold war slowly reached boiling point.
which was a direct response to the US putting missiles in Turkey and Italy.
1961-1963:
1959:
Here's a relevant article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-moments-hitlers-final-solution-180961387
As mentioned, my non-Jewish (and in fact slavic) grandmother spent time in Dachau. In any case, I don't feel your comment will lead to a productive discussion, so I'm afraid I'm going to block you. Hope you understand and perhaps approach the subject with a bit more tact next time around given its sensitive nature.
Have a good one.