In response to the gentiles posting about the humanity of Hitler and the Nazis on Yom Hashoah

[attackfish]

If we’re going to be humanizing Hitler and the Nazis, okay, let’s do that. Let’s talk about how they had friends, and families, and flirted, and didn’t stop doing all the things humans do just because they started becoming monsters. Okay, that’s nice. Let’s talk about how when it was all over, they managed to put all that death and murder, and hate, and cruelty back in a box and keep doing all those nice human things. Let’s talk about how many of them were nice to their kids and loved their families. Let’s talk about how entire nations grew up telling themselves: “not my parents. Yes my dad was a member of the party, but he didn’t know. My mom worked for a company that used slave labor, but she didn’t know. Not my aunt, not my uncle, not the people who I love and love me. They didn’t know.” Let’s talk about how “no one” knew. Let’s talk about how that is absolute bullshit. Let’s talk about the lies that people have been telling themselves for thousands of years, that they are still telling themselves, that made this possible, about the greedy parasitic Jew, and the thieving, cheating dirty G*psy. Let’s talk about how at the start of WWII, more Americans were worried about how much power Jews had than how much power Hitler had, while Jews didn’t even have the power to keep themselves alive. Let’s talk about how antisemitism and anti-Romani racism are alive and well in Europe and the Americas today. Let’s talk about how maybe, just maybe you should look at your mother’s favorite great uncle, and your grandmother who made you cookies, and your friends’ grandparents and the way they look so human, and ask yourself: “Did they really not know?”

And maybe then we can talk about all those dead human beings they “didn’t know” about.

 

Comments

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

G*psy is widely considered a slur within the Rromani community, along with a host of other exonyms. "Cikán" I think is one of the words that comes from a Byzantine Greek term meaning "untouchable" so that, and the history of racism, is probably why it's coming to be viewed as a slur. A lot of English speaking Rromani will use the word G*psy in desperation, because not a lot of non-Rromani know the word Rromani. Also, "black" is acceptable, but "blacks" is not. It is an adjective, not a noun.

On tumblr lately, there has been a fair bit of Nazi apologia, in the form of posts saying things like maybe this all could have been prevented if Hitler had been able to get into art school, none of this would have happened, or look, he held hands with children and loved dogs, he was just an ordinary person who got carried away, or about how Germany suffered the most under his rule and most Germans didn't know, or much more commonly, how the citizens in the countries he conquered didn't know and couldn't be held responsible, because they were conquered, and Hitler was horrible to them too, with the subtext being they don't have to examine their antisemitism.

And most Germans didn't know about the sheer scale of the slaughter, though the signs were there. Most people are pretty good at self deception. But a lot of people not only knew but participated, and did their little bit to help keep the murder machine running. A lot of people really want to forget that, because it says ugly things about people who they love and want to think about as good people.

What little pretense was kept up in Germany was absent in conquered Eastern Europe, where antisemitism was if anything even more rampant. Yes, Hitler was horrible to Slavs, but many Slavic people were only too happy to turn over their Jewish neighbors in exchange for their property. Many more killed their Jewish neighbors in mobs before and after the Nazis invaded. Very few lifted a finger while millions were murdered in full view. After the camps were liberated, many of those Jews tried to return home, only to be killed by their Slavic neighbors, who had been really hoping Hitler had actually managed to take care of "the Jewish problem"

So yes, lots and lots of ordinary people were able to look away, or even do their part in this and still be people. And I agree, we need to talk about this. This is in fact the only kind of humanizing of the Nazis I want so see. I want to see the acknowledgement that kissing your children goodnight doesn't mean you aren't a mass murderer, or that just because a dictator says some things that you might agree with doesn't mean he isn't slaughtering millions of people.

What instead I'm seeing a lot of is sympathizing of the Nazis, and trying to diminish their crimes, because they didn't know, or they had bad childhoods, or whatever. And yes, every person who does evil does it for a reason. That doesn't make it excusable, or mean they deserve to be pitied.

And I think a lot of this is done to take the focus off all of the people who died. Many people would rather see themselves in the powerful than the powerless and dying, even when the powerful have done the unspeakable. Me, I have little choice, because these people died for something I share.

Honestly, when I see the posts about how Hitler and the high ranking Nazis had all kinds of psychological issues, I see the same logic that abuse apologists use. Most abusers, most bullies, most dictators, most people who commit genocide have deep seated fears, pains, and insecurities that they are trying to erase by hurting and blaming others. But to view that as somehow worthy of sympathy is to deny humanity for the victims, which is after all what the Nazis wanted in the first place.

There really isn't an appropriate greeting for Yom Hashoah. It definitely was not happy. My family emigrated to the states in the 1800, but I made the mistake of looking their family by name and place of birth. I found them. As best I can tell, all of them died in Buchenwald. If any escaped, there is no record. I never met them. They died long before I was born. My Jewish family is from Germany, so I always knew there was very little chance any of them made it out. But I had to go look.