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Post by Toreador on Jun 21, 2023 7:05:54 GMT
Perhaps it did, but that wasn't why we fought it. This is why we fought it:
Our old Dad served all through the war in the RAF and for long after. If I'd asked him if he did it to save the Jews he'd have asked what I'd been smoking.
We actually went to war to preserve the freedom and independence of Poland which of course we failed to do. But the Nazi horrors revealed at the wars end certainly gave a new moral dimension to all we were fighting for. Do you think the holocaust didnt matter because they were only Jews and not Britons? I lived throughout the war at a time when radio was the only means of national broadcasting or Pathe News if you could regularly afford the cinema. The wireless was on almost non-stop as I knew only too well, I was the chosen one to take the accumulator for recharging. At no time do I recall either radio or Pathe News displaying even a semblance of the Holocaust, not even during the aftermath of the war though I doubt visual footage of the death camps would have been allowed. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 21, 2023 7:43:36 GMT
The government says:
"In recognition of its significance, the Holocaust is the only historic event which is compulsory within the history curriculum. Pupils must be taught about it at at Key Stage 3 (usually when pupils are aged 13-14). The Holocaust has been a named topic within the history curriculum since the first curriculum of 1991."
What about the psychological effect of exposure to such horrible acts of cruelty and barbarity on vulnerable and impressionable young teenagers who are barely into puberty. They could have nightmares for weeks. I know I did when I first saw the newreels of the liberation of Belsen in the TV series 'War in the Air'.
Which one? The London one of the German one? Not following you Baron, the London or the German one what? |
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 21, 2023 7:49:03 GMT
Joanne Reilly describes the general public reaction thus in Belsen: The liberation of a concentration camp:
… Bergen-Belsen was the first concentration camp after Buchenwald to be liberated by the Western allies and the only intact major camp to be liberated by the British Army. In April and May 1945 the British people were exposed to an unrivalled amount of information on the German concentration camps; Belsen, in particular, entered British consciousness for the first time through the unprecedented and disturbing images of the newly liberated camp. At no time in the previous four years had the press given to the extermination centres in Poland anything approaching the coverage and comment that they now gave to the camps exposed in Germany. Belsen, along with Buchenwald, dominated conversation and the newspaper letter pages. Wireless broadcasts, newspaper reports and newsreels triggered a wave of genuine shock and marked horror across the whole country. Many have never forgotten the feelings invoked in them on seeing the newsreel footage of Belsen for the first time.
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Post by Vinny on Jun 21, 2023 10:05:37 GMT
We were at war with the bastards who did it. We should take pride in the fact that we fought the fuckers and remind everyone what the bastards did, so it never happens again. Our war against the Nazis helped to end the Holocaust. Perhaps it did, but that wasn't why we fought it. This is why we fought it:
Our old Dad served all through the war in the RAF and for long after. If I'd asked him if he did it to save the Jews he'd have asked what I'd been smoking.
Nope. Poland was invaded. Our Ambassador in Berlin handed Hitler an ultimatum. Then when it was ignored, our Prime Minister made this speech: |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jun 21, 2023 10:18:50 GMT
Which one? The London one of the German one? Not following you Baron, the London or the German one what? There were two holocausts, one in 1189 in London and one in Nazi Germany. Both involved Jews. Do they teach both holocausts right now or not? |
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 21, 2023 10:26:52 GMT
Certainly the second, but I'm unsure about the first. If it's a burning question for you you can always look it up in the NC History.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jun 21, 2023 12:16:03 GMT
Certainly the second, but I'm unsure about the first. If it's a burning question for you you can always look it up in the NC History. I bet they don't and I bet they lie about it as well. The first one I think coined the term in its modern day usage, being a term originally which had religious connotations relating to mass burning with fire, like what one might think of as going to hell. |
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Post by Bentley on Jun 21, 2023 14:49:38 GMT
There were many pogroms in the Middle Ages. None of them were on the scale of the one committed by the Nazis.
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 21, 2023 17:30:05 GMT
To recap the ‘two questions’:
The first relates to the process by which the H came to a compulsory topic for 13-14 year-olds, while the second concerns the bigger picture of why, how and when it became embedded in Western culture.
My answer to the first is above, so I’ll now take a stab at the second.
With regard to the ‘how’, it seems to me that there are basically two schools of thought here. The first holds that there has been a spontaneously occuring cultural shift, in which public interest in the Holocaust has grown more or less organically, unaided by any ‘artificial’ stimuli. According to this proposition, public awareness in, and acceptance of the Holocaust as a contemporary cultural icon, has been the result of a steady accumulation of academic studies, films, TV programmes, books (including novels), and contributions from leading personalities in the popular music field. According to the proponents of this hypothesis, the process now continues almost entirely under automatic pilot, as it were, obviating the need for ongoing intervention by external change-agents or other parties who have a vested interest.
The opposing view holds that the present-day status of the Holocaust in terms of its ‘brand recognition’ amongst the general public in western society is largely the result of a long and orchestrated campaign to imprint the Holocaust indelibly on the public conciousness. Usually cited in support of this position are the plethora of H-related memorials, exhibitions and museums that have sprung into being during the last twenty-five years or so. The USHMM, and the political machinations that surrounded its inception, is cited, amongst others, as one of the principal manifestations of this phenomenon, as is the sudden and unexpected introduction in 1998 of a government-sponsored and publically financed National Holocaust Memorial Day.
I’ll pause here for comments before moving on to the ‘why’.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jun 21, 2023 19:42:26 GMT
To recap the ‘two questions’: The first relates to the process by which the H came to a compulsory topic for 13-14 year-olds, while the second concerns the bigger picture of why, how and when it became embedded in Western culture. My answer to the first is above, so I’ll now take a stab at the second. With regard to the ‘how’, it seems to me that there are basically two schools of thought here. The first holds that there has been a spontaneously occuring cultural shift, in which public interest in the Holocaust has grown more or less organically, unaided by any ‘artificial’ stimuli. According to this proposition, public awareness in, and acceptance of the Holocaust as a contemporary cultural icon, has been the result of a steady accumulation of academic studies, films, TV programmes, books (including novels), and contributions from leading personalities in the popular music field. According to the proponents of this hypothesis, the process now continues almost entirely under automatic pilot, as it were, obviating the need for ongoing intervention by external change-agents or other parties who have a vested interest. The opposing view holds that the present-day status of the Holocaust in terms of its ‘brand recognition’ amongst the general public in western society is largely the result of a long and orchestrated campaign to imprint the Holocaust indelibly on the public conciousness. Usually cited in support of this position are the plethora of H-related memorials, exhibitions and museums that have sprung into being during the last twenty-five years or so. The USHMM, and the political machinations that surrounded its inception, is cited, amongst others, as one of the principal manifestations of this phenomenon, as is the sudden and unexpected introduction in 1998 of a government-sponsored and publically financed National Holocaust Memorial Day. I’ll pause here for comments before moving on to the ‘why’. I think it was a combination of the two. Why should it be either/or?
The first bit is not quite right, although on the right track. In the 1920s Goebbels studied US propaganda techniques. I've found a reference to it here. Wiki does not mention it.
I can't remember the name, but one of the Nazi Party inner circle had some personal bad shit experience in his youth involving the Jews which made him into an obsessive Jew hater and I think this rubbed off onto the others. Still though there was a broader public disdain for Jews so it was fertile land to campaign on it.
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Post by oracle75 on Jun 22, 2023 6:21:19 GMT
It must be told through the generations as the most relevant and recent example of what a combination of events and extreme nationaĺism and racism can do to human beings. Our own species.
Do not assume it cannot happen again. This week the BBC has unearthed an internet ring of East Asian men who keep baby macaque monkeys in captivity and members send in suggestions of how to torture them including putting them in a vat of boiling oil, using hammers and screwdrivers, cutting off their fingers etc. Then it is videoed and sent to the members.
Do not ever think the propensity for pleasure in causing horrific pain to another living creature is gone.
The first step is to dehumanise the other and see them as less than living beings.
To gain power over them and create reasons for their extermination.
Just teaching dates and places isnt nearly enough. It is the most important way to create the conscience which stops the evil that can so easily reemerge, and the signs that point in that direction.
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 22, 2023 8:30:10 GMT
This is your Slippery Slope Theory™ innit. Look sideways at one of our honoured foreign guests and next thing we know the transports will be rolling again to the East.
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Post by Orac on Jun 22, 2023 8:36:30 GMT
It must be told through the generations as the most relevant and recent example of what a combination of events and extreme nationaĺism and racism can do to human beings. Our own species. I find this narrative vague and uncompelling. The Third Reich was, using the modern terminology you would recognise, defeated by white supremacists from racist nationsTo me the big disasters of the 20th century seem to warn of the dangers of year-zero type mass movement cults |
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 22, 2023 8:41:11 GMT
And, in addition, compulsory Holocaust education was not introduced until 1991, almost fifty years after the events in question. Is there any evidence that British schoolchildren, or indeed the population as a whole, were developing genocidal tendencies during the intervening period?
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Post by Orac on Jun 22, 2023 8:51:02 GMT
And, in addition, compulsory Holocaust education was not introduced until 1991, almost fifty years after the events in question. Is there any evidence that British schoolchildren, or indeed the population as a whole, were developing genocidal tendencies during the intervening period? Imho these kind of 'radical solutions' are prevented by the presence of social fabric, stability and strong sense of historical position (story) in the population. Ie all the things that the left's agitators suggest need to be destroyed entirely |
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