littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Snap!
Lack of empathy, or just history?
- Thread starter Cloo
- Start date
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
Better still, why don't you cite a reputable historian since you clearly aren't one.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Tbf sources I've looked at today give the total pre-Holocaust Romani population in Europe much lower than that figure. Somewhere between 1 and 2 million.
Open University puts it at 2 million. Some other sources say a bit less.
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
That's the sort of thing I used think too, but on reflection the Soviet response of casual, brutal, arbitrary indifference seems worse. Or does it? I can't decide.
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
That's what I meant. Thanks for the correction.
Boris Sprinkler
Dont be scared
Manhattan project no one knows their cog in the machine. Power structures can ensure this plays out. Cos no one would do it knowing their part would they.
Boris Sprinkler
Dont be scared
Right guys
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Not sure, but I think it is less of a unique feature. There was casual, brutal arbitrary indifference involved with the genocide of the North American First Nations.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Think it’s that plus the speed of information these days makes even things from a few years ago feel much long ago. Right now for teenagers September 11 is history, and talked about the way we talk about the Romans etc…
I think it was that the vilifying of the ‘other’ wasn’t hidden and how much the media such as it was then played a great part in that, as it does now, whether that’s through the daily ghastly or the special niche YouTube channel, and suddenly ‘these people’ whoever they are, have been rendered dehumanised, and can therefore be added to things that you wish you didn’t have to deal with, along with dog shit and other inconveniences, moreover they’re taking your precious resources. So if they’re being conveniently dealt with by the people in charge that’s one less thing to worry about while you’re trying to get your child to eat it’s dinner or your partner to feel a bit less depressed about their job, meanwhile you’re not sure if you should go to doctor about this pain or mole or your dads confusion
8ball
Decolonise colons!
If you take David Bowie’s first album and go just as far back again, you land before the start of the first world war.
When I was a kid my grandparents and other older folk would tell me about the World Wars and the Holocaust.
Understandable that the timescales feel very different to kids today.
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
On the matter of custom-made tools for genocide and the process being carried out on an industrial scale, I can't help thinking of the slave ships designed and built (or rebuilt) for that specific purpose, and manacles and shackles being mass-produced in European factories for the transporting of entire villages at a time.
But for me the really horrifying thing about mass murder and genocide isn't really the specific people it's done to, the method or the pretexts it's done with, or the ideology of the organisers. It's that in order to happen, normal everyday people have to join in; and, normal ordinary people DO join in. Deck hands, drivers, cooks, paper pushers, guards. Potentially our own neighbours and work colleagues if it happened again, happened here. I don't doubt it for a moment.
I think the real lesson of the holocaust - not numbers of victims but an idea: never again - if it was ever learned at all rather than just being parroted, is actually in danger of being forgotten in this world.
But for me the really horrifying thing about mass murder and genocide isn't really the specific people it's done to, the method or the pretexts it's done with, or the ideology of the organisers. It's that in order to happen, normal everyday people have to join in; and, normal ordinary people DO join in. Deck hands, drivers, cooks, paper pushers, guards. Potentially our own neighbours and work colleagues if it happened again, happened here. I don't doubt it for a moment.
I think the real lesson of the holocaust - not numbers of victims but an idea: never again - if it was ever learned at all rather than just being parroted, is actually in danger of being forgotten in this world.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
For me, the difference between the Holocaust and, say, the Armenian genocide or the genocide that is happening right now in Gaza is intent.
The Armenian genocide and the Gaza genocide share certain characteristics. They are acts of ethnic cleansing. You people, leave now. Or die. We don't care which, and we don't care where you go as long as it's somewhere other than here. Casual, callous disregard for the lives of people you don't really deem fully human.
But the Holocaust was the logical conclusion of an ideology and set of beliefs that certain 'races', including Jews and Romani, are a blight on the planet and need to be exterminated. Not just 'we don't want you, go away' or 'we want your land, go away', but 'we think you are evil, you must die'.
For me, that's where the real horror lies, and I don't necessarily think it lacks any equivalents in history - Rwanda perhaps is a near equivalent: 'you are Tutsi, you must die' - but many other atrocities are definitely still genocide while lacking this particular intent. And then there was the measured, calculated way they went about it. A killing frenzy like that in Rwanda is in some important ways less horrifying than a calm, organised, bureaucratic extermination.
ETA: Just to add to this. I am aware that this is a Eurocentric view. Or more accurately a Eurocentric gut feeling. Someone from East Asia or Africa or South America may have very different gut feelings. And no reason why they shouldn't.
The Armenian genocide and the Gaza genocide share certain characteristics. They are acts of ethnic cleansing. You people, leave now. Or die. We don't care which, and we don't care where you go as long as it's somewhere other than here. Casual, callous disregard for the lives of people you don't really deem fully human.
But the Holocaust was the logical conclusion of an ideology and set of beliefs that certain 'races', including Jews and Romani, are a blight on the planet and need to be exterminated. Not just 'we don't want you, go away' or 'we want your land, go away', but 'we think you are evil, you must die'.
For me, that's where the real horror lies, and I don't necessarily think it lacks any equivalents in history - Rwanda perhaps is a near equivalent: 'you are Tutsi, you must die' - but many other atrocities are definitely still genocide while lacking this particular intent. And then there was the measured, calculated way they went about it. A killing frenzy like that in Rwanda is in some important ways less horrifying than a calm, organised, bureaucratic extermination.
ETA: Just to add to this. I am aware that this is a Eurocentric view. Or more accurately a Eurocentric gut feeling. Someone from East Asia or Africa or South America may have very different gut feelings. And no reason why they shouldn't.
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klang
klang
I wonder how many of those ship manufacturers, deck hands and shackle producers claimed ignorance once slavery was abolished? How many of them were shocked when reflecting, swore 'never again', and used the remainders of their lives to warn, educate and talk about their active roles and complacency?
I see very little of the latter...esp not in my family. 'Didn't know' and 'the others were bigger players' provided for a clear consciousness, untill old age kicked in and the old slogans and songs re-surfaced.
Still, not many ever investigated what had happened to their old neighbours, much more profitable to take over flats, shops and workshops, for zero costs....getting away with it meant to keep schtumm and to not dig to deep.
How the next generation, the one after and the one after is supposed to progressively learn and feel empathy i don't know.
To listen to the victims and their horrific stories is one thing and very important, but the perpetrators still form a silent majority who don't want to be found out...
And yes, i do have friends whose grandparents were in the small minority who were swept away and were part of a horrific movement. Yet they learned and vowed to teach and educate.
Belonging to a peace movement and being active anti fascists was only a part of their ways to deal with their past.
They were also incredibly frank and honest.
But they were a minority.
'Never again' is nothing more than a slogan to make us feel better about ourselves and our past, in most cases anyway.
Erm, wrong thread..?
klang
klang
Have you learned from it?
gosub
~#
BBC Two - Clydebuilt: The Ships That Made the Commonwealth, Robert E Lee
The story of the Robert E Lee, one of the most famous blockade-running paddle steamers.
Was an excellent series not sure where you'd find it ...but this post made me think of the Robert E Lee episose
Yes, I agree and see that
not wrong thread, Sue, but probably clumsily expressed.
I was thinking about how we buy things from places we put some sort of trust or confidence in, or otherwise decide that it’s ’not My problem’ and don’t consider the working conditions or daily life of the people who’s work it is to ensure we get that comfort; Or whether they even want to be there or might have agency or freedom to be anywhere else
None of which is appropriate for this thread so apols
seventh bullet
sovietwave
A genocide that is ongoing, according to indigenous activists. The racism is so baked into that society that it isn't even noticed. Nor has much of it been done indifferently, over the centuries.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
I think I've told this story before, but my gran had a neighbour who was listening to the radio in her kitchen one day when there was a story about the camps - I think it may even have been the Dimbleby broadcast about Belsen.
The story, as I was told it, was that my gran's neighbour picked up her radio, carried it out to the back yard and put it in the bin. . .
My point is that in those days people weren't inured to that sort of thing by a constant 24/7 stream of horror via all manner of devices. . .
The story, as I was told it, was that my gran's neighbour picked up her radio, carried it out to the back yard and put it in the bin. . .
My point is that in those days people weren't inured to that sort of thing by a constant 24/7 stream of horror via all manner of devices. . .
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Exactly this.
And it's harder in UK, because you don't seem to teach history in the schools anymore.
N_igma
Epistemic nuisance
History teacher here - It’s interesting you mention empathy because in the study of history, empathy is much more than just ‘putting yourself in someone else’s shoes’.
The problem with that is when you say it to a young person, they transplant their own 2024 experience, with their own feelings, with their own cultural attachments and belief systems and try to pretend they, the 2024 young person was alive then, when that’s not the case. As a history teacher it’s about explaining that there were different beliefs and values and historical contexts which inform and explain past events.
That’s why when we teach the Nazis and the Holocaust you go back to the Nazi consolidation of power, the growth of the police state, early attacks on Jewish people like the boycott of Jewish shops, Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht etc. It’s all about providing that context where an event as horrific as the Holocaust could take place.
I know in England it’s a statutory requirement to teach the Holocaust, but that is often done in PSHE class, and may be delivered by a non-specialist. You run the risk of treating the Holocaust as a stand-alone event devoid of context which is not how it should be done.
As an aside, I would totally welcome all these uninformed questions and comments from students. It gives an opportunity for everyone to discuss why they think like that and to widen the debate and come to informed conclusions. That’s all part of the learning process.
The problem with that is when you say it to a young person, they transplant their own 2024 experience, with their own feelings, with their own cultural attachments and belief systems and try to pretend they, the 2024 young person was alive then, when that’s not the case. As a history teacher it’s about explaining that there were different beliefs and values and historical contexts which inform and explain past events.
That’s why when we teach the Nazis and the Holocaust you go back to the Nazi consolidation of power, the growth of the police state, early attacks on Jewish people like the boycott of Jewish shops, Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht etc. It’s all about providing that context where an event as horrific as the Holocaust could take place.
I know in England it’s a statutory requirement to teach the Holocaust, but that is often done in PSHE class, and may be delivered by a non-specialist. You run the risk of treating the Holocaust as a stand-alone event devoid of context which is not how it should be done.
As an aside, I would totally welcome all these uninformed questions and comments from students. It gives an opportunity for everyone to discuss why they think like that and to widen the debate and come to informed conclusions. That’s all part of the learning process.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Unless you didn't have a choice.
girasol
Addicted to handstands!
Just reading this and thought of this thread... Individual stories are much more likely to bring out empathy and teach history to young people. Personally, reading Anne Frank at the age of 12/13 was one of those life defining events. I learned so much, but also I started writing a diary as a result... (which I kept and now I can be transported back to my teenager years whenever I feel like it, and it's quite a rewarding thing to be a able to do)
www.theguardian.com
(Warning, tears may sprout while reading this)
At 10, I fled the Nazis to live starving and alone in the woods. For two years, detection meant death
Maxwell Smart lost his family in the Holocaust, but was saved by his mother’s instruction to run. It was seven decades before he told anyone what had happened
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Gramsci
Well-Known Member
On intent and the differences between ethnic cleansing and genocide this women who lived through the ex Yugoslavia wars in the 90s takes issue with use of term ethnic cleansing.
Her view in short is that this term was used by Serbian nationalists and then adopted as a mainstream way to describe what happened in those wars. It became a customary accepted way to describe certain actions.
This in her view was a mistake. And helps to diminish what happened.
She argues the intent was there. It had political origins and should be labelled for what it was. That is genocide.
She compares what is happening in Gaza. Which reminds her of what it was like in wars in the 90s.
This is view of someone who lived through organised attempt at genocide.
It is not ‘ethnic cleansing’, it is genocide
The term was invented by Serb genocidaires trying to cover up their crimes in the Bosnian war.
Personally I also thought there was a difference between ethnic cleansing and Holocaust.
But after reading this from someone with personal experience perhaps re examination of use of term ethnic cleansing is needed .
One of the things about genocide is that the perpetrators know what they they are doing on some level is criminal so seek to hide and obscure it. Use of language being one way.
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lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
I don't remember being taught about the holocaust at school. But even then, in the 80s, I can imagine a disengaged classroom making sick jokes. Teenagers can be like that, especially in a group, and it doesn't necessarily mean they haven't taken it in on an individual level.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
As someone who hated school maybe its not that kids have less empathy but being in the school factory system turns them off?
That is my experience. My view is that a subject like this isn't the best one to be taught by the teaching profession. Given my experience.
The Tik Tok teacher sounds like a tosser.
I was not taught about Holocaust.
Taught myself later by watching The Shoah doc by Claude Lanzmann.
And have read some of its history.
Maybe for kids stuck in the school system its best not to judge them to much.
School is one of those institutions that can bring out the worst in people.
That is my experience. My view is that a subject like this isn't the best one to be taught by the teaching profession. Given my experience.
The Tik Tok teacher sounds like a tosser.
I was not taught about Holocaust.
Taught myself later by watching The Shoah doc by Claude Lanzmann.
And have read some of its history.
Maybe for kids stuck in the school system its best not to judge them to much.
School is one of those institutions that can bring out the worst in people.
