Politics is unfair. Nazi Germany had the leverage. The Jews should have accepted the deal the Nazis were offering them.

"I'm just piss at people who think its so easy to save your neighbors from harm"

I agree. Logistically, it is difficult to hide people and provide for them. People should admire the resourcefulness as well as the bravery of those who did so.

"Simultaneously bemoaning the horrors of the Hitlerite regime while condemning their opponents."

Well... sometimes there isn't a good option. You don't have to be on the side of your enemy's enemy.

@Jamiet99uk Is that sarcasm or something else? Whoever +1'd that, how could you know what he means?

Yes, it's sarcasm. It's based on the Gaza thread, since Obi said Palestinians should accept the fact that Israel is stronger and stop resisting/accept whatever deal Israel gives them.

"You don't have to be on the side of your enemy's enemy."

Then I'm not convinced you really consider your enemy to be that horrible.

"Then I'm not convinced you really consider your enemy to be that horrible."

That's interesting. I think it's evidence that you *do* consider your enemy that horrible, when you temporarily ally with someone who is *also* your enemy, to a lesser degree.

So you don't distinguish between "horrible" and "less horrible"? The Nazis were horrible, therefore the communists must be good? If you don't like the communists, you must like the Nazis?

(To be clear, I do think you'd have to be on the side of the communists with respect to their fight against the Nazis; but I don't think you'd need to be "on the side" of the communists in a broad and permanent sense, which is what I meant in my original statement.)

Well yes, I misinterpreted your comment, I guess, to mean that you can't ally with any 'enemy' to defeat a primary enemy. Nor did I get any sense that you considered any of them less horrible. Thanks for the clarification.

The local population was in three groups. The smallest protected the Jews. Most didn't care and knew what was happening. Then there were those that actively helped the Nazis and some killed Jews even without being told to by the Nazis. This last group are the same types that participated in pogroms against the Jews before Hitler came to power in Eastern Europe and Russia.

For example Oskar Schindler hired Jews not initially to save them, but because under Nazi law he could legal pay them the lowest wages compared to any other workers. This allowed him to maximize profits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielce_pogrom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_violence_in_Poland,_1944-1946

The view that local populations were just surviving and had no ill will against the Jews is simplistic and ignores how willing and happy local populations were to take advantage of the Jewish plight. In fact, where you see anti Jewish violence the most from local populations is AFTER the war, when Jews tried to reclaim their property. Local populations sometimes resorted to violence, and more often gladly accepted Jewish property which was never returned in many cases.

In addition, the idea that non-Jews could not have saved a substantial portion their Jewish populations is flat wrong. Allied States like Bulgaria and Occupied states like Denmark and even to some extent Axis Italy defied Nazi demands to round up Jews and saved nearly their entire populations.

To give Europe a pass for the holocaust is wrong. Some countries (not Germany) are more culpable than others, Greece, the Soviet Union, and Poland really had no choice. However, others, like Hungary, gladly rounded up its Jews to send them to Germany for extermination despite the fact that Germany had little power to compel them to do so.

In the end, animosity toward the Jews greased the wheels toward extermination throughout Europe. Can you truly see the reich able to gas Catholics to the same extent that they did Jews? Jews were expendable, they were isolated, they were weak, and to the majority they were an acceptable sacrifice to appease the Nazis..

Do I think the population of Europe as a whole was complicit and collectively guilty? No, Its not that easy. Do I think the population was occupied and therefore exonerated? No, Its not that easy.

Your holocaust class wasn't meant to single out the guilty to blame. The attempt is to show you the gray areas where ordinary people facilitate, allow, or ignore crimes against their neighbors. It is attempting to make those gray areas black and white, crimes against minorities are not permissible, and should be tolerated by the remaining population.

There is no single blame. The Holocaust is far too large an event to lay the blame on a population, government, or any historical event. Most genocides are the same way.

I'll just post this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre .

FYI Putin

Not to mention the other minorities and disabled that were also targeted. It not just Nazis & Jews.

"I'll just post this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre .

FYI Putin"

Goebbels lie never gets old, does it.

Are you actually claiming the Katyn Massacre was a lie? You realize that Poland disclosed the documents signed by Stalin in 1991?

Anyway, how was Joseph Goebbels involved?

Goebbels invented the lie. This was Nazi propaganda par excellence.

Which Poles would those be? The same people who shouted the lie from the rooftops like good little Nazis while fighting "bravely" in England while their compatriots were killed in Poland?

@Putin,

"In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the massacre."

Wow, I guess that Putin must be a pretty weak leader to let the Russian Duma approve a resolution perpetuating a Goebbels lie, huh?

@putin: Wha? You think the Katyn Massacre is a fabrication??

Please explain.

Yep.

Pick a historical event with less evidence that condemns the Soviet Union as a horrible nation next time.

@Putin33 Why on earth would the Soviets, then the Russians, admit to it, if it was a Nazi fabrication?

How many times have we done this? I can't count.

Redbaiting, favorite hobby of people who want to deflect from Nazi crimes.

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=712946&page-thread=8

Also you're wrong about the Poles having discovered anything. The documents in question were "discovered" by the people who destroyed the USSR.

http://katynmassakern.blogspot.com/

Also, Semck, Putin was not President in November 2010. Medvedev was.

@Putin33 your judgment is too absolute. One minute you're defending some of the least defensible aspects of Hamas, because you're against Israel, so you've got to be behind Hamas nearly 100%.

Now you're insisting that an action that has been admitted to by the Soviets and the Russians, is just a bunch of Nazi propaganda, because red-baiting has occurred in other instances.

Just because red-baiting is a thing, doesn't mean every charge levelled at the Communists is false.

And you don't have to refute every charge to be a good Communist.

(Nobody would insist on denying the My Lai massacre in order to support the USA)

Admitted to by which Soviets? By which Russians? Gorbachov and Yeltsin's goal was to destroy and discredit the Soviet Union. His (Gorby's) description of the Beria letter is an absolute fabrication, as his description has no resemblance to the actual letter found. There are plenty of reasons to doubt the authenticity of the Beria letter and there are plenty of Russians who do just that.

@Putin33 Well, I know I'm not going to change your mind, so you keep believing what you believe. But once again you're taking one of the most controversial possible positions in order to defend your side. If it was just this one thing, it would be worth discussing. But it's never-ending.

Never admit a failing in something you support, never empathize with something you oppose. You only end up convincing yourself. Which I guess you've done.

I'm far less concerned with the public relations and much more concerned about what I believe the truth is, controversial or not. Especially as it concerns the Red Army, who have been smeared enough.

Closing off discussions or debates because they are controversial strikes me as an exceedingly ideological way to deal with historical questions.