Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» Do the passing years AMPLIFY or DILUTE the evil done by anyone? Is Hitler more beloved now than he ever was while he was alive?
Adolf Hitler will always be remembered only for his regime.
Sadly and worryingly though there are now "Neo-Nazi" groups and individuals in the US and Europe, some in the UK too, who gloss over or even try to deny the Holocaust (as it became called after the War), and support his form of authoritarian rule.
There have been Holocaust DENIERS since I can remember. Just as there are "landing on the moon" deniers or "flat earth" believers. Stupid dumb will eventually take over the earth. Maggots and roaches will be their pets. Ridiculous right? I think not. Since we have experienced pumpkina** anything is possible. Thank you for your reply Durdle! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at August 2, 2020 4:09 AM MDT
I have a re-print of a book by the 19C English historian and politician Lord Thomas Macaulay, on his investigations into infamous falsehoods, mis-beliefs and excess enthusiasm for lost causes going back to the Mediaeval alchemists.
When you think of modern equivalents, his work shows that human behaviour has not changed much over the centuries. It is interesting though that even in those times there were people who saw through the nonsense and lies. For example, he reports one alchemist who came away from a symposium disillusioned by the stream of defensive excuses for failures on the lines of, "If only ... the crucible had not broken / I had used more... / had heated it for another hour...".
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I think the moral is that people will not think, especially when doing so would reveal the flaws in their cherished beliefs.
No, I do not think Hitler is more "beloved" now than he was, notwithstanding the neo-Nazi types. What does concern me though is that whilst it is right we never forget his regime deliberately killed around six million innocent people to suit his dogma, the greater death-toll by will, incompetence and neglect under the Communists in the USSR and China is discreetly overlooked. Not entirely forgotten, but certainly not remembered anything like as much as the Holocaust.
Even my own country has a stain on its history. During World War Two, the Japanese had invaded Burma, and India and the Allies genuinely feared them coming over the frontier into the Indian province of Bengal. So Winston Churchill ordered something like a scorched-earth policy, possibly not knowing or not thinking about the result - a famine that is estimated to have killed or displaced up to 3 million people before the Allies started to deliver food to the region.
Thank you once again for another thoughtful comprehensive and informative reply Durdle. I think every country with any military might has a very deep dark evil stain. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and what do we do? Pull all Japanese Americans out of their homes and put them in INTERNMENT CAMPS. There is one a few hundred miles away from us on the way "up north". Ever hear of MATAWAN? The actor George Takei was a little boy and he shared his memories of that horrible time. Also our HUAC debacle during the 50's. House Unamerican Activities...Kefauver et al. What could be more UNAMERICAN than ordering people to snitch on those who once upon a time might have dated someone who belonged to the Communist Party? Then there is the way people of color have always been treated and still are. We are famous for our LYNCHINGS. The amazing singer BILLIE HOLLIDAY sang about us in a song titled "STRANGE FRUIT". It has always been thus..as if white confers value on skin that is that. And now we have the abomination known as pumpkina**. An unbelievable bringer of death and supporter/promulgator of HATE and FEAR. It's just too depressing. Where do we go from here? I don't know but I think I won't like it. :(
This post was edited by RosieG at August 2, 2020 4:22 AM MDT
I suspect there are very few countries that don't have dark secrets even without going back more than perhaps 300 years.
Even such as supposedly Good Two-Shoes one as Switzerland, who were neutral in both World Wars but still ran a programme to eradicate their Roma population, from the 1940s to the late-50s or early '60s. They did not do anything as crude as murdering them. Instead they kidnapped the gipsy children and farmed them out under new approved identities to approved all-Swiss families, leaving the adults eventually to die out naturally. The orphanages recruited to help were those run by the Church...
The present Chinese pogrom against its Uyghurs is very similar but more barbaric, involving imprisoning and "re-educating" many of the adults.
In the 1950s the UK Government operated a well-intentioned but in fact very inhumane scheme to give children from poor backgrounds, especially if illiterate, new lives with foster-families in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Their parents had no say in the matter. Using again, Vatican-owned orphanages plus those of the Dr. Barnardo's charity as intermediaries, no-one bothered to monitor the situation. Once the ship was over the horizon that was it, and many of these children found themselves basically slaves on farms, and very many were treated abominably by the ever-so-Christian nuns and monks, and the foster-parents. If they asked after their mothers, many were told the cruel lie that they had died.
There are still problems with racist and other "-ist" or "-phobic" attitudes in the UK, though huge strides have been made in stamping that out by law. It is though very difficult for politics to change societies, and it may take generations to fade away.
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I know the song Strange Fruit. I also know Ole' Man River, particularly Paul Robeson's recording of it in which his anger is controlled but very clear in his voice. Both performers have always found acclaim in Britain, despite Macarthy's kangaroo-court trying to destroy his livelihood. It's only recently by the way that I learnt the House Un-American Activities Committee did not attack only show-business despite that hogging the attention, but also many leading scientists and academics, even if they were indeed totally innocent of anything seditious.
Matawan - a new name to me. I looked it up but discovered only that it is a very pleasant town among lovely countryside in New Jersey. What happened there of which the present town-folk would no doubt be ashamed? Was that the site of one of the worst internment-camps?
As for The One Who Shall be Called Pumpkin**.... at least your country will have the opportunity to vote him out later this year - all you need are suitable candidates to stand against him, and enough support for them. Besides, whatever he thinks, isn't there a limit on the number of consecutive terms any individual can be President?
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Talking of internment camps, there was a POW camp in WW2 in Scotland, that housed Italians. With the camp commander's blessing they converted a spare hut into a chapel, using whatever salvaged materials and objects they could find or people gave them. They even made the altar-pieces and ceremonial items like chalices in that way. The camp has gone but I am sure their lovely little chapel, in a Nissen Hut I think, still stands and is still consecrated.
I'm going to start off with nonsense words. AARRGGHH! GADZOOKS! GOOD GRIEF! I CAHN'T STEND IT! You know missionaries brought disease with them wherever they missioned to the people they were trying to "save". Those good people who were so self-righteous and filled with GOD wanting to make "savages" into GOD-fearing people. That's the first thing. Under the guise of religion much grievous harm has been done. I did not know about Switzerland's underbelly. I always thought of Switzerland as cowardly..not wanting to get involved. They have nothing there to invade for...well watches and chocolate. No oil or gold or diamonds so they stayed away. It's a haven for secret bank accounts I understand. Know what I think Durdle? Mostly homo saps are lousy. When given a choice to do good or do harm a great many of them will choose the harm. They get off on it Since I'm not wired that way I have never been able to figure WHY. How do we rid ourselves of such? Well it would be a start if we would stop electing them to high office. I'm going to do some research on Matawan from a dfiferent angle. I was pretty sure that was the name. There is signmost on Highway 5 or maybe 95 heading north indicate it as an historical site. I'll let you know what I find out. If homo sap is an experiment I think it has failed. The world is becoming more of the awful and less of the good. People seem to embrace adore evil which means they must be evil too. What other conclusion can be drawn from that? AFter I post this I'm going to Google Internment camps by state and see what I get and then I'll et back to you. Thank for your very informative (and so sad) reply Durdle. Do you ever get way down in the dumps about "the human condition"? SIGH! :)
I'm back. I just Googled "California Interment Camps" and it is not Matawan it is MANZANAR! I'm going to ask what internment camps are in "your state" and see who bites. Thanks for the indirect correction. I'll ask a question to hopefully make up for the bad info.
MANZANAR. MANZANAR. MANZANAR. Say it enough times and it will stick.
This post was edited by RosieG at August 3, 2020 2:22 AM MDT
Manzanar... "Apple orchard" in Spanish. California. Its Wikipedia entry top of the list when entering simply that name.
A ghastly history of displacement, then abandonment when Los Angeles took its water, then of internment. Now a museum to keep its memory alive.
The Swiss are not cowards, do have small military forces and have been at war in the past, but perhaps realised they would lose more than they would gain if they entered WW2. The mountains would have made Switzerland difficult to invade and hold, but looking at a map of Europe, occupation would have given the Germans more transport links with their Italian allies. Germany is separated from Italy by Austria and Switzerland but all are linked by roads and railways.
They are also a notoriously conformist and regulated society, although it is hard to separate fact from stereotype when you don't actually live in the country. Conformity to such a degree that it gains the nation a reputation for it, does make it easier for schemes like that anti-gypsy pogrom easier to push through. At least the Swiss did not resort to murder. It is a little-known blot on the clocks-and-chocs land, and I learnt of it through a TV documentary back in the 1970s or 80s, when a few of the kidnapped children in middle-age, and surviving parents in old age, spoke out.
The British forced-emigration of poor children, and the plight of the Magdalen Laundries inmates in Eire, similarly only really emerged recently when some of the victims in these cases finally felt they would be listened to.
I think once people who had suffered from these dreadful abuses realised they were not alone, they too revealed what had happened in their case. Unfortunately, by then most of the institutions' staff involved were either long-dead or too old, so beyond reach; leaving the present-day, innocent individuals a huge burden of guilt, shame and damage-limitation.
Even so, and going back to your original question, the surviving perpetrators do not always escape justice. Germany has only just caught, prosecuted and jailed an elderly man for his part in mass-murders in one of the Nazis' smaller concentration-camps. We think of the Germans going after the former SS officers who administered Hitler's "final solution" and ran the camps, but this man had been only a Private. He had been only 17 too, so was tried rather incongruously but by German law, in a juvenile court.
Durdle 