A local PBS station ran Auschwitz: Inside The Nazi State tonight. If you get the chance to see it I suggest you should, so many people have no concept of how horrible it was.
I'm always amazed when people tell me they discovered the Holocaust because of Schindler's List. Somehow, these people reached adulthood without knowing what a blood century the last one was. I watch very little television now, so I am not aware how commonplace documentaries are. Early American commercial television in the 1950s was full of WW2 film footage, and I have no recollection of learning about the Holocaust or Pearl Harbor or D-Day. It's as if they have always been part of my memory.
I'd describe Schindler's List as Carb-Free Lo-Cal Holocaust Lite. If anyone wishes to understand the scope of the horror, you must read many different books--no one book seems to cover everything. There is no document mandating the Holocaust; killing techniques evolved after bullets were too time-consuming. Apparently, the command from the top was oral.
Genocide is not unique to Nazi Germany. What made the Holocaust of the Jews and Gypsies so incredible effective...turns out to be IBM. Yes, IBM technology of the time (punch cards that could be mechanically sorted; there were no computers) made the thoroughness of the Nazis possible.
Stalin was no slouch when it came to mass murder. He intentionally starved millions of peasants, and yet, this receives little attention when the history of the west is taught.
Somewhere, I've seen the figure of 50 million dead as a result of WW2, including battlefield deaths, disease, genocide. One would think some sort of lesson had been learnt, but then, some sort of lesson should have been learnt from WW1.
Since WW2, millions of Cambodians--anyone suspected of being educated--were killed. Just wearing glasses earned a death sentence.
At least a half-million people were slaughtered in Rwanda in the 1990s...and Sudanese Muslims are killing Sudanese animists and Christians...today.
Remember the Holocaust, but remember all the other millions killed as well.
I'd describe Schindler's List as Carb-Free Lo-Cal Holocaust Lite. If anyone wishes to understand the scope of the horror, you must read many different books--no one book seems to cover everything. There is no document mandating the Holocaust; killing techniques evolved after bullets were too time-consuming. Apparently, the command from the top was oral.
Genocide is not unique to Nazi Germany. What made the Holocaust of the Jews and Gypsies so incredible effective...turns out to be IBM. Yes, IBM technology of the time (punch cards that could be mechanically sorted; there were no computers) made the thoroughness of the Nazis possible.
Stalin was no slouch when it came to mass murder. He intentionally starved millions of peasants, and yet, this receives little attention when the history of the west is taught.
Somewhere, I've seen the figure of 50 million dead as a result of WW2, including battlefield deaths, disease, genocide. One would think some sort of lesson had been learnt, but then, some sort of lesson should have been learnt from WW1.
Since WW2, millions of Cambodians--anyone suspected of being educated--were killed. Just wearing glasses earned a death sentence.
At least a half-million people were slaughtered in Rwanda in the 1990s...and Sudanese Muslims are killing Sudanese animists and Christians...today.
Remember the Holocaust, but remember all the other millions killed as well.
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