This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It did not happen. I'm not claiming they knew that they were getting executed, I'm claiming it never happened. My falsifiable claim though is that central to the operation was the claim that the Jews were tricked into believing they were taking a shower. Aamadan found this hard to believe, rightfully so, so he and others are trying to provide a justification for why a large crowd of people in a confined space would behave the way they did if they knew they were densely packing themselves into gas chambers. And without fail avoiding crowd panic or the "fire in a crowded theater" effect from people seeing through the deception- which by mainstream accounts never happened at Birkenau.
The reality is Amadan and others making this argument don't understand how important the concept of "shower room deception" is to the Holocaust. It is claimed that no more than 2-4 Germans guarded the entire extermination operation at Birkenau, and that the entire operation was managed and carried out by a group of 100 unarmed Jewish prisoners.
So you have 2-4 Germans overseeing 100 Jewish prisoners orchestrating the execution of 2,000 fellow Jews on a near-daily basis. That is the mainstream claim. If the group of victims panicked then it would be an extremely difficult situation and present a huge security threat to the entire operation. The notion of deception is important because according to the mainstream historical claims the crowds of victims did not panic, they densely packed themselves inside the gas chambers on the orders of Jewish inmates overseeing the operation with no more than 2-3 armed German guards.
The story as-is is not believable, but also the story that the crowd of 2,000 people saw through the ruse but cooperated and coordinated so well as to achieve a density of > 9 people per square meter in their own execution chamber with practically no guard presence at all is also not believable. Neither story makes sense, but the historical consensus is that the cooperation of the Jews was achieved through a "shower room" deception, and the Germans were so confident in the effectiveness of the ruse that they only had a couple of Germans guarding 100 Jewish "Sonderkommandos" managing 2,000 victims. None of the possibilities make sense, because it's just a myth that never happened.
I don't believe that the Jews that just arrived were aware of the procedure at the camp, and I have explained extensively why I believe that this is the case. If you want to argue with someone who accepts the claim that they knew this, then you need to find someone else to argue with.
This is an utterly deceptive way to frame it. So deceptive in fact, that I have a hard time believing that you are making this argument in good faith. Again, the size of the actual security force was way bigger than this, consisting mostly of Trawniki and Kapo 'volunteers' (who in reality were heavily coerced, as doing this job greatly increased their chance of survival or of living longer).
Given your clear interest in the extermination camps, I find it just about impossible to believe that you have not heard of the Trawniki and Kapos.
Let me be absolutely clear. The story you are countering here is not the actual mainstream claim. It is highly distorted in a way that makes it seem way less feasible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link