Watching "Night Will Fall" - how can people do these things?

[csziggy]

This is the "lost" documentary made by Alfred Hitchcock and Sidney Berstein about German concentration camps. It includes actual footage from British, American and Soviet cameramen who were with the troops when the camps were taken from the Nazis.

Words cannot express the emotion.

[Behind the Aegis]

1. They do it because the victims aren't "real" people.

Many of the tears we are shown in the footage isn't because of the loss of life but because they got caught. Even in light of the massive, horrendous murders, Jews were given no refuge throughout the world, even after the war. Hundreds of Jews were murdered when they tried to return to their various homelands and reclaim their homes and possessions. Gay men were actually left in the camps as prisoners, not displaced people (which many don't know about the Jews). Many gay men actually had to serve out their sentences after "liberation" and still faced discrimination after the war (Turing). The Roma were scattered to the winds. Then we come today, when Jews are told "get over it, it was 70 years ago!" Or, as a recent troll commented: "The relity (sic) is that Jews will use the "unpleasantries" (sic) of the last century as an "alibi card" for all actions taken by any Jew until there are no more Jews (or humans) on the planet."

[csziggy]

2. Yes, they showed how the Allies took Germans from neighboring towns to the camps

To show them what had been going on. The German civilians treated their approach as a holiday, laughing and joking. Even after they saw the deplorable conditions, they seemed more disgusted by the smells and the victims than upset that these acts had been done by their own government.

After the war as you say, there were few countries that would accept the camp victims as refugees. Many of the victims didn't want to return to their home countries and areas because of how horribly they had been treated before they were imprisoned in the camps, But Britain and the US didn't want to take them in. One of the women interviewed in later years talked about how they heard about Jews going to Palestine/Israel and how that seemed a better place to go than places that did not want them.

I don't think the Jews should "get over it" but I wish the Israeli government would learn from their own past that atrocities do not destroy a people.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. There is a history of the Holocaust for which many have no clue.

So many think after the event, all the world loved the Jews...not even remotely true. Most countries refused or severely limited the number of Jews...specifically...who were allowed to enter the country. As I said, many Jews were murdered upon return to their various nations of origin.

As for your last comment, it is offensive. While the I/P situation is complicated, and Israel can be and has been quite brutal, to compare it to the Holocaust, even by inference, is an insult to the Jews who lost their lives, homes, and countries, as well as creating a false narrative that Israel is like Nazi Germany. It also makes it about "Jews" eventhough the word "Israel" is used. You will find many lose their shit if a Jew, especially an Israeli, uses a Holocaust reference in regards to the conflict, but they feel absolutely no shame themselves when they do the same against Israel.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. exactly

[glasshouses]

4. Put Japan also on that list

[csziggy]

6. Japan refused Jewish refugees?

Not surprised at that. But the movie did not discuss that, maybe because the period they were liberating the camps in Europe, Japan was still at war in the Pacific.

Or do you mean the atrocities that Japan committed? Again, the movie was about the liberation of German camps where Jews and other minorities were being tortured and murdered.

[glasshouses]

7. The atrocities they commited

[daredtowork]

5. Every step of the Holocaust seemed eminently reasonable

The Holocaust was a triumph of technocracy. Populations were being administered. Employment and resources were being organized. Medical experiments were being done. War-time protocols were enacted. Orders were being followed. People were being protected.

Something to think about before we start screaming for containment of populations in violation of civil liberties today.

[ND-Dem]

8. +100. The germans did it for the same reason we do it. Because power tells them to and pays them

to and propagandizes them to.