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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerican Holocaust
A full Documentary
{SNIP}The powerful and hard-hitting documentary, American Holocaust, is quite possibly the only film that reveals the link between the Nazi holocaust, which claimed at least 6 million Jews, and the American Holocaust which claimed, according to conservative estimates, 19 million Indigenous People.{SNIP}
Full description on the youtube webpage.
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A friend had this video posted on his page.
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no_hypocrisy
(54,906 posts)
William769
(59,147 posts)Last year in Cherokee North Carolina.
no_hypocrisy
(54,906 posts)MichaelMcGuire
(1,684 posts)CJvR
(1,427 posts)...the Nazi Holocaust the American Holocaust was mostely unavoidable. Contact over the oceans would introduce the various plagues that were the big killers in the Americas.
dana_b
(11,546 posts)infected the blankets and supplies given to the Indians?? Yes, it's true. Genocide was their goal and they almost completely achieved it.
...goes back thousands of years.
But ultimately if there is contact it will spread regardless of intent.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)We practiced germ warfare against an indigenous people. We took their land, placed them on reservations then took THAT land when gold and or oil were found on it. If they left the rez, we killed them...don't minimize our wrongs or try to intellectualize them.
...the vast majority of the carnage was done down in Mexico and South America where the native civilizations allowed for a much higher population density and more effective spread of imported epidemics. There never was that many natives in the north to kill to begin with. Sure the casualties over the centuries piled up but then they do that in every war and re-drawing of maps, nothing unique about north America in that.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)ok
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)You are attacking someone did nothing to minimalize or rationalize killing anyone.
I don't know the poster and may not agree with him/her on everything, but a flat statement of scientific fact is what it is.
Europeans wiped out most of the indians that were avaialble to be wiped out. It is a terrible, ugly history.
It is true, however, that many, many, many millions of native Americans died through completely unplanned, unintended and scientifically not even understood at the time mechanisms.
It does not to minimize the moral dimension of what actually happened to note what actually happened.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)The poster's tone was somewhat minimalizing.
He/she was also factually correct, and I see no rationalization there.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)The post was very cut and dry, but it is unfair to assume the poster was minimizing the events.
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)".the vast majority of the carnage was done down in Mexico and South America where the native civilizations allowed for a much higher population density and more effective spread of imported epidemics. There never was that many natives in the north to kill to begin with. Sure the casualties over the centuries piled up but then they do that in every war and re-drawing of maps, nothing unique about north America in that."
He said more carnage happened to the south of us, there weren't many people here in the first place and casualties are part of all wars.
That is clearly and unambigously minimizing what happened here.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)The Mississippian collapse can be linked to disease (intentionally spread in some cases) by DeSoto on his rather murderous crossing of the SE US from Florida to the Mississippi. These diseases expanded out and crippled the societies of the American Bottom and the Ohio River Valley. This massive die-off has had a profound social effect on the social customs of modern Native American nations (handling of the dead etc.).
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Not just acts of individuals.
The US governmant also tested new weapons (the gatling gun comes to mind) on Native-American civilians.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)...in the long run, it would have spread anyway. There is no way contact with the Americas would not have resulted in disaster for the natives. They dodged the bullet with the Vikings but that was mostly luck and the isolation of the norse community itself on Greenland.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)The Jews would have died someday anyhow, right?
Hitler just sped the inevitable up a bit, right?
Stop minimizing the killing of innocent people and the theft of their land and destruction of their heritage.
...are we to blame the Arabs for the Black Death? It came from there so clearly they are guilty of Genocide on Europeans by your resoning.
How about you stoping to equate a natural epidemic in a virgin population with a deliberate extermination policy.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)The Arabs or whoever had it first did not use it as a chemical weapon. The blankets were deliberately infected.
RZM
(8,556 posts)It ravaged Asia for a while and eventually came to Europe via Central Asia. Italian merchants transported it to Europe from the Crimea. I believe it entered the Middle East the same way - via traders who picked it up in the Black Sea region.
You're right though, it wasn't a deliberate thing. It killed people everywhere it went.
However, the Japanese actually did use it as a biological weapon on a limited scale during WWII against the Chinese. They dropped a bunch of infected fleas on some coastal cities. They also used poison gas there during the war as well.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)There was a major plague in China in the early 1300s that was long-assumed to be the bubonic plague, but later we determined that was a different disease.
RZM
(8,556 posts)That comes from a study from 2010.
Either way, it most definitely entered Europe and the middle East through the Crimea (and thus entered the Crimea from the Eurasian steppe).
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)(I read A DISTANT MIRROR last month, but that's 1980s)
RZM
(8,556 posts)From the incomparable (and unfortunately soon-to-be-retired) Nicholas Wade.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/health/01plague.html?src=me&ref=general
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Everyone in the America's was exposed to smallpox eventually, and all before anything could have been done about it medically.
uponit7771
(93,532 posts)cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Last edited Sun Jan 8, 2012, 04:56 PM - Edit history (1)
The poster was stating a simple and undeniable fact. (Though with a tone that was sure to provoke response.)
Many millions of native Americans died of European pathogens a century or more before they had any idea that Europeans existed.
(Similarly, some native Americans found wild horses descended from horses brought by the invaders and became adept riders with a horse-culture a century before meeting any European.)
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Had the native American population not been greatly reduced by the unaviodable biomechanics of contact would we have thus failed to erradicate thiose (larger) populations?
...the natives were also betrayed by their religious beliefs, particulary the Aztecs who seriously needed conveting, so I suspect the great American civilizations would have fallen anyway but it would have been more along the lines of conventional colonialism rather than the smallpox generated population implosion.
As a side note american resistance to the various germs would have killed the African - American slave trade before it got started.
Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)if it weren't for the help the Conquistidors received from the indiginous tribes that allied with them. Even with horses and guns the Spaniards never would have won without the help of thousands of Tlaxcalan warriors.
But that is standard colonial policy, back one faction against the other until they are both ripe for a takeover.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)They were impressed with the Spanish fighting spirit and decided that they would be great used against the Aztecs. They could have wiped them out but, unfortunately for all of them, chose not to.
RZM
(8,556 posts)Both the Aztec and Inca Empires had some serious flaws on the eve of the arrival of the Conquistadors. The Aztecs were heavy-handed rulers and many of their tributary tribes really hated them. The Incas too had similar problems, plus they had just concluded a long civil war when Pizarro and his boys showed up.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Reality: Europeans came here, killed off and subjugated the people, and stole all the fucking land!
While it is very true that disease had a great effect on our indigenous population who had no immunity to diseases brought by European imperialists to pre-columbian indigenous peoples of the Americas, it is not the primary cause of the circumstances that Native Americans experience today.
hol·o·caust
[hol-uh-kawst, hoh-luh-] Show IPA
noun
1.
a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire.
2.
a sacrifice completely consumed by fire; burnt offering.
3.
usually initial capital letter ) the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II (usually preceded by the ).
4.
any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life.
LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)Leaving alone the question of disease to focus on other aspects, why were American Bison exterminated almost to the point of extinction? Additionally, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee Nation in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. Government actions following the decision can stand almost alone as an indictment of our policies toward the indigenous peoples.
I am certain, though, that I won't persuade you from your current mindset. It is comfortable to believe that this course of events was "unavoidable."
blackspade
(10,056 posts)He was actually a genocidal criminal along with the then governor of GA.
When the Cherokee and by extension, the Creek, Chactaw, and Chickasaw, won their Supreme Court case, Jackson and his cronies just ignored it and forcably removed the nations leading to the Trail of Tears and other atrocities.
Tragically, in many ways the American Holocaust was avoidable if the Native American populations had simply destroyed European settlements rather than assisting them and trading with them.
LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)I think he was a vile, despicable excuse for a human being and a war mongering mass murderer. That he was not impeached is an indictment of the Congress of the day.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)I still have a hard time as a person born and raised in TN, that he is seen as some sort of tough but benevolent southern father figure.
I have loathed him since I was a child.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Pushing for the completion of the railroad so they could increase buffalo hunting to the point it would force the Native Americans to move to reservations or starve.
CJvR
(1,427 posts)The Buffalo got exterminated, sure, so what? The natives would have done that on their own given a bit more time, the settlers and poineers just beat them to the punch.
LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)I think you have proven yourself sufficiently uninformed. I have no interest in trying to change you mind.
CJvR
(1,427 posts)...have ever easy meat survived contact with humanity?
The introduction of horses and firearms in the Americas doomed the buffalo, the question was just who would be first to exterminate them - the natives or the new arrivals.
Umbral
(978 posts)I'm sure they'd appreciate a another spin on AIDS and it's effect on the Homosexual population. Ya know, inevitability and all that dross.
dana_b
(11,546 posts)I will be watching soon. k&r
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)...well, just because.
I dunno... we had John Wayne. That has to count for something, right?
tabasco
(22,974 posts)
treestar
(82,383 posts)Jews were specifically rounded up, in conditions where they could not fight back or flee. They had no armies - they were taken to camps specifically to kill them.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Hitler didn't kill the Jews simply out of racism. Racism was the rationalization for the prosaic goal of emptying Poland of millions of people because he wanted the land that is Poland for Germany.
Similarly, we wanted the land and we were going to get it one way or another, and we did.
We did round up Indians into camps with the general intention that they all die.
The differences are trivial.
Have you never heard the phrase, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian"?
treestar
(82,383 posts)We couldn't. The US was big and Indians could move off - they didn't live in cities and ghettos like the Jews did.
The Jews had nothing like the Battle of Little Big Horn - or an army to fight back. Nor did they ever massacre Germans - there were Indian massacres of white people.
And don't start saying I am defending it as I am not. I am not saying it was good but pointing it out that the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews was far worse.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)There was some armed resitance by Jews that was just as effective as armed resistance by native Americans. Which is to say, not at all effective in the long run. Check out the seige of the Warsaw ghetto, for instance.
We (America) did, in fact, round indians up in camps where they almost all died. The fact we didn't use cynanide gas notwithstanding.
The commandant of Andersonville was the only Confederate we executed though his death camp was more a disease and starvation camp. The distinction is not genrally considered a great one.
We herded indian tribes, following military conquest, into penned areas with no food, no game and rife with disease. We had no intention that the populations of those human preserves grow.
It was managed policy and resulted in the predictable deaths of almost all of the target race... a distinction without a difference.
There were certainly acts of murder by indians against europeans, but since most were against settlers on land the indians had every sensible reason to consider their's it is hard to paint it as agressive or unjustified, in the way people usually deal with having their land invaded.
There is no indication, for instance, that if the settlers had retreated that the indians would have followed them back to Europe to murder them.
This is not a European bad Indain good thing. A lot of native americans were some of the worst people ever. Torture fetishists, arch-racists, etc.. And the worst environmental stewards EVER! They wiped out two continents worth of large mammals in the blink of a geologic eye.
People suck in some ways and native Americans deserve the full dignity of personhood -- they were fully capable of sucking.
treestar
(82,383 posts)cannot even begin to compete with the number of actual battles Native Americans were able to carry out and even win.
Name the camps set up and why happened, because I've sure never heard of them.
That we executed anyone at all for killing Indians speaks volumes. Nazis would never have done that.
Indians still live in the US to this day.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Others are surely more up on these things than I am and will hopefuly chime in.
In general I am not a fan of Holocaust exceptionalism because it tends to obscure. For instance, did we kill more or less Vietnamese than Hitler killed jews? It is an open question to this day. (Anywhere from 2-8 million)
Was Pakistan worse than Nazi Germany? I don't know. I know that the civil war in Bangldesh was a holocaust-level event, but I wouldn't say Pakistan was worse than Hitler.
To quibble over whether Hitler was special obscures the larger picture that it is extraordinary to kill millions of people.
We killed millions of Indians in order to take what had been their property. Was it worse or better thatn Hitler? I don't know.
The best argument that it was not as bad as the Holocaust is that it was longer ago. We like to think we are getting better so the Hlocaust stands out in its context.
It has been said that the Holocaust shocked the world to attention because it applied the established logic of colonialism to European populations.
treestar
(82,383 posts)The Normans overran England. One can go back in history and argue all of that. How many lands have Europeans taken over? We'd find Holocausts in New Zealand, Australia, all of Africa.
So there ought to be another category for Hitler's efforts. He did more than just conquer land. Had he done that alone, it would have resulted in a lot of deaths which would be described similarly as to the many conquests by one people over another. He went the extra mile and said one race was not worthy of existing and made specific gas chambers to kill them when they were not fighting back.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)It is often, though not always, done in a manner that allows for moral rationalization.
(If someone drew up a chart showing that under Policy "X" 10 million people he wanted out of the way would starve to death it works out much the same as putting that same 10 million in gas chambers, though the indirect agency gives it a different feel.)
I think the special of horror of Hitler is, to us, the modernity and unapologetic and bureaucratic quality of it. Very first world.
Not that long before the holocaust King Leopold of Belgium was doing things in the Congo that shock the conscience as much as the holocaust, but it was against a third world population and thousands of miles from Belgium.
Here is a question I don't know the answer to -- what proportion of deaths in German camps were starvation and disease, versus poison gas and bullets? Do we distinguish those deaths as a separate category?
lunatica
(53,410 posts)to the worst evil as to how and why Jews were killed in Concentration camps make an difference at all? Does gasing and shooting them count more as deliberate genocide than working them to death while they starved?
Cold hard facts may be all good and fine, but I'm not convinced that facts are being stated here, as much as excuses being given that are supposed to make White Americans nicer people by dint of being ignorant. Killing the Native Americans was actually US government policy, especially Andrew Jackson forcing the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears when he was President. That was deliberately done to kill them and it was totally avoidable. The diseases just made it all easier for the White man and his Manifest Destiny to come about.
Human history is full of genocide and holocausts, but one has to admit to being part of a country that does such things before working towards stopping them here. Our lily white asses aren't all that lily white when you start looking into our treatment of Native Americans and blacks. And at least the Republican faction of the lily white asses are doing their best to keep up the economic holocaust forced on the Native Americans and African Americans.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)We were talking about some differences between the holocaust and the native American experience that I think are distinctions without a difference.
The purpose of my question was to make the point that the Trail of Tears is not much different than simply shooting the same people on the roadside -- a point I was making by noting that we do not keep track of which holocaust victims starved versus being gased or shot because it would not be a meaningful distinction.
treestar
(82,383 posts)The Saxons would be victims of one. Surely there were several in Serbia/Croatia. The Russians and Spanish were victims under Napoleon. The Romans were.
None of this reaches what the Nazis did. Which is why they are considered evil to a great degree and why we went to war against them. (Well that could be for a lot of reasons). The Nazi Holocaust is especially horrifying. People were rounded up in concentration camp and put in gas chambers and then cremated - all because of their ethnic group, religion, race and no other reason. They had no opposing army and made no strikes against the Germans of any kind.
How could that be overlooked and considered equal an no worse than what occurred to other groups sets aside throughout history? Please tell me you would at least consider the Nazi Holocaust to be by far the worst ever recorded in human history.
RZM
(8,556 posts)That you shouldn't single out the holocaust as a unique event in history, because every day on the ground in an European empire was its own 'mini-Holocaust.'
For the record I don't agree with that. I'm not saying somewhere like British Sudan or French West Africa was a wonderful place to live. You can also find precursors to the Holocaust in the empires as well. The German genocide against the Herero, for example. Also, the first recorded modern use of concentration camps was actually in Spanish Cuba (and soon after in S. Africa when the British used them to confine Boers).
But IMO, the Holocaust is a unique event in modern history.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)But if the Killing Fields in Cambodia and Laos say anything, it's that Pol Pot was every bit as guilty as Hitler. Not to mention Chairman Mao and Stalin who 'purged' whole sections of the populace for no other reason than because they could get rid of all potential enemies within the country by doing so.
I will not make Hitler and his Holocaust some kind of normal act because it was so well documented that it's impossible to escape teh facts by trying to claim ignorance (which is something some DUers here are trying to do) , but to say it's the worst genocide ever is simply not true. There have been many massive genocides sanctioned by rulers. Even the Romans did it to the Christians. Both Paul and Peter were killed in that genocide.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)" Killing the Native Americans was actually US government policy"
Presumably you are an American. Any logical reason guilt for the actions of the US government before any of us were alive should be based on one's race rather than being an American, in general? 
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Romulox
(25,960 posts)???
That's hard to believe. I just don't think you have a good answer to my question.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Show where anyone other than white people committed genocide on Native Americans. So what's your question again?
Romulox
(25,960 posts)At any rate, it doesn't make any sense; you are an American, and many of the genocides were carried out by the US government itself. Therefore, YOU, personally share equally in the legacy of shame, as do all Americans.
There's no logic to arguing to guilt for the US government's past actions attaches to one's phenotype--why shouldn't ALL Americans share this guilt, as the heirs to the government that did these things? 
Number23
(24,544 posts)was done to Native Americans.
One of the many ways that whites dehumanized NA was to declare them "uncivilized." Are you not aware that many NAs were actually referred to as "savages" by whites? And NA men were painted with the same racist, criminal brush that other men of color (particularly black men) were painted with which is that they were criminals who were "out to rape white women." That excused the mind-boggling list of atrocities that they endured under the auspices of the United States federal government which killed them like vermin, stole from them and broke treaty after treaty.
A recent documentary I saw on the NA film industry talked about the "Indians want a white woman" meme that was portrayed by whites. (Sounds ever so similar to the tired "black men want white women" meme that we are all forced to hear over and over and over again despite every metric that says that a) the vast majority of married black men are married to black women and b) Asians, not blacks have by far the highest rate of interracial marriage followed closely by non-black Hispanics.)
The NA actors and filmmakers felt that in terms of propaganda, that was probably one of the most effective ones because it brought out the caveman (me paraphrasing) in the white male settlers more than anything else -- this idea that their wives, daughters etc. were going to be preyed upon by NA men. Which is exactly what it is was intended to do.
RZM
(8,556 posts)The Nazis actually did execute some Ukrainian auxiliaries for their role in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 (not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943).
That being said, it was more of a shameless and transparent ploy to try to deflect responsibility for the vicious conduct of the Germans onto their helpers. It was a German crime from beginning to end and every Pole knew that.
But still, I've always picture those guys sitting in hell and conversing with other denziens.
'How did you get here?'
'I was executed by the Nazis for war crimes'
'Whoa man. You got me beat by a mile!'
blackspade
(10,056 posts)" A lot of native americans were some of the worst people ever. Torture fetishists, arch-racists, etc.. And the worst environmental stewards EVER! They wiped out two continents worth of large mammals in the blink of a geologic eye."
The last point is not backed up by the archaeological record. True, there are a few mass kill sites in the southern plains, but they are rather uncommon. Non-human environmental changes at the end of the pliestocene had the most impact on megafaunal die-off world-wide. The fact that human populations are present in the Americas for 7,000-10,000 years prior to the die-off underscores this point. There has been some interesting work recently (in the last 5 years) speculating that a small comet or asteroid may have hit the ice sheet in eastern Canada pushing not only megafauna into extinction, but most of the Clovis groups as well.
http://cometstorm.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/a-different-kind-of-climate-catastrophe-2/
http://anthropology.net/2009/12/16/more-clovis-comet-debate-and-a-response-from-dr-richard-firestone-2/
And an interesting blog:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/comet-storm-a-hypothesis-explaining-megafauna-extinction-and-the-younger-dryas/
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Why? How is the systematic murder of millions of one group of people any better than the systematic murder of another?
Why is this even a matter for consideration or discussion?
Were the murdered native American babies somehow less precious to their moms and dads than the murdered Jewish babies?
The rationalizations I have seen on this thread are heartless and astounding.
Unfuckingbelievable.
Unfuckingbelievable is right!
And then to use the rationalization that one is 'only stating facts' is nothing more than sick rationalization.
LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)But fetuses torn from mothers' wombs or being forced to watch, helpless, as your infant's skull is crushed against a rock is no more or less horrific in one circumstance or another. These kinds of atrocities among others are held in common between the two government perpetuated genocides. We can argue over ownership of the word holocaust and argue degree of heartbreak and dehumanization. To me the argument feels empty. The hopelessness and the heartbreak of the victims surely cannot be that far removed from each other.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Number23
(24,544 posts)Even though I am neither Jewish or Native American, so I apologize in advance to anyone who is a member of either group that may take offense.
NAs had their lands stolen, their livelihoods destroyed and were slaughtered. Jews in Germany had their businesses and homes stolen, had their income and valuable property stolen (meaning that their livelihoods were destroyed) and were slaughtered. In my opinion, the comparison is most definitely apt.
RZM
(8,556 posts)I don't think it was just a rationalization. Hitler genuinely believed that the Jews had to go for racial reasons. He really did believe all of the things he said about them. It's hard for a normal person to fathom, because it comes off as crazy talk to people like us, but I think it actually was the case. He genuinely believed that the Holocaust had to happen. He really was that evil after all.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)But that is sideways to the point.
To say that Hitler genuinely believed that the Jews had to go for racial reasons completely misses the point. A lot of people think a lot of crazy things but they tend not to happen as national policy until it becomes a matter of property.
Hitler had a much, much lower view of people of African descent yet made no move to depopulate Africa.
The expansion of Germany into Poland was as much a part of Mein Kampf as the racial theorizing. It was called "Breathing space." Eastward expansion.
The native American was highly admired by most signers of the constitution. Yet when we expanded west in a big way the native american suddenly became sub-human.
When people hold land you want they magically become subhuman. The racial threories pre-exist, of course. They are a handy tool when the time comes to develop concensus to make an (economically sel-interested) move. It is much the same as how crackpot conspiracy books about Saddam Hussein became required reading in the WH after they decided they wanted to invade Iraq.
The history of anti-semiticism is one of the cyclical theft of whatever assets Jews acumulated. When spain threw out the Jews they had to leave their land. A lot of Jews prefered to convert rather than leave. This was not appreciated. The primary mission of the Spanish Inquisition was to expose Jewish converts as secretly still observant jews so that their assets would be forfeit.
Racism is always out there but it becomes a program for economic reasons. Jim Crow laws were primarily to keep black workers from competing with white workers, not to keep black people down in a vague abstract way. Blacks were not allowed to be educated to maintain a dependent source of inexpensive labor. The general racism provides social support for (or a willingness to overlook) the economic theft. (There was a lot of southern urban vs. rural disagreement on policy because the different economic environments suggested different sets of laws to maximize white gain from black labor.)
And so on.
People tend to have bad attitudes, but the speciffics are often driven by somebody wanting them to have bad attitudes.
Please note that nothing said here makes racism less sinsiter. It makes it even more sinister.
RZM
(8,556 posts)The truth is Hitler's goals, worldview, and opportunities all dovetailed in the East. Poland by itself wasn't even the main objective. The ultimate goal was the Soviet Union, specifically European Russia and Ukraine where the German Empire was to achieve its 'Lebensraum' (better translated as 'living space').
We do know what the Nazi plans were for the occupied Soviet Union. Had the Germans won the war there by the end of 1941, which is what Hitler expected and planned for, the first war winter called for the forcible starvation of roughly 30 million Soviet citizens. Then the subsequent ejection of some more and the retention of a small number to serve as slave labor in German 'pearls of settlement,' in Himmler's famous phrase.
Plans for Poland are less clear. Some authors, notably Jan Gross in his landmark 1979 book about German-occupied Poland, argue that the Germans would have carried out a holocaust-like genocide against gentile Poles had they won the war. We'll never know for sure. They had systematically murdered the Polish elite, but it's an open question what would have been done after.
But we know for absolute sure what Nazi plans for the Jews were. They were to kill every single Jew they could get their hands on. It's not for nothing that in some areas of the Baltic states, the Einsatzgruppen succeeded in killing every single Jewish person in certain areas, which the Nazis then trumpeted as being 'Judenfrei' (Jew-free). I have no doubt that had the Germans won the war in the East, they would not have kicked out or retained any Jews as slaves. They would have killed all of them. That's not the same for what they probably would have done to the Slavs, as barbaric as their conduct towards them was and would have been.
To me that points toward a racial argument. Specifically a racial hierarchy, where Jews occupied the absolute bottom rung. That's how Hitler always spoke of them and that's how he behaved towards them. It's taken many decades, but we're finally figuring out for good that Hitler really meant what he said. As bad as people always thought he was, in reality he was actually a bit worse.
BTW, if you're interested, I have book titles out the wazu on all of this stuff.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)If Hitler was an artist selling watercolors of Berlin landmarks on a sidewalk then it wouldn't much matter what he thought so I should not have even referred to Hitler. I should have referred only to Germany, because I am talking about how something like a racial theory becomes policy.
Nazism was sold to a populace willing to buy it. The institution of the military went along—with varying degrees of conviction, but went along. Most German institutions went along in their way.
Without national interest (real or perceived) that does not happen, no matter what Hitler thought. Yes, Hitler thought a lot of things. But the institution that was Nazi Germany would not have bought into that level of anti-semitism without an interest beyond the theoretical perfection of the race.
If Hitler had announced that Germany must tear herself apart to eradicate the aboriginal people of Australia it would not have been genrally sympatico with German objectives pre-dating Hitler's birth. It would not have offered an excuse for something a lot of Germans had thought of.
My general point is that nations act within a perception of national interest (however mistaken), not in the service of abstractions.
Hitler's insanity is stipulated. To long-standig German institutions, however, his madness was compatible with bigger picture stuff and was thus allowed to flourish as a rationalization.
This is an ugly example, but the american people would not have stood for the invasion of Iraq if there was not a subconcious sense in many minds that we were going to steal their oil. The abstract goal of spreading democracy really doesn't move people so much. It is, however, awesome to be a pious blowhard to help rationalize stealing their oil. "It's for their own good, really."
And most of what I was saying was that the energy for something like the holocaust was in large measure supported by the broad German perception that Jews had something undeserved and worth taking, or were otherwise a practical bar to German ambitions.
Did George Bush think Iraq had WMD and was a big menace? Maybe so. In a sense it doesn't matter what his interior monologue was. If he had that same conviction about Switzerland then he would have gotten constant institutional counter-pressure every time he brought up invading Swiztzerland.
The ruthless murder of Jews in the Netherlands served no obvious German interest and was ideological. But if the bulk of Europe's Jewish population were not in Poland the ideology would never have gotten traction in the first place as state policy-- as part of an overall vision of a future where Germany was a bigger, stronger and more properous nation.
(In the same way there were true conspiracy believers around Cheney on Iraq while our professional military accepted the thing as some sensible expression of national interest without believing for a moment that Iraq had Drone Nukes stationed on Lake Michigan.)
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)total Jewish deaths in the Holocaust were in Poland. If it was just Poland, your theory would stand alone. It was not just Poland, it was France, Germany, Hungary, Russia, anywhere they went, they killed Jews. This is just a fact. The 'they just wanted Poland' theory fails to explain millions of systematic killings. Millions.
Just wanted to note the three million plus Jewish holocaust deaths that were not in Poland. For personal reasons.
RZM
(8,556 posts)Was that the Soviets invaded and took possession of Eastern Poland in collusion with the Nazis in 1939. A couple months later, they officially annexed this land to the Ukrainain and Belorussian SSRs. I forget the exact number, but over 1 million Jews became Soviet citizens in this action. Most later died in the Holocaust.
From 1939-1941, the Soviets carried out a lot of repression in this area, most famously the Katyn massacre. But they also deported several hundred thousand people in to the Soviet interior in several mass operations in 1940 and 1941, often targeting entire families. One of these deportations specifically targeted Jews who had fled across the border from Nazi-occupied Poland, which automatically made them suspect. Though the victims didn't know it at the time, those who were deported had this to thank for their lives, since most of the Jews who remained in this area were killed in the wake of German invasion of the USSR in 1941.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)They had lived near the Rusiian borders for a long time. They knew they were dead if the Russians got them. They were not as well informed about the Germans.
The fact that Russia and Germany colluded in the invasion of Poland, and that Russia conquered as much territory as Germany from 1935-1945 was largely obscured before the fall of the USSR. Some out of WWII propoganda, some to cover British actions, so due to the USSR running a good PR shop. (I say this for other readers, not for you.)
Norman Davies NO SIMPLE VICTORY is a good account of the military and diplomatic history of the war from our better informed modern perspective. (After the soviet archives were opened.)
The usual jewish holocaust figures are poland 2.2 million, USSR 1 million. I suspect the true polish number is a little higher because populations were being disocated and some folks who started out in poland probably ended up in the USSR total.
Also, their are probably some holocaust deaths that were actually killed by Russia and even by non-Jewish poles. Should they count in the holocaust total? I say probably so. No reason for a genocidal movement on that scale at the same time to be parceled up and ascribed to particular criminals.
(From the native American perspective there wasn't much point keeping score as to who was being killed by the Spanish, English and French. The tragedy for the people is unitary.)
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)That's the quote. Phil Sheridan said it in a response to a question about US military policy differentiating between "good" and "bad" Indians.
Behind the Aegis
(56,108 posts)The actions of Hitler against the Jews was to wipe us out...completely, everywhere. This was not so with the British (soon, Americans), Spanish, French, and to lesser extents, the Dutch and Portuguese in regards to the native populations already in the "new" world.
What happened here was a conquest. Of course, racism, xenophobia, and cultural superiority were involved. One thing many seem to miss in this discussion is the Jews were/are "one people." We are a nation unto ourselves. This is not so with those who were already here. I am 1/8 Cherokee, not Sioux, not Seminole, not Ponca, not Apache; Cherokee. We have a unique language, history, culture, religion, and mores. What happened to "Native Americans," was the equivilant of Hitler invading Africa. We would say he massacred Africans, but most would understand they are different peoples. The majority may be black, but they were/are different; they aren't homogenous in anything other than color.
One thing, which IMO is not trivial, was there was no official policy in the US (or Canada/South America...which also contained "Native Americans"
, which called for the complete extermination of those peoples, including lands which were not under British/American/Spanish/French control. This was not the case with Hitler, who was busy building alliances with a variety of people in a variety of lands with the express desire to wipe out the Jews.
What happened to the inhabitants of the "New World," was and is repulsive and repugnant. It is long past time the history of the killings, massacres, ghettoization, and basic indifference of the treatment of the native populations be discussed openly and honestly.
Violet_Crumble
(36,385 posts)I've seen the Armenian genocide referred to as a holocaust before, but never by using the word as a noun...
The big difference between what happened to the American Indians and European Jews is that while both are genocide, the former's an example of colonial genocide, though it's what the British did here, and the Belgians in the Congo that's usually given as the main example sof that sort of genocide. Australian Aboriginals were the same as American Indians. Mutitudes of different tribes (or nations for the American Indians), but they were all indigenous to the countries that the colonial powers were settling. Whereas the latter was a modern day and highly organised genocide carried out by a highly industrialised country on both its own citizens and then any Jews who were unlucky enough not to have fled in time from the countries Nazi Germany invaded....
There's a few references to comparisons in this thread, but the whole point of comparative genocide studies isn't to argue about which people suffered the most pain and suffering, but examining events and historical factors in different genocides and trying to frame each one in the context of genocide...
U4ikLefty
(4,012 posts)bye
treestar
(82,383 posts)There are a lot of differences. And you make no argument otherwise.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Dead is dead. Native Americans starved to death and died by disease, as well as by being shot. In far greater numbers than with the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
Then there were the rapes.
I can't believe you wrote that.
DeathToTheOil
(1,124 posts)How many of them were murdered during slavery?
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)First, the numbers are smaller in general. I don't recall, but I think the slave population was 2-3 million. (From those recent stories comparing number of incarcerated AA's today vs. slave population) Maybe that was 2-3 million men.
Either way, I think the black population is a lot higher than the native American population (in the US) and the US native American population was surely a lot higher than the slave population.
Enslavement and extermination are very different dynamics. A death toll is not the only measure of a moral crime.
Most slave trade deaths were in transit. After arrival the mortality of enslaved persons was probably lower than, say, transported convicts in Australia. Not because slave-holders were nice, but because slaves were a valuable comodity that exploiters did not destroy casually.
The murder rate of black Americans almost surely went way up after emancipation.
(I think the top decade for lynching was the 1920s, for instance.)
RZM
(8,556 posts)But that didn't work out very well because they died in too high of numbers in such harsh working conditions. That was one reason why an alternative source of labor was needed.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Native Americans knew the land. If they escaped they had someplace to escape to.
It is not practical to have enslaved people in literal chains at all times. The overall system must be the chains. A prison without walls.
A lot of folks have used the relative unsuitablity of native Americans as slaves in contructing racist theories about Africans being "natural" slaves, but the real deal is that imported persons are always dependent in a way natives are not.
Where would an African slave possibly go after fleeing a Georgia plantation? He or she would simply die in the woods. Thre was no non-slave black population nearby that might take him in. And he usually had no idea what lay even five miles away!
RZM
(8,556 posts)These were areas of the wilderness where escaped slaves would congregate. They existed all over the place in the New World, especially sugar-producing areas, where the concentration of slaves was higher. Some Jamaican maroons cut a deal with the British for their freedom back in the 18th century. One maroon community in Brazil reached a population of 30,000 at its height and lasted for close to 100 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmares_%28quilombo%29
I'm not saying that Africans are 'natural' slaves. But just about all of the written evidence from the time seems to suggest that natives were not well-suited to the intensive labor the Europeans subjected them to because they died in too high of numbers for the plantations and mines to remain profitable. There was a labor shortage and Africans were brought in to fill it.
DeathToTheOil
(1,124 posts)Well, now, do you recall the other six million whom the Nazis murdered? Gypsies, homosexuals, POWs, "decadent artists," people with mental or physical "defects"?
Twelve million died in the camps. But I guess that doesn't fit with the agenda you're pushing.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Last edited Mon Jan 9, 2012, 02:28 AM - Edit history (1)
I do not recall offhand the peak total population of enslaved persons in the USA or the territory that became the USA. That's a fact. I do not recall the figure.
What that has to do with the very well known fact that the Germans murdered at least 11-13 million people eludes me.
"The agenda you're pushing..."
Yes, my dreadful anti-genocide agenda.
Sigh.
I am sure that you mean well but I am not a plausible dumping ground for accusations of sympathy with or indifference to mass-murder.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)in the Caribbean. The sugar colonies were a major importers of slaves, precisely because the mortality rate was so high.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)I fell into the trap of thinking of the US in terms of the slavery question because I was answering a question that I red as being about comparing atrocities in the territory of the continental US.
The Carribbean experience was different (and mostly earlier)
The US Constitution ostensibly barred importation after 1807 (1808?) and the British empire got quite agressive in enforcing abolition on the seas after they abolished slavery and the combined scarcity effect mandated a different 19th century economic approach to the mortality of enslaved persons.
On the other hand, in the early days of the triangle trade there was a lot less cost in the importation of human beings since the ships were going to the cane colonies anyway and human life was, both literally and figuratively, cheap.
I stand corrected.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)I wasn't trying to be pedantic although I can see how it might come across that way. 
I simply remember how surprised I was when I read about the brutal conditions of the sugar industry in the Caribbean. It reminds me a bit (but only a bit) of the Nazi policy of working to death the populations of certain camps. The analogy breaks down pretty quickly, since the sugar planters didn't hold the death of their slaves as a desirable outcome.
Number23
(24,544 posts)cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)This begins an answer at least:
An estimated 15% of the Africans died at sea, with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself in the process of capturing and transporting indigenous peoples to the ships.[5] The total number of African deaths directly attributable to the Middle Passage voyage is estimated at up to two million; a broader look at African deaths directly attributable to the institution of slavery from 1500 to 1900 suggests up to four million African deaths.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Passage
Response to MichaelMcGuire (Original post)
Post removed
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)
RainDog
(28,784 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)
:kick:
MichaelMcGuire
(1,684 posts)Cheers
Kick
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html
Hardly analogous to cramming people into boxcars and shipping them to camps to be gassed with cyanide upon arrival.
chrisa
(4,524 posts)What do you suggest we do about it today, though?
MichaelMcGuire
(1,684 posts)