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» TMO Talk » Life » Horrendous Dictator types (Page 1)

 
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Author Topic: Horrendous Dictator types
McDirts
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Hello, I've been reading a bit about the second world war and such like lately, all very interesting.
So, one thing struck me, in terms of genocide of civilians, Hitler certainly flexed his psycho muscle to a pretty extreme extent but he wasn't exactly head and shoulders above the other big hitters of the day...

During the Japanese Shōwa Era, roughly between 1937 - 45 the Japanese military machine committed numerous acts of genocide and mutilation under the figurehead of the Emporer Hirohito.
The Japanese are estimated to have murdered from 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 civilians, most probably 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, between 1932 - 1933 set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming area. His infamous purges took an estimated further 16 million lives over a 20+ year time frame.

Mao Ze-Dong over the course of his roll is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of between 49-78,000,000 civilians.

Adolf Hitler, through the holocaust and other side effects of general war mongering is reckoned to be responsible for the deaths of 12 000 000 civilians.

...so how come Hitler gets bigged up all the time as being the be all and end all of Evil Dictators? You'd call someone a little Hitler or similar, but you wouldn't call them a Mini Hirohito or a Tiny Stalin or a Titchy Tse Tung.
Did Hitler just have the best PR agency or something?

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dang65
it's all the rage
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It's probably just that Stalin and Mao never bombed our chippy.
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McDirts
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So Stan Boardman is personally responsible for Hitler's success in selling himself as the biggest, baddest, most genocidalist motherfucker since Gengis Khan?
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Samuelnorton
"that nazi guy"
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It's all about who bosses the publishing firms and churns out the Hollywood epics.

There's simply no mileage in talking about Mao, Stalin etc. - who could possibly gain, apart from those with the simple desire to learn?

Obviously, I hate the term "little Hitler". I prefer to use apparatchik.

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"You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary!"
"I thought they were animal cookies..."


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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby.
We all locked in.
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I'm sure that samuelnorton is a bot who's triggered by any usage of the word "hitler". nothing else brings him out of the woodwork.


...unless it's the occasional moaning about chavs, Daily Mail-style.

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i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song

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Samuelnorton
"that nazi guy"
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quote:
Originally posted by H1ppychick:
"hitler"

Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!

* Blue screen of Tod *

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"You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary!"
"I thought they were animal cookies..."


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ben

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quote:
Originally posted by McDirts:
During the Japanese Shōwa Era, roughly between 1937 - 45 the Japanese military machine committed numerous acts of genocide and mutilation under the figurehead of the Emporer Hirohito.
The Japanese are estimated to have murdered from 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 civilians, most probably 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, between 1932 - 1933 set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming area. His infamous purges took an estimated further 16 million lives over a 20+ year time frame.

Mao Ze-Dong over the course of his roll is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of between 49-78,000,000 civilians.

Thing was, these were - certainly at the time and still so even now - faraway places about which we in the West (W Europe, Britain, America) knew little and cared less.

Germany, by contrast was/is a country not unlike our own, whose regime set about murdering large numbers of people not unlike ourselves - therefore, not so hard for us to make the imaginative leap necessary to care about the victims and feel outrage against the killers, surely?

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MiscellaneousFiles

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LOL!
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby.
We all locked in.
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I do have to admit that when I recently saw the trailer for "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" I did think to myself "those uniforms were fucking cool". I can empathise with what Bryan Ferry was trying to get across when he was talking about the aesthetic appeal.

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i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song

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Black Mask

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Spooky.

I just ordered this from my friendly neighbourhood library.

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sweet

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Samuelnorton
"that nazi guy"
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quote:
Originally posted by ben:
Thing was, these were - certainly at the time and still so even now - faraway places about which we in the West (W Europe, Britain, America) knew little and cared less.

The victims of both the Soviets and Hitler could be found more or less in the same place - Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine and Western Russia. So the "faraway place" argument doesn't hold much water here. Point taken about China and Japan, though.

quote:
Germany, by contrast was/is a country not unlike our own, whose regime set about murdering large numbers of people not unlike ourselves - therefore, not so hard for us to make the imaginative leap necessary to care about the victims and feel outrage against the killers, surely?
I'd say that White Russian and Ukrainian Christians murdered by Stalin were far closer to your average Westerner than some orthodox Jew from the suburbs of Minsk, but maybe I am being a but picky here.

So, nah. I'd rather stick with my line about publishers and Hollywood directors and particular pet themes that have more to do with politics than history.

It may be just for a little while, but this feels like the old days. [Frown]

--------------------
"You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary!"
"I thought they were animal cookies..."


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Samuelnorton
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quote:
Originally posted by Black Mask:
Spooky.

I just ordered this from my friendly neighbourhood library.

Hmm, that looks interesting Masky. I like the Mobutuesque sofa cover cover.

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"You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary!"
"I thought they were animal cookies..."


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Black Mask

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quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
quote:
Originally posted by Black Mask:
Spooky.

I just ordered this from my friendly neighbourhood library.

Hmm, that looks interesting Masky. I like the Mobutuesque sofa cover cover.
We're decorating, see? Don't want to take any chances.

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sweet

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dang65
it's all the rage
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Also, Stalin was on our side and totally saved our asses in the Great Patriotic War. Along with the Yanks, of course, and look how much damage they've fucking caused. So, maybe one reason we appear to hate Hitler statistically out of proportion is because it was his fault we had to get into bed with all these other bastards.
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McDirts
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I'd say that

A) Hitler lost and we got to find everything out there and then all at once and it was an overload of 'whatthefuck??' that still resonates to this day.

B) The Japs never admitted responsibility nor did they apologise for their atrocities. The Chinese (who suffered the most under Hirohito) never pushed the atrocities against them because Japan remained an important trading partner in the post war years, nor did they want to admit that as a nation they were completely fucking subjugated.

C) Mao never 'lost' so any news we got about his genocide happened in dribs and drabs rather than being found out 'all at once.

D) Stalin re-wrote history to suit his own needs, finding out anything from his period is notoriously hard and again anything we learned we learned came in bits and pieces, lessening the emotional impact, plus, again, he didn't lose.

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Black Mask

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It's hard to get worked up about dead Chinese. There's just so many of them...

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sweet

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Black Mask

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Hey, the Olympics is over!

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sweet

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McDirts
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hey, alternatively, 'The Jews' control 'The Media' and fill our head with propoganda? Hmmm?
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Black Mask

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How many Jews are left? Not many, I'll bet.

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sweet

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ralph

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Seven, I think. One of them owns a bowling alley in Pennsylvania. He showed me his concentration camp tattoos. I called him a liar since the Holocaust obviously never took place.
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ben

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quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
The victims of both the Soviets and Hitler could be found more or less in the same place - Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine and Western Russia. So the "faraway place" argument doesn't hold much water here.

Most of Stalin's victims - only some of Hitler's. As you know, Nazis murdered large numbers of civilians the length and breadth of occupied Europe - up to and including the Channel Islands... little wonder, that their crimes feel subjectively 'closer to home'.

quote:
I'd say that White Russian and Ukrainian Christians murdered by Stalin were far closer to your average Westerner than some orthodox Jew from the suburbs of Minsk, but maybe I am being a but picky here.
German Jews were the most integrated in Western Europe - for all the good it did them.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


@McDirts

Another point worth mulling about the Nazis' closeness/repulsiveness to us is the fact that so much of what they carried out was actively supported by a massive bureaucratic apparatus staffed by thousands of middle-class professionals.

Whereas the majority of Chinese or Soviet brutality was inflicted - literally - at gunpoint, the Germans went about it in a much more sophisticated manner, with lawyers, doctors, public health officials, population planners, logistical experts, chemists and industrialists all playing active and energetic roles in ensuring that, over a period of years, hundreds of thousands of people were stripped of their rights, possessions and - finally - lives.

While it's hard to put oneself in the boots of a soldier charging at an elderly woman with bayonet fixed, it's perhaps easier to imagine being one of minor officials, sitting at a desk and receiving a memo about yet another set of figures that need to be 'processed'.

[ 03.09.2008, 12:35: Message edited by: ben ]

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Black Mask

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quote:
Originally posted by Black Mask:
It's hard to get worked up about dead Chinese. There's just so many of them...

That was a pretty stupid and insensitive thing to say. I'd certainly miss them if they were all killed off in London. And what would we do for cockles?!

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sweet

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sabian

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quote:
Originally posted by Black Mask:
I'd certainly miss them if they were all killed off in London. And what would we do for cockles?!

Or Gargoyles?
 -
(editor's note: Yes, when I saw this guy sitting up there, I took his picture knowing full well that the only reason I was taking the picture was to use it here... TMO has seeped into my very soul!)

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Evil isn't what you've done, it's feeling bad about it afterwards... Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

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sabian

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quote:
Originally posted by H1ppychick:
I'm sure that samuelnorton is a bot who's triggered by any usage of the word "hitler". nothing else brings him out of the woodwork.

To be fair, as I read the first post, I was going to say the same thing that Rick said... Only he said it first. And, I'm not a nazi - so it must be true.

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Evil isn't what you've done, it's feeling bad about it afterwards... Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby.
We all locked in.
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I wasn't commenting on what he said, but on the fact that he chose to post on the thread. Instead of jonesy's "responds to everything" tag of yesteryear, snorton's should read "responds to hitlertalk".

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i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song

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sabian

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Ahh, got'cha... I do think that Darryn set up some sort of RSS feed so that should the words "Hitler", "benefits", "chav", or several others - Rick is alerted via SMS/email/RSS/bleeper

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Evil isn't what you've done, it's feeling bad about it afterwards... Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

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Black Mask

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He's got a point, though. I mean, James Caan's Jewish and he played Santino Corleone!

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sweet

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McDirts
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Has the whole world gone jewish??
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Samuelnorton
"that nazi guy"
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quote:
Originally posted by ben:
Most of Stalin's victims - only some of Hitler's. As you know, Nazis murdered large numbers of civilians the length and breadth of occupied Europe - up to and including the Channel Islands... little wonder, that their crimes feel subjectively 'closer to home'.

I can see where you are coming from, but it all really depends on how you massage the figures.

While indeed most of civilised Europe was occupied by the Nazis, those regions to the East felt the full force of it. Many of those countries under occupation in comparison didn't suffer that greatly - you could probably fit the Norwegian and Danish victims of the Nazi occupation on a couple of double-decker buses, for instance.

The general population of the Netherlands, Belgium and even France didn't have as near as rough a time as those in Eastern Europe - particularly Poland.

I am not in agreement with all of the orthodox figures - of course - but as a general benchmark in terms of percentages of the overall death toll they are probably correct.

WWII Deaths, military and civilian, by country.

The combined figures for civilian deaths in Western Europe are swallowed up by those for Poland alone, many times over.

With regard to the Channel Islands, I'd wager that more Germans died there than islanders. The place was used as a penal colony for pacifists and deserters.

quote:
German Jews were the most integrated in Western Europe - for all the good it did them.
'Tis true, but their number was relatively small when compared to their coreligionists in Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia.

In terms of the "closer to home" thing, I'd argue that this has had much more to do with the Blitz than anything else. It even seems to get into episodes of Doctor Who, ffs.

--------------------
"You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary!"
"I thought they were animal cookies..."


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ben

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quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
Many of those countries under occupation in comparison didn't suffer that greatly - you could probably fit the Norwegian and Danish victims of the Nazi occupation on a couple of double-decker buses, for instance.

IIRC the Danish and Norwegians distinguished themselves by their refusal to cooperate with the occupying Nazis when it came to denouncing and rounding up Jewish men, women and children.

'In comparison' France - our nearest continental neighbour - saw around 60,000 Jews rounded up and sent off to be butchered in the East. The fact that the equivalent figure for Poland would be into the millions doen't make that 60,000 any less horrifying.

Unless, of course, you consider 60,000 lives extinguished 'a good start'.

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ben

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Hmm. I was wrong about the Norwegians. It seems over 700 Jews were murdered during the occupation - rather more, at any rate, than would fit on 'a couple of double-decker buses'.

Still, the fate of the Danish Jews restores a little of one's faith in human goodness.

[ 03.09.2008, 17:10: Message edited by: ben ]

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sabian

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quote:
Originally posted by ben:
It seems over 700 Jews were murdered during the occupation - rather more, at any rate, than would fit on 'a couple of double-decker buses'.

Have you been to London?

700 hundred people, Jews and otherwise, are on ONE double decker bus from about 6:30 to 8:30 and again from 4 to 6:30 every week day.

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Evil isn't what you've done, it's feeling bad about it afterwards... Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

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MiscellaneousFiles

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quote:
Originally posted by that nazi guy:
you could probably fit the Norwegian and Danish victims of the Nazi occupation on a couple of double-decker buses, for instance.

quote:
Originally posted by ben:
It seems over 700 Jews were murdered during the occupation - rather more, at any rate, than would fit on 'a couple of double-decker buses'.

He said you could fit the victims on a couple of buses. Corpses are much easier to fit on buses than the living - you can pack them in much tighter without complaints.

[ 04.09.2008, 04:39: Message edited by: MiscellaneousFiles ]

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Samuelnorton
"that nazi guy"
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quote:
Originally posted by ben:
IIRC the Danish and Norwegians distinguished themselves by their refusal to cooperate with the occupying Nazis when it came to denouncing and rounding up Jewish men, women and children.

'In comparison' France - our nearest continental neighbour - saw around 60,000 Jews rounded up and sent off to be butchered in the East. The fact that the equivalent figure for Poland would be into the millions doen't make that 60,000 any less horrifying.

Unless, of course, you consider 60,000 lives extinguished 'a good start'.

The thrust of my argument was in reference to your "closer to home" theory - though I would maintain that we have had been spoon-fed the story on account of the publishing industry and Hollywood being staffed by those who share the same heritage as the victims (or otherwise) of the Holocaust(tm).

Yes, I know - publishing and Hollywood are run by Jews, blah blah blah. But 'tis the truth. Or else amongst of the glut of Holo-schlock movies we would have seen at least one great epic on the Gulags. Or something on the starvation of millions of Ukrainians. Have you never wondered why some obscure fictional account like Schindler's Ark was made into a million-dollar movie, while nothing has ever been based on, say, the powerful writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn?

It's rather odd that during the darkest days of the Cold War - which should have provided an excellent opportunity to really have a serious swing at the Commies - all we saw of them were comedy characters being offed by the dozen by John Rambo. Even today we have the likes of Che Guevara being reduced to a friendly Latin Charlie Boorman.

You know my opinions on these issues, but there are questions that need to be asked, surely?

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"You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary!"
"I thought they were animal cookies..."


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Samuelnorton
"that nazi guy"
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quote:
Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles:
He said you could fit the victims on a couple of buses. Corpses are much easier to fit on buses than the living - you can pack them in much tighter without complaints.

Indeed.

However, but when I threw out this flippant remark I had in mind one of the many Holocaust(tm) eye-witness stories - that found in the Gerstein Report where it was claimed that over seven-hundred living people were herded into an area of around twenty-five metres square. Given this, I'd say with a couple of London double-deckers you'd have plenty of room to spare.

--------------------
"You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary!"
"I thought they were animal cookies..."


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