Publicizing the horrors
January 27, 2017 9:22 AM Subscribe
Shocked by the conditions he discovered at a liberated Nazi concentration camp, General Eisenhower took decisive action to ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust were never dismissed as propaganda. (via The Presidential Timeline) [cw: pictures taken in concentration camps]
Primo Levi's Heartbreaking, Heroic Answers to the Most Common Questions He Was Asked About "Survival in Auschwitz" [New Republic] posted by Fizz at 9:25 AM on January 27, 2017 [38 favorites]
"I must admit that if I had in front of me one of our persecutors of those days, certain known faces, certain old lies, I would be tempted to hate, and with violence too; but exactly because I am not a fascist or a Nazi, I refuse to give way to this temptation."
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:57 AM on January 27, 2017 [12 favorites]
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:57 AM on January 27, 2017 [12 favorites]
Ohrdruf was the camp that Charles Payne, Barack Obama's uncle, helped liberate. He was in the 89th Infantry Division.
posted by lagomorphius at 10:04 AM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 10:04 AM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
Sometimes I think Eisenhower was psychic.
posted by fshgrl at 10:11 AM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 10:11 AM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
Slight correction because it's too late to edit. Charles Payne was Barack Obama's great-uncle.
posted by lagomorphius at 10:11 AM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 10:11 AM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this:
It's now more than seventy years since irrefutable evidence of Shoah came to light -- a lifetime. So almost everyone who was a mature adult then is now dead. Which makes this the point in time where the historical record (as opposed to living memory) must now serve the truth of what happened, which also makes this the time that the forces of revision shall truly begin to mobilize to force their "alternative facts".
It will be a prolonged battle. Thanks roomthreeseventeen and the presidentialtimeline for some ammo.
posted by philip-random at 10:17 AM on January 27, 2017 [39 favorites]
It's now more than seventy years since irrefutable evidence of Shoah came to light -- a lifetime. So almost everyone who was a mature adult then is now dead. Which makes this the point in time where the historical record (as opposed to living memory) must now serve the truth of what happened, which also makes this the time that the forces of revision shall truly begin to mobilize to force their "alternative facts".
It will be a prolonged battle. Thanks roomthreeseventeen and the presidentialtimeline for some ammo.
posted by philip-random at 10:17 AM on January 27, 2017 [39 favorites]
"I must admit that if I had in front of me one of our persecutors of those days, certain known faces, certain old lies, I would be tempted to hate, and with violence too; but exactly because I am not a fascist or a Nazi, I refuse to give way to this temptation."
I hope you didn't post this quote to chide those who are using force against fascists and Nazis today. Levi was speaking about taking revenge after the Nazis' power was broken and the direct threat had passed. Had the anti-fascists of the world rejected violence when the threat was acute, he would have died in Auschwitz, which was not liberated by sternly-worded editorials nor peaceful protests.
posted by enn at 10:25 AM on January 27, 2017 [49 favorites]
I hope you didn't post this quote to chide those who are using force against fascists and Nazis today. Levi was speaking about taking revenge after the Nazis' power was broken and the direct threat had passed. Had the anti-fascists of the world rejected violence when the threat was acute, he would have died in Auschwitz, which was not liberated by sternly-worded editorials nor peaceful protests.
posted by enn at 10:25 AM on January 27, 2017 [49 favorites]
It's now more than seventy years since irrefutable evidence of Shoah came to light -- a lifetime. So almost everyone who was a mature adult then is now dead.
But there are folks alive that survived, hearing a talk by one is a shattering and profound experience. It's not Nazis were evil evil evil (although that does come through) but a detailed experience of unique struggle to make it through day to day under starvation conditions with utterly ambiguous moral and ethical choices that needed to be made with the likelihood of everything you knew, studied, loved, worked for, swept into a bin of ashes and forgotten buy the world.
Do get to a talk by a survivor.
posted by sammyo at 10:39 AM on January 27, 2017 [11 favorites]
But there are folks alive that survived, hearing a talk by one is a shattering and profound experience. It's not Nazis were evil evil evil (although that does come through) but a detailed experience of unique struggle to make it through day to day under starvation conditions with utterly ambiguous moral and ethical choices that needed to be made with the likelihood of everything you knew, studied, loved, worked for, swept into a bin of ashes and forgotten buy the world.
Do get to a talk by a survivor.
posted by sammyo at 10:39 AM on January 27, 2017 [11 favorites]
I had such a chance, of sorts. One of my high school classes traveled down to the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, where we spent the afternoon going through the exhibits. One of the rooms was set up in part to resemble where people stayed - I wouldn't call them bedrooms, but I remember that there was a bunk bed with a life-size photo of horrifically emaciated people lying together, on the wall behind the bunk bed. An older gentleman came and asked me what I thought, and I don't remember what I said, but he said that he had been there. I had no idea what to say to him, and I still don't know what I'd say now. He walked on, and so did I.
I don't remember much else of my time in that museum, but I can't forget him.
And whenever someone denies or tries to downplay the holocaust, I remember him, and those photos on the wall.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:09 AM on January 27, 2017 [27 favorites]
I don't remember much else of my time in that museum, but I can't forget him.
And whenever someone denies or tries to downplay the holocaust, I remember him, and those photos on the wall.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:09 AM on January 27, 2017 [27 favorites]
I wish that other leaders would have the foresight that Eisenhower did in making as many people from different walks of life bear witness.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:13 AM on January 27, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:13 AM on January 27, 2017 [7 favorites]
Please seek out the recordings done by the survivors. Don't just read the accounts. Listen to the recordings by the survivors themselves.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 11:34 AM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 11:34 AM on January 27, 2017 [9 favorites]
The Holocaust was very much part of my consciousness growing up. Friends of my family survived the camps in some cases having very narrow escapes from death.
I met other survivors along the way. I met Elie Wiesel when he spoke at my university.
One family friend was a war bride. She had been in the Hitler Youth and was drummed out for giving chocolate to a boy in the camp. She fled ahead of the Russians. She met the man who later married her during this time. She had to go through De-Nazification before they could marry. Their oldest son was born in Germany and remembered bombed out buildings.
This lady learned English from TV and my mother.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:36 AM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
I met other survivors along the way. I met Elie Wiesel when he spoke at my university.
One family friend was a war bride. She had been in the Hitler Youth and was drummed out for giving chocolate to a boy in the camp. She fled ahead of the Russians. She met the man who later married her during this time. She had to go through De-Nazification before they could marry. Their oldest son was born in Germany and remembered bombed out buildings.
This lady learned English from TV and my mother.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:36 AM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Don't just read the accounts. Listen to the recordings by the survivors themselves.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum oral histories.
USHMM First Person podcast series
When I worked in the USHMM archives, I sometimes shared an office with David Bayer, and could look down from my microfilm reader and see the camp tattoo on his arm. His family was murdered at Treblinka, and he spent the war as a slave laborer, weighing only 70 pounds when he was liberated.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:03 PM on January 27, 2017 [12 favorites]
US Holocaust Memorial Museum oral histories.
USHMM First Person podcast series
When I worked in the USHMM archives, I sometimes shared an office with David Bayer, and could look down from my microfilm reader and see the camp tattoo on his arm. His family was murdered at Treblinka, and he spent the war as a slave laborer, weighing only 70 pounds when he was liberated.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:03 PM on January 27, 2017 [12 favorites]
Holocaust denialism (it is a philosophy, not a historical study) is the tip of the spear for anti-Semitism right now. As the industrialization of murder by the Nazis slowly eroded the humanity of its murderers, denialism is part of a slow erosion of the decline in social norms against publicly voicing certain ideas about Jews. Compare beliefs about the Holocaust between U.S. citizens (1990s study) and the world (54% didn't even know what it was) and see just how important factually accurate education is. Huge parts of the world have huge populations that will give an audience to denialists, whether from ignorance, prejudice, or political expedience (such as Iran). "Never forget" will mean constant, aggressive vigilance even more when the last Holocaust survivor dies.
posted by radicalawyer at 12:49 PM on January 27, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by radicalawyer at 12:49 PM on January 27, 2017 [11 favorites]
Sometimes I think Eisenhower was psychic.
I have heard it said that a prophet is not someone who can see the future, but rather someone who clearly understands their present. Eisenhower was the only president who was a high-ranking general in the modern era of the M/I complex. He heard the conversations officers didn't want to be heard in the White House or on the Hill. He had a good grasp of how deeply both the money and the bullshit ran. And he saw the cost of war up close with his own eyes. Those are all things no civilian can ever understand.
Setting aside the high prevalence of regressive and reactionary ideologies in the military (which I don't want to do), there's a good case to be made that, purely from an experience perspective, wartime generals and admirals like Ike are among the best qualified people to be president.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:04 PM on January 27, 2017 [10 favorites]
I have heard it said that a prophet is not someone who can see the future, but rather someone who clearly understands their present. Eisenhower was the only president who was a high-ranking general in the modern era of the M/I complex. He heard the conversations officers didn't want to be heard in the White House or on the Hill. He had a good grasp of how deeply both the money and the bullshit ran. And he saw the cost of war up close with his own eyes. Those are all things no civilian can ever understand.
Setting aside the high prevalence of regressive and reactionary ideologies in the military (which I don't want to do), there's a good case to be made that, purely from an experience perspective, wartime generals and admirals like Ike are among the best qualified people to be president.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:04 PM on January 27, 2017 [10 favorites]
(OTOH, Truman made Colonel, if memory serves, and he dropped two nukes. So I could well be wrong there.)
posted by middleclasstool at 1:06 PM on January 27, 2017
posted by middleclasstool at 1:06 PM on January 27, 2017
Truman made Major on active duty during WWI and saw a lot of combat. He made Colonel in the Reserves afterward.
posted by Etrigan at 1:12 PM on January 27, 2017
posted by Etrigan at 1:12 PM on January 27, 2017
And today we have a white nationalist as senior adviser to the President. I wish I could say we've come a long way.
posted by prepmonkey at 1:48 PM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by prepmonkey at 1:48 PM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
The White House's statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day failed to mention Jews at all.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:24 PM on January 27, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:24 PM on January 27, 2017 [5 favorites]
The White House's statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day failed to mention Jews at all.
That's very Soviet! They spoke only of "victims of fascism", drawing no distinction between Jews killed in the genocide, and their millions of other non-combat war dead (POWs, civilians killed by warfare, starvation, disease, war crimes such as anti-partisan reprisals, and all the other ghastly fates available).
posted by thelonius at 4:00 PM on January 27, 2017 [5 favorites]
That's very Soviet! They spoke only of "victims of fascism", drawing no distinction between Jews killed in the genocide, and their millions of other non-combat war dead (POWs, civilians killed by warfare, starvation, disease, war crimes such as anti-partisan reprisals, and all the other ghastly fates available).
posted by thelonius at 4:00 PM on January 27, 2017 [5 favorites]
Ohrdruf was the camp that Charles Payne, Barack Obama's uncle, helped liberate. He was in the 89th Infantry Division.
He served with my Opa. The Rolling Ws were some serious badasses.
posted by MissySedai at 9:51 PM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
He served with my Opa. The Rolling Ws were some serious badasses.
posted by MissySedai at 9:51 PM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
Imagine if he and MacArthur had switched places. Lest we forget.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:24 AM on January 28, 2017
posted by IndigoJones at 6:24 AM on January 28, 2017
Eisenhower was our best president. The usual choices are overrated (yes, including Lincoln).
posted by king walnut at 5:37 PM on January 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by king walnut at 5:37 PM on January 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
The White House's statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day failed to mention Jews at all.
And what do you conclude from that? Now apply the same to Justin Trudeau.
posted by king walnut at 5:41 PM on January 28, 2017
And what do you conclude from that? Now apply the same to Justin Trudeau.
posted by king walnut at 5:41 PM on January 28, 2017
And what do you conclude from that? Now apply the same to Justin Trudeau.
I conclude that the Jews are being erased from their own history, apparently continent-wide.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:13 PM on January 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
I conclude that the Jews are being erased from their own history, apparently continent-wide.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:13 PM on January 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
The White House's statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day failed to mention Jews at all.
And what do you conclude from that?
On the same day as banning immigration from countries undergoing civil war and other forms of oppression? That he's a fucking racist.
Now apply the same to Justin Trudeau.
On the same day as accepting any banned migrants from countries undergoing civil war and other forms of oppression? That he made a mistake.
Context matters.
posted by Etrigan at 7:33 PM on January 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
And what do you conclude from that?
On the same day as banning immigration from countries undergoing civil war and other forms of oppression? That he's a fucking racist.
Now apply the same to Justin Trudeau.
On the same day as accepting any banned migrants from countries undergoing civil war and other forms of oppression? That he made a mistake.
Context matters.
posted by Etrigan at 7:33 PM on January 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
That statement of Trudeau's was from last year. Here's this year's statement, which does mention Jews.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:26 PM on January 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:26 PM on January 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
"Eisenhower was our best president"
I don't know about that. I don't know how you measure a President. Lincoln seems to have been a good one. Teddy Roosevelt, and his kin Franklin D Roosevelt, seem to have been good ones - funny that they differed politically so much.
However, Eisenhower is the one President who was a great President in "good times". Post WW2, the "greatest generation", it's what people think of when "America was Great", unless you are black or homosexual, perhaps.
Eisenhower had the uncanny ability - and the platform from which he could express it - to see what he knew to be true. He did not speak in platitudes or mystical koan. He spoke in plain language. He didn't speak in bumper sticker philosophy. He didn't see the world revolving around himself (cough).
In that respect - his humility - he may have been the greatest President we have ever known. Ironic, you don't expect that from a military General, who have generally gotten where they are by their political savvy, ambition, and ruthlessness. All the more to respect the man. Time seems to be on Ike's side, as greatness goes. How sad.
posted by Xoebe at 1:24 PM on January 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
I don't know about that. I don't know how you measure a President. Lincoln seems to have been a good one. Teddy Roosevelt, and his kin Franklin D Roosevelt, seem to have been good ones - funny that they differed politically so much.
However, Eisenhower is the one President who was a great President in "good times". Post WW2, the "greatest generation", it's what people think of when "America was Great", unless you are black or homosexual, perhaps.
Eisenhower had the uncanny ability - and the platform from which he could express it - to see what he knew to be true. He did not speak in platitudes or mystical koan. He spoke in plain language. He didn't speak in bumper sticker philosophy. He didn't see the world revolving around himself (cough).
In that respect - his humility - he may have been the greatest President we have ever known. Ironic, you don't expect that from a military General, who have generally gotten where they are by their political savvy, ambition, and ruthlessness. All the more to respect the man. Time seems to be on Ike's side, as greatness goes. How sad.
posted by Xoebe at 1:24 PM on January 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
N'thing the "Talk to a Survivor" sentiment.
I've talked to a few but the first time was VASTLY more shocking than I thought it would be.
You might have noticed that, uh, I've got a slight anger problem (and I'm given to understatement and oblique references which gives rise to misunderstanding; and making an ass of myself even in person sometimes)
While ago I first met one and my buddy said "yeah, that's sol, he's a Survivor." And I took it as "he's a survivor" as in, he's suffered some knocks in his life.
So I started the conversation from that premise. "Been through some rough stuff, eh?"
Because, y'know, I've had some knocks myself.
He just said "Yes" and rolled up his sleeve.
Ok, well, yeah, I'm off base and off balance from the start, but all of that just slid right off the fucking table. Everything did. Anything I might say from any basis. There's just no basis for a conversation.
There's nothing to prepare you for that brutal reality. And I've seen some of this myself firsthand overseas. Nothing prepares you for the reality that this kind of callousness of machine like systematic destruction ever really existed.
You know it. But you don't KNOW it in your bones until you see that tattoo.
And again, I've seen genocide. But it was furious. Angry. Hateful. Passionate, for lack of a more encompassing word. And we see the Nazis portrayed that way in media and in personal stories.
They were not, they were ... more than bureaucrats. Inhuman? Something inhuman that looks human.
Point being, until that point I'd never really known that kind of cold fury. One watches "Conspiracy" or "Inglorious Basterds" and you get the subtext, but that just drops away.
There's no nuance.
To me, before that point, war was anger and righteousness and personal. You're there for the men. The guy next to you.
After that, I understood war as a fundamentally inhuman enterprise. There are rules for war crimes and so forth, something you personally are responsible for, but there are no other bounds.
It changed how I thought about atomic weapons (I still hate them, but I get *why* we keep them) and the bombing of Dresden (still a big Vonnegut fan, but...) and so forth.
I mean, Ike has been charged with starving German POWs (and other war crimes, Dresden and so forth, easy to google; Bacque's work in the 90s, pretty much disproved, but again, you read "Human Smoke" by Baker and you get that Pacifism is right, and how interested in war England and the U.S. were, how complex the matter, and so forth, but...). Knowingly, I mean.
And it's debatable, but at a fundamental level - fuck 'em. I get Ike's perspective either way.
Before, I might have condemned him. A war crime by an officer with command responsibility is a war crime after all, whether we win or lose a war. I'd be with Baker that wrong is wrong and not participating in war is a perfectly moral (if debatably efficacious) position.
After, no. Any resource that ended the war faster is worth it, even if it starved half a million POWs (given, and from all the data this is true in Ike's case, it's not egregious and genuinely aimed at ending the war faster. That's mercy.) Even if we assassinated Rommel. No bounds.
Complete change in perspective from me - just from looking at the little blue number tattooed on the inside forearm of an old man.
I've had debates (here and elsewhere) about the Nazis and war crimes vs. war. Rommel. The "good" Nazis (and there were - John Rabe, for example. Schindler, etc.)
But the difference lay in hating them in a passionate way, and just killing them to end it quickly.
I admire Rommel. John Rabe. Schinder. And before seeing that tattoo, maybe I'd cut them some slack if they weren't firing on me. Capturing Rommel might yield some intelligence, no? And matters of morale, etc. Lots of reasons to capture someone not actively shooting at you - if - and only if - you can.
But afterward, I would have killed them in cold blood if I ever got them in sight. If it's called "murder" (and again, debatable) so be it.
From the FPP: "but while we expected things to be grizzly, I'm sure none of us knew what was coming... The realness of the whole mess is just gradually dawning on me, and I doubt if it ever will on you."
The thing about this kind of violence - what is done, what was done by the Nazis, and what is done in response - you can understand it. Have an opinion and be right. But you don't know it.
You read about "ethnic cleansing" and mass rape and so forth. And in some cases, it's a little different than what the Nazis were doing. In some cases, in some places, it's the same.
Systematic rape is as shocking. And I have no problem with hunting those kinds of people down and killing them. Again, the "murder" debate is a different thing.
You need to be ruthless because that's the only sane response to the kind of affront to humanity this is. What you're trying to do is destroy a system. Like fighting a pandemic. Or zombies using the Redeker plan. The system/cycle has to be broken.
You look at history like WW 1. The Christmas Truce of 1914.
The soldiers themselves could reach a negotiated peaceful equilibrium in the midst of war.
A good thing, yes. And a natural thing. The problem in WW1 was the generals and politicians with interests in war, not conflict between an insane system (the Nazis in WW2, or other genocide pursuers) and an otherwise normal system bent to destroy the insane one (the Allies in WW2).
So you look at the behavior of troops in both cases - in the case of WW1 soldiers were fighting for the guy next to them. Regardless of other considerations (the draft, coercion, etc. etc.)
They do something to you, you retaliate, regardless of how you got there or why.
People tend to debate this end of the equation: "Was it right or wrong for the U.S. to go into Iraq; or Vietnam" and "are soldiers responsible, if not or so to what degree" etc. etc.
And it's debatable. Because the motivations are subject to reason. You can reach a political stability, and war is unnecessary in all of these cases.
And I've said this for years. Plenty of warfighters would be happy to draw a salary and sit on their ass, fat, dumb and happy and never see combat.
When there's genocide going on, or a kind of system that just can't be reasoned with, you can't just fight it. Because you get that retaliation cycle going. "They did this, so we'll do that" and it goes back and forth and gets worse and worse until it stops or spirals out of control. And yeah, war sucks for that reason. But it's a natural response.
You have to break the cycle. Normally, you can retreat. Forgive someone. Cut your losses. Stop your investment in war.
But with an opposition that has imbued - and that's the precise word - imbued it's troops with systematically terrorizing civilians (and it's instructive to ask 'why' - the Rape of Nanking that the Nazi John Rabe had opposed - you ask: why were the Japanese doing that? And, importantly, why did Rabe's opposition - purely non-physical force, work?) you have to destroy the system.
Some people can fight that by other means, as in Rabe's case. But only because warfighters back those actions with the threat of force.
And such force can be used as communication. As with the Christmas Truce, both sides knew they had the tools to harm each other, but they came to an - initially completely non-verbal - agreement through their actions on the battlefield.
Some systems refuse to allow its warfighters to do that by placing them - by design - in the position that they can't.
The Rape of Nanking as an example, that wasn't just to terrorize the population. Or perhaps more instructive (though less known) the Serb forces. Rape is a weapon of war (again, an easy topic to google).
But it is also a tool for controlling your own forces. Criminals do this all the time. Cultists. Terrorist cells. Etc. etc. Once you're in, once you participate in something, perhaps even something small at first, you get drawn in to bigger and worse things and they use that to turn you into something inhuman.
The only thing you can do to someone like that, while the war is going on, is kill them. After the war, or during, granted that you have the luxury of that much power, you can worry about rehabilitation. And in deference to Abraham Lincoln, and Ike's reference to his words in the FPP, ("Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?") and in my own experience, the best way to do this is to not hate them, but to help them change.
If you can't change them though, and even if it's not their fault they're trapped by their circumstances (as I argue for Rommel) fuck 'em, kill them as efficiently as you can as quickly as you can. I mean - do I not destroy my enemies when all their men are dead?
And, perhaps I'm skipping over this, plenty of stories of soldiers, in our case U.S. soldiers, were very unwilling to kill.
Preferring to - as with the WW1 example - infer they can kill the enemy and drive them back rather than kill them.
And this persists to the modern day. Certainly (Col. Grossman, et.al.) methods of training have changed and there's a much higher percentage of trained warfighters willing to deliberately target the enemy. But as a general strategy, it's still communicative - efficient expression of power - instead of pure efficiency in killing.
But many soldiers, after seeing the death camps first hand, or seeing SS atrocities, lost their reluctance to directly target and kill the enemy.
("The Big Red One" comes to mind as something accessible, or "Fury" too)
I can only imagine Ike had a similar change of heart and change of philosophy in the use of force after seeing the death camps.
And I sympathize. It would be a terrible thing to bear the supreme responsibility knowing that. Having to restrain yourself, your own outrage, and the temptation to hate, having to cause that much destruction and suffering as well as the, quite literally then, millions of men under your command.
And yeah, wars not make one great.
But Ike was great. Because he did what he had to do, without hatred for the enemy but hatred for war:
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Ike
(Again, sorry for the book length, but I'm clocked into this stuff)
posted by Smedleyman at 9:36 AM on January 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
I've talked to a few but the first time was VASTLY more shocking than I thought it would be.
You might have noticed that, uh, I've got a slight anger problem (and I'm given to understatement and oblique references which gives rise to misunderstanding; and making an ass of myself even in person sometimes)
While ago I first met one and my buddy said "yeah, that's sol, he's a Survivor." And I took it as "he's a survivor" as in, he's suffered some knocks in his life.
So I started the conversation from that premise. "Been through some rough stuff, eh?"
Because, y'know, I've had some knocks myself.
He just said "Yes" and rolled up his sleeve.
Ok, well, yeah, I'm off base and off balance from the start, but all of that just slid right off the fucking table. Everything did. Anything I might say from any basis. There's just no basis for a conversation.
There's nothing to prepare you for that brutal reality. And I've seen some of this myself firsthand overseas. Nothing prepares you for the reality that this kind of callousness of machine like systematic destruction ever really existed.
You know it. But you don't KNOW it in your bones until you see that tattoo.
And again, I've seen genocide. But it was furious. Angry. Hateful. Passionate, for lack of a more encompassing word. And we see the Nazis portrayed that way in media and in personal stories.
They were not, they were ... more than bureaucrats. Inhuman? Something inhuman that looks human.
Point being, until that point I'd never really known that kind of cold fury. One watches "Conspiracy" or "Inglorious Basterds" and you get the subtext, but that just drops away.
There's no nuance.
To me, before that point, war was anger and righteousness and personal. You're there for the men. The guy next to you.
After that, I understood war as a fundamentally inhuman enterprise. There are rules for war crimes and so forth, something you personally are responsible for, but there are no other bounds.
It changed how I thought about atomic weapons (I still hate them, but I get *why* we keep them) and the bombing of Dresden (still a big Vonnegut fan, but...) and so forth.
I mean, Ike has been charged with starving German POWs (and other war crimes, Dresden and so forth, easy to google; Bacque's work in the 90s, pretty much disproved, but again, you read "Human Smoke" by Baker and you get that Pacifism is right, and how interested in war England and the U.S. were, how complex the matter, and so forth, but...). Knowingly, I mean.
And it's debatable, but at a fundamental level - fuck 'em. I get Ike's perspective either way.
Before, I might have condemned him. A war crime by an officer with command responsibility is a war crime after all, whether we win or lose a war. I'd be with Baker that wrong is wrong and not participating in war is a perfectly moral (if debatably efficacious) position.
After, no. Any resource that ended the war faster is worth it, even if it starved half a million POWs (given, and from all the data this is true in Ike's case, it's not egregious and genuinely aimed at ending the war faster. That's mercy.) Even if we assassinated Rommel. No bounds.
Complete change in perspective from me - just from looking at the little blue number tattooed on the inside forearm of an old man.
I've had debates (here and elsewhere) about the Nazis and war crimes vs. war. Rommel. The "good" Nazis (and there were - John Rabe, for example. Schindler, etc.)
But the difference lay in hating them in a passionate way, and just killing them to end it quickly.
I admire Rommel. John Rabe. Schinder. And before seeing that tattoo, maybe I'd cut them some slack if they weren't firing on me. Capturing Rommel might yield some intelligence, no? And matters of morale, etc. Lots of reasons to capture someone not actively shooting at you - if - and only if - you can.
But afterward, I would have killed them in cold blood if I ever got them in sight. If it's called "murder" (and again, debatable) so be it.
From the FPP: "but while we expected things to be grizzly, I'm sure none of us knew what was coming... The realness of the whole mess is just gradually dawning on me, and I doubt if it ever will on you."
The thing about this kind of violence - what is done, what was done by the Nazis, and what is done in response - you can understand it. Have an opinion and be right. But you don't know it.
You read about "ethnic cleansing" and mass rape and so forth. And in some cases, it's a little different than what the Nazis were doing. In some cases, in some places, it's the same.
Systematic rape is as shocking. And I have no problem with hunting those kinds of people down and killing them. Again, the "murder" debate is a different thing.
You need to be ruthless because that's the only sane response to the kind of affront to humanity this is. What you're trying to do is destroy a system. Like fighting a pandemic. Or zombies using the Redeker plan. The system/cycle has to be broken.
You look at history like WW 1. The Christmas Truce of 1914.
The soldiers themselves could reach a negotiated peaceful equilibrium in the midst of war.
A good thing, yes. And a natural thing. The problem in WW1 was the generals and politicians with interests in war, not conflict between an insane system (the Nazis in WW2, or other genocide pursuers) and an otherwise normal system bent to destroy the insane one (the Allies in WW2).
So you look at the behavior of troops in both cases - in the case of WW1 soldiers were fighting for the guy next to them. Regardless of other considerations (the draft, coercion, etc. etc.)
They do something to you, you retaliate, regardless of how you got there or why.
People tend to debate this end of the equation: "Was it right or wrong for the U.S. to go into Iraq; or Vietnam" and "are soldiers responsible, if not or so to what degree" etc. etc.
And it's debatable. Because the motivations are subject to reason. You can reach a political stability, and war is unnecessary in all of these cases.
And I've said this for years. Plenty of warfighters would be happy to draw a salary and sit on their ass, fat, dumb and happy and never see combat.
When there's genocide going on, or a kind of system that just can't be reasoned with, you can't just fight it. Because you get that retaliation cycle going. "They did this, so we'll do that" and it goes back and forth and gets worse and worse until it stops or spirals out of control. And yeah, war sucks for that reason. But it's a natural response.
You have to break the cycle. Normally, you can retreat. Forgive someone. Cut your losses. Stop your investment in war.
But with an opposition that has imbued - and that's the precise word - imbued it's troops with systematically terrorizing civilians (and it's instructive to ask 'why' - the Rape of Nanking that the Nazi John Rabe had opposed - you ask: why were the Japanese doing that? And, importantly, why did Rabe's opposition - purely non-physical force, work?) you have to destroy the system.
Some people can fight that by other means, as in Rabe's case. But only because warfighters back those actions with the threat of force.
And such force can be used as communication. As with the Christmas Truce, both sides knew they had the tools to harm each other, but they came to an - initially completely non-verbal - agreement through their actions on the battlefield.
Some systems refuse to allow its warfighters to do that by placing them - by design - in the position that they can't.
The Rape of Nanking as an example, that wasn't just to terrorize the population. Or perhaps more instructive (though less known) the Serb forces. Rape is a weapon of war (again, an easy topic to google).
But it is also a tool for controlling your own forces. Criminals do this all the time. Cultists. Terrorist cells. Etc. etc. Once you're in, once you participate in something, perhaps even something small at first, you get drawn in to bigger and worse things and they use that to turn you into something inhuman.
The only thing you can do to someone like that, while the war is going on, is kill them. After the war, or during, granted that you have the luxury of that much power, you can worry about rehabilitation. And in deference to Abraham Lincoln, and Ike's reference to his words in the FPP, ("Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?") and in my own experience, the best way to do this is to not hate them, but to help them change.
If you can't change them though, and even if it's not their fault they're trapped by their circumstances (as I argue for Rommel) fuck 'em, kill them as efficiently as you can as quickly as you can. I mean - do I not destroy my enemies when all their men are dead?
And, perhaps I'm skipping over this, plenty of stories of soldiers, in our case U.S. soldiers, were very unwilling to kill.
Preferring to - as with the WW1 example - infer they can kill the enemy and drive them back rather than kill them.
And this persists to the modern day. Certainly (Col. Grossman, et.al.) methods of training have changed and there's a much higher percentage of trained warfighters willing to deliberately target the enemy. But as a general strategy, it's still communicative - efficient expression of power - instead of pure efficiency in killing.
But many soldiers, after seeing the death camps first hand, or seeing SS atrocities, lost their reluctance to directly target and kill the enemy.
("The Big Red One" comes to mind as something accessible, or "Fury" too)
I can only imagine Ike had a similar change of heart and change of philosophy in the use of force after seeing the death camps.
And I sympathize. It would be a terrible thing to bear the supreme responsibility knowing that. Having to restrain yourself, your own outrage, and the temptation to hate, having to cause that much destruction and suffering as well as the, quite literally then, millions of men under your command.
And yeah, wars not make one great.
But Ike was great. Because he did what he had to do, without hatred for the enemy but hatred for war:
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Ike
(Again, sorry for the book length, but I'm clocked into this stuff)
posted by Smedleyman at 9:36 AM on January 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Every American's #1 job this next few years: preserve evidence.
posted by ethansr at 9:40 AM on January 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by ethansr at 9:40 AM on January 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
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