Sharon says "no one cared"

[Tmy]

No one cared about the holocaust.

JERUSALEM - In a speech marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Wednesday that the world “didn’t lift a finger” to stop the Holocaust.

In unusually harsh remarks to parliament, Sharon noted that when the Nazis began deporting Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz in large numbers in 1944, Allied forces did not bomb the railroad tracks leading to the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Sharon said that over a period of several weeks, more than 600,000 Jews from Hungary were killed in Auschwitz.



Oh boo freakin hoo. I dont disagree with his "we have to protect ourselves" point, but how dare he try to guilt trip the world. Its not like the jews are the only ones ever to face genocide.

How many troops did Israel send to Cambodia during the killing fields??

 

[dann]

Allied forces did not bomb the railroad tracks leading to the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Sharon said that over a period of several weeks, more than 600,000 Jews from Hungary were killed in Auschwitz.

I am not too fond of Sharon, but isn't he right in this case?

 

[kimiko]

Considering what is going in Sudan as we type, what does he expect?

 

[Tmy]

Re: Re: Sharon says "no one cared"

I am not too fond of Sharon, but isn't he right in this case?

Well hes kinda right. But its not like everyone cheered the holocaust. Ironically the shame of the holocaust led to the creation of Israel.

But it seems like Sharon is implying that his country wouldntve turned a blind eye to such a thing. If you ask me its one of those ITS A BIG DEAL WHEN IT HAPPENS TO ME things. Where has israel ever intervened for the good of humanity??

 

[CBL4]

Unfortunately what Sharon says will be said, accurately, by Bosnians, Rwandans, Darfurians, etc. The West has failed to act in the past and continues to act slowly at best (Bosnia) or, more frequently, not at all.

CBL

 

[Rob Lister]

Unfortunately what Sharon says will be said, accurately, by Bosnians, Rwandans, Darfurians, etc. The West has failed to act in the past and continues to act slowly at best (Bosnia) or, more frequently, not at all.

CBL

And fails to act for good, bad, idealistic and pragmatic reasons.

Had things turned out just ever-so-slightly differently in Germany, way (not so far) back then, then the holocost would not even be a historical issue today. At least, not a great one.

Suppose Hitler had been successfully assasinated early, or even in the middle of his 'formal' erradication program and his 'successor' successfully negotiated a truce. Had that happened the history books might only have noted it in a footnote.

 

[dann]

Unfortunately what Sharon says will be said, accurately, by Bosnians, Rwandans, Darfurians, etc. The West has failed to act in the past and continues to act slowly at best (Bosnia) or, more frequently, not at all.

You are implying that "the West" is the good guy, doing his best, however, forever too late and therefore blamed by the impatient victims of all kinds of atrocities. What you can actually learn from the one truth in Sharon's statement is that the purpose of fighting Germany in WW2 was not to save the Jews, the reason for his "unusually harsh remarks".
And in a way you are right: It would be just as absurd to blame the West for failing to act or actin to slowly in Bosnia, as it would be to blame Israel for doing too little to help the Palestinians against foreign aggressors!

 

[CBL4]

You are implying that "the West" is the good guy, doing his best, however, forever too late and therefore blamed by the impatient victims of all kinds of atrocities.

The west is generally the "good guy" but too often it is not.

If I inadvertentally implied that not stopping genocide is somehow equivalent to the committing genocide, I did not mean to. When you have the power to stop a major crime, you should do it. However, doing nothing does not compare to the actual committing of the crime. The tyrants deserve at least 99.9% of the blame but the onlooker do have a tiny bit of guilt.

There is one thing that does increase the blame. The UN promised safe havens for Bosnian in Srebnica and other towns and then allowed a massacre to occur. Promising safety and not delivering is much worse than doing nothing at all. It is still not on the scale of the murderers but it clearly very wrong.

CBL

 

[Mycroft]

Oh boo freakin hoo. I dont disagree with his "we have to protect ourselves" point, but how dare he try to guilt trip the world. Its not like the jews are the only ones ever to face genocide.

Oh grow up and get over yourself.

Sharon is a Jew talking to other Jews. He's not trying to make you feel guilty, he's driving home the point that Jews (and yes, Bosnians, Rwandans, Darfurians, etc) could die by the millions if they depend on the good intentions of the West to protect them. The truth is that nations make their decisions in terms of pragmatic self-interest and sometimes that means looking the other way when a few million people die.

Does it make you feel guilty? Good. It should. As a civilization, we should all feel guilty.

But don't blame the Jew who speaks the truth. Turn your anger at the civilization that makes this ugly thing true.

 

[Tmy]

Does it make you feel guilty? Good. It should. As a civilization, we should all feel guilty.

But don't blame the Jew who speaks the truth. Turn your anger at the civilization that makes this ugly thing true.

I feel symapthy but I dont feel guilt.

Even though the world was not his intended audience he sort of slights the other nations for their lack of action.

 

[Skeptic]

Considering what is going in Sudan as we type, what does he expect?

I don't think his point was that the jews SHOULD expect anything--only that they should be able to defend themselves.

 

[a_unique_person]

I feel symapthy but I dont feel guilt.

Even though the world was not his intended audience he sort of slights the other nations for their lack of action.

Not just inaction, but active rejection. The voyage of the passenger liner 'St Louis', for example.

 

[LW]

In unusually harsh remarks to parliament, Sharon noted that when the Nazis began deporting Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz in large numbers in 1944, Allied forces did not bomb the railroad tracks leading to the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

This fails to take into account the fact that it was really difficult to do any lasting damage for railroads by bombing in WWII. A direct hit was needed and even then the usual result was a break that could be repaired in a couple of hours.

Witness how ineffective the Germans were in cutting the Kirov railroad to Murmansk in 1941 even though they had pretty much complete air superiority, well-trained crews, much shorter flight distance, and dive bombers that were much more accurate against precision targets than level bombers are.

So, an allied bombing of the Auschwitz railway would have been only a symbolic gesture and in all probability it wouldn't have saved any Jews at all.

 

[Ian Osborne]

Re: Re: Sharon says "no one cared"

This fails to take into account the fact that it was really difficult to do any lasting damage for railroads by bombing in WWII. A direct hit was needed and even then the usual result was a break that could be repaired in a couple of hours.

Witness how ineffective the Germans were in cutting the Kirov railroad to Murmansk in 1941 even though they had pretty much complete air superiority, well-trained crews, much shorter flight distance, and dive bombers that were much more accurate against precision targets than level bombers are.

So, an allied bombing of the Auschwitz railway would have been only a symbolic gesture and in all probability it wouldn't have saved any Jews at all.

I was beginng to despair of this thread until I got to the lone voice of sanity at the end. It's also worth adding that diverting resources to bombing Auschwitz meant taking them away from other duties, such as bombing German factories, something the Allies simply couldn't afford to do.

The only way to stop the Holocaust was to win the war, which we did.

 

[LW]

Re: Re: Sharon says "no one cared"

So, an allied bombing of the Auschwitz railway would have been only a symbolic gesture and in all probability it wouldn't have saved any Jews at all.

Little addendum.

The murder of Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz happened between April 29 - July 9, 1944, overlapping the period of Operation Overlord that consumed quite a lot of Allied air power.

One additional point of note is that during the Warsaw uprising that started on August 1, 1944, the Allies flew 213 sorties where they dropped supplies to the Poles. They lost 34 airplanes doing it, a loss rate of 16%. These losses were comparable to the American Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid that had a 19% loss rate and that was (and still is) regarded as catastrophical.

So, we can reasonably expect that the planes bombing Auswitch railway would have suffered heavy losses while doing it.

 

[Skeptic]

It's interesting to note that what one poster here called a "voice of sanity" is the excuse that it was very difficult to effectively bomb the railways to the extermination camps. While this is true, the allied bombed many other targets--including German civilian cities--as a priority. If you could bomb Berlin's suburbs, should you not have also bomber Auschwitz?

The truth of the matter, which this "voice of sanity" misses, is that the real reason for not bombing Auschwitz is that, on the scale of "sane" and "reasonable" military priorities, stopping--or attempting to stop, even symbolically--the mass murder of jews simply didn't count for much.

THAT is what "sanity" meant during WWII. Alas, for a whole group of people, it still does: shouldn't it be "reasonable" and "rational" to just let the Arabs destroy israel, instead of keeping all this mideast conflict nonsense?

 

[Chaos]

It's interesting to note that what one poster here called a "voice of sanity" is the excuse that it was very difficult to effectively bomb the railways to the extermination camps. While this is true, the allied bombed many other targets--including German civilian cities--as a priority. If you could bomb Berlin's suburbs, should you not have also bomber Auschwitz?

The truth of the matter, which this "voice of sanity" misses, is that the real reason for not bombing Auschwitz is that, on the scale of "sane" and "reasonable" military priorities, stopping--or attempting to stop, even symbolically--the mass murder of jews simply didn't count for much.

THAT is what "sanity" meant during WWII. Alas, for a whole group of people, it still does: shouldn't it be "reasonable" and "rational" to just let the Arabs destroy israel, instead of keeping all this mideast conflict nonsense?

So you think that it is reasonable to try (with a small chance of success) to stop the murder at one camp, thereby (in all probability) weaking the own air forces, hampering the overall war effort - and prolonging the war (and the murder at all the other camps) by an incalculable period of time.

 

[LW]

While this is true, the allied bombed many other targets--including German civilian cities--as a priority. If you could bomb Berlin's suburbs, should you not have also bomber Auschwitz?

In case you haven't noticed, but I've previously criticized many aspects of Allied strategic bombing campaign on this forum. For example, I've said that in my opinion the British night terror-bombing campaign was a stupid waste of resources (at least after early 1944). With the aid of hindsight we can now say that a lot of bombing resources were used on targets that were irrelevant for ending the war.

The reason why Allies were able to bomb Berlin was that it was within the operative range of P-51D Mustang. The American day bombers could not fly into Germany without escorts. They tried it and got slaughtered. Auswitch lied at the very extreme range of Mustang. You can look what happened to Luftwaffe's bomber squadrons over London for an example how well fighter escorts function at the extreme limits of their operative range.

The truth of the matter, which this "voice of sanity" misses, is that the real reason for not bombing Auschwitz is that, on the scale of "sane" and "reasonable" military priorities, stopping--or attempting to stop, even symbolically--the mass murder of jews simply didn't count for much.

Sure, the Allies wasted lot of their bombing capabilities on targets that were even less reasonable than Auswitch railroad so diverting some of that effort to Auswitch would have been possible without severely affecting the total war effort.

But if you believe that it would have stopped Holocaust or even delayed by a significant amount of time, you have a very optimistic view on WWII-era air power .

Alas, for a whole group of people, it still does: shouldn't it be "reasonable" and "rational" to just let the Arabs destroy israel, instead of keeping all this mideast conflict nonsense?

I hope that this was general rhetoric and not a claim that I want the destruction of Israel.

 

[Cleopatra]

We have discussed the issue of the bombing of the camps before here.

It's harsh to say that none cared where there is a monument in the hear of Israel for the Righteous Among the Nations.On the other hand I feel that he isn't that wrong.
The nature of this genocide seems unbelievable , it wasn't perfomed in the limited and controlled area of one country even a big one. It took place in many different countries where the Germans were the occupying force that was hated by the locals because they were equally brutal to them and yet they managed to extinguish the jewish communities( not only them of course but we are talking about the jews now) with remarkable success.

How this happened? Why nobody couldn't prevent it from happening? These are two question that I don't know that we will ever be in the position to answer them.

 

[Chaos]

*snip*
I hope that this was general rhetoric and not a claim that I want the destruction of Israel.

Unfortunately, my experience with "Skeptic" leads me to believe that this is EXACTLY what he does indeed believe.