What I found interesting is that the author, Westermann, took up this project based on discussions in his classes, where he found the students would naturally compare different forms of genocide. When it comes to genocide, Nazi Germany remains the archetype/Idealtype, although the last decades our historical knowledge of other genocides has widened.
Of course looking at genocide involves a discussion of the definition, but most definitions go farther than just the mass murder of a particular group with the intent of total destruction. Some include the destruction of culture and separate identity.
While it easy to dismiss referring to the Holocaust as a Godwin, in this vase it is actually helpful.
Westermann notes that what happens 'at the sharp end' of policy doesn't necessarily align with what happens at the centre. And while what happens at the sharp end may seem very similar in both cases, Westermann argues that the main difference between the American and the German case is that in the former, the authorities were not bent on genocide and in the latter they were.
The book argues that because (most) people didn't know that transport to the east meant instant death in most cases, the Jews often chose transport over the perils of hiding (where the consequences of being found were well known to be severe). It also meant that the non-Jewish population didn't offer as much help and put up as much resistance as they might have otherwise.
Van den Boom bases much of his argument on a study of 160 wartime diaries by Jewish and non-Jewish Dutch.
I'm sorry that these talks are only available in Dutch.
The first part asks whether the Holocaust was an act long in planning or an improvisation
The second part deals with the question why so many Germans cooperated in the Holocaust.
The third part talks about the attitude of ordinary Dutch towards the persecution of the Jews
In the fourth part van den Boom deals with the reasons behind the high rate of Jews that were deported from the Netherlands. Using new research, like the book by Griffioen and Zeller, comparing the reaction and resistance to the Holocaust in the Netherlands to that in France and Belgium.
The fifth part question whether ordinary Dutch (both Jewish and non-Jewish) knew about the Holocaust
Today in the Netherlands we commemorated those killed, wounded or otherwise damaged by war since WWII. So a bit of a different post this time.
I went looking for this movie a couple of months ago because a miniatures company had posted the box art for its new Elite German Infantry 1939-1943 (read: SS) accompanied by 'hot' and 'awesome'. Some people commented that is was bad taste, others ended up saying something on the line of 'war is hell', and referred to war crimes by allied armies in WWII and Guantanamo Bay.
As worried as I am by Guantanamo Bay and drone attacks in Afghanistan, and although I am aware that there were serious war crimes perpetrated by Allied forces during WWII I think that it goes to far to equate this to the Holocaust. In terms of principle and size, the mass murder of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of gypsies (and other 'unwanted') is of a different order.
The following movie for me sums up why.
This movie gave me a profound insight into the Holocaust. I saw it first in the Imperial War Museum exposition on the Holocaust, without the commentary. But the commentary is spot on and ends with the same thing that I took away from it: the soldiers involved look kind of bored. I can still see the guy throwing down his cigarette and stamping on it as he moves of, shoulders sagging, to fetch another batch of victims.
Yes. Mass murdering German soldiers were bored while doing it.
It shows an emotional withdrawal, but also a routine. How this works has been described in general by Milgram's sociological experiments, but detailed in Ordinary Men by Brown and Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners.
Since the 1990s historical research has shown that the Holocaust was not a matter of a few SS Sonderkommando's and a few Vernichtungslager. No, it was a massive organisation. About half of the Jews murdered were shot close to their homes, not gassed. Many Wehrmacht units were involved as well as police battallions.
But the cigarette flicked away by a bored soldier shows why this could happen again easily (as it has already in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and the Sudan): we humans have an incredible ability to adapt to the most deplorable circumstances. I hope that soldiers had nightmares for the rest of his life (like my grandfather had of his wartime) but I doubt it.
The only hope we have is to make that kind of moral autism as difficult as possible. Tell your friends, tell your kids that this happened and how, and why it could happen. Don't take their moral compass and courage for granted.
