Remembering The Holocaust as a Whole.

[Pavulon]

The Holocaust tends to be remembered by shocking acts of barbarity or in sheer numbers. Both are valid and terrible. The methodology used by a government to implement the act is far far worse.

History is full of valuable lessons for modern society to learn from. The Second World War killed untold millions of people, the civilian death toll was horrific and every death is a tragedy. The mixture of modern weapon systems, advanced industrial economies and first world nations, combined with the complete lack of restraint led to horrors unparalleled and hopefully never to be visited on this world again.

The Holocaust stands out as a historically significant event that is unique in human history. Many people I talk to who have college educations from prestigious universities have elementary knowledge of how the Final Solution was carried out or why it was so deadly. Here is a brief view from my perspective.

All masters of war are concerned with logistics, efficiency is destroying an enemy using the least amount of resources. This is paramount in all following points.
Evolution takes place once a system / plan is put in place. Concentration camps in Germany were originally used to target political undesirables to the nazi regime. They looked at the reservation system used by the US for Native Americans for the first iteration of the camps.
As the Reich gained power it began scaling up the camps to send social "enemies" away. Gays, Communists, Labor Leaders, Germans who opposed the regime, gypsies, mentally ill people, and Jews. Dachau is an example of this type of camp.

Then in 1941 - 42 the system was retasked to destroy the entirety of the Jewish community in Europe. That is the Final Solution. Point blank. Those were the orders and Himmler then set about the process of carrying them out. The Polish camps were modified to exterminate people. Sobibor killed 99% of people who arrived there in 2 hours. Others in the camp were killed as part of this umbrella plan.

The SS worked with civilian engineers and industry to design and build a system to accomplish this. They found shooting people was inefficient, gassing them with car exhaust was to slow, and that burying hundreds of thousands of bodies was not effective. They used trial in error to improve their process
So the buildings were modified to be self contained gas chambers and crematoriums. This design solved the problems of disposal and handling.

This model of problem solving is applied to solving process related problems to this day. They used a 6 sigma like approach to refine their process.

By 1944 the Nazi Government was working with the occupied nations assistance to remove jews. What started in france expanded. This happened in almost every nation where germans had control. Local collaboration allowed the local populations to be found and destroyed. This is not as well known but countries purged their jewish populations.

The end result was the most efficient and industrialized method possible at the time being used to kill and dispose of millions of Jews. This required cooperation of the German Military, Civilian Engineers, Occupied Police Forces, and ordinary people to accomplish. These were not "thugs" but educated, intelligent men designing a process. Their actions were calculated and effective.

The records kept are detailed, the SS was not hiding what they were doing. This is established fact. There is no point in comparison to this event, no mitigation, no way to look at and try to find reason.

I suggest further reading and the BBC has a very good documentary on the subject.

[joeybee12]

1. KNR...I suggest anyone who doubts the extent and horror of the Holocaust read up

on the Nuremburg trials...not one person used a "it didn't happen defense"...they said they were just following orders, they had no choice, etc. They didn't deny it happened because the evidence was there...the evidence was overwhelming...the denial came later, as time passed.

[cali]

2. k&r excellent post.

[H2O Man]

3. Definitely recommended.

Thank you for this. It is the type of OP that I find to be the reason to be a member of the DU community. Outstanding!

[tblue]

4. And the people went along with it.

I personally know one survivor, from Poland. She said the most hurtful thing of all was how neighbors and friends would help the Nazis identify the Jews. She wrote a book, "Alicia: My Story." Almost too amazing, too horrific to believe.

In another book, I read the hardcore intolerance and antisemitism was deeply ingrained in primarily provincial rural areas in Germany, and those seeds of hate and scapegoating were there well before the Nazis came to power. Hitler gave them a leader to rally around, and his minions helped them organize and take collective action (thru voting and violence). He did not create the hate, but he channeled it and used it to gain dictatorial power, until the Final Solution became inevitable and generally acceptable among the people. Bottom line is, Hitler was a product of his people, as was, in turn, the Holocaust.

[Pavulon]

5. The sad and scary part is the psychology

that made it work in WW2 is still out there. It could be argued that any people, given the right influence and pressure, could commit the same act today.

[cali]

7. people are persuadable. We like to think we're not

but en mass it's not that hard to persuade large groups of people to do very ugly things.

[Nye Bevan]

6. I would highly recommend this book

http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Germany-Jews-Persecution-1933-1939/dp/0060928786/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264616421&sr=8-1

"Nazi Germany and the Jews" by Saul Friedlander.

Not a book about the Holocaust, but about how the Jews were marginalized, excluded and persecuted in the pre-war years 1933-1939. A fascinating and horrifying description of how the conditions making the Holocaust possible were created.

[izzybeans]

8. Zygmaunt Bauman's Modernity and the Holacaust makes a very similar

argument.

Thanks for the perspective.