Holocaust records found - 60 Minutes

[Kat]

Holocaust records found

FROM CBS' 60 MINUTES:

"Good afternoon. I wanted to give you a heads-up on a story that will be running this Sunday, Dec. 17 (7PM ET/PT on CBS) on "60 MINUTES" about a long-secret German archive that houses a treasure trove of information on 17.5 million victims of the Holocaust. The archive, located in the German town of Bad Arolsen, is massive (there are 16 miles of shelving containing 50 million pages of documents) and until recently, was off-limits to the public. But after the German government agreed earlier this year to open the archives, CBS News' Scott Pelley traveled there with three Jewish survivors who were able to see their own Holocaust records. It's an incredibly moving piece, all the more poignant in the wake of this week's meeting of Holocaust deniers in Iran. We're trying to get word out about the story to people who have a special interest in this subject. So we were hoping you'd consider sending out something to your listserve and/or posting something on your website. Further information will also be available on our website http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/...main13502.shtml

Thanks, Barbara for the heads-up on this program.

Kat

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is the direct link to the story:

Revisiting The Horrors Of The Holocaust

Millions Of Nazi Documents Are Being Made Available To The Public

Here is a quote:

Seized when Germany fell to the Allies in 1945, the documents were deposited in an archive in the German city of Bad Arolsen and have been tightly controlled for privacy reasons ever since. Sitting on 16 miles of shelving, they number 50 million pages covering 17.5 million victims, not only Jews but also millions of slave laborers, political prisoners, homosexuals and Roma. They reveal the horrible: For 90 minutes on Hitler's birthday, a prisoner was shot every two minutes as a gift to the Führer. They tell the mundane: Lice on prisoners were counted and classified as small, medium and large.

They contain a few familiar names, Anne Frank, for one, and a famous list, the one belonging to factory owner Oskar Schindler, who put prisoners' names on his list to save them from death. Both stories were immortalized in literature and film. But the records mainly hold the names of millions of unknown victims, some of whom survived to tell their stories, like Miki Schwartz, Walter Feiden and Jack Rosenthal. 60 Minutes was able to secure a private viewing of the records for these three men before they are made more accessible within a year.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is a very interesting article on the perception of the Holocaust in Muslim countries. In Objectivism-land, a lot gets written that the Holocaust is denied by the majority of Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali disagrees. She claims that most Muslims don't even know that it existed.

Why they deny the Holocaust

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Los Angeles Times

December 16, 2006

Here is a quote:

Western leaders today who say they are shocked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference this week denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For the majority of Muslims in the world, the Holocaust is not a major historical event that they deny. We simply do not know it ever happened because we were never informed of it.

Her theory is that hatred of the Jews is such a propaganda staple in Muslim countries that there is no opposition to Holocaust denial--when the subject comes up at all. To paraphrase her words (and clarify her insinuations), propaganda plus ignorance are the reasons that Ahmadinejad's conference received the (silent) acquiescence of mainstream Muslims, and why there was no counter-conference in Riyadh, Cairo, Lahore, Khartoum or Jakarta condemning Ahmadinejad, and why the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference were silent on this.

Should anyone be curious, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali immigrant to The Netherlands who has served in Parliament. She wrote the screenplay to the 10-minute film, Submission, directed by Theo van Gogh, who was later murdered for it by Mohammed Bouyeri. Hirsi Ali used to be Muslim, but became an atheist in 2002.

Here is the Wikipedia article on this amazing woman: Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I fully agree with Hirsi Ali's comments and from those comments, I perceive two intellectual targets in interacting with moderate Muslims to get at the root of fanaticism:

1. Provide a rational view of Jews, neither praising nor damning them--or better yet, granting merit and criticizing Jews where rationally merited. As in all propaganda wars, one type of propaganda does not really combat an opposing one. It just provides the tools for another gang. Only reason kills the message of scapegoating propaganda. Whenever the argument of antisemitism raises its ugly head with moderate peaceful Muslims, reason needs to be extolled as the friend of Jew and Muslim alike--and only after that should the issue be dealt with. To emphasize, antisemitism needs to be fought on a fundamental level by selling reason, not by falling into verbal traps prepared by propaganda. Another good tactic is to dissect what scapegoating is and does and who gains what--always with the message of looking at the facts objectively.

2. Awareness of both the Holocaust and Nazi antisemitism need to be spread among moderate Muslims. As with all intellectual battles, the very existence of it needs to be accepted by Muslims before any condemnation will have any effect at all (except to evoke hostility and derision). The only way to do this is keep presenting the facts over and over. The recent unveiling of the Nazi prisoner records archive in the German city of Bad Arolsen (at the head of this thread) is one such fact for great effect.

In presenting facts to a hostile group, not many people are convinced at first, but some are. They then interact with others among them on a level that outsiders cannot. This is how reason grows. This reality will be the greatest impact of the 60 Minutes report, which I strongly applaud. On a smaller level, this principle is identical for us when we discuss things with moderate Muslims.

Michael

[Danneskjold]

Lets see Iran try to dispute this evidence of the Holocaust. I'm sure you guys must have heard about the meeting held there to try to decide what Iran's national position on whether or not it happened will be. If not I'll post the article from my other forum.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jeff,

You skimmed this thread too quickly. The phrase above, "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference this week denying the Holocaust" refers precisely to the meeting you mentioned. I also referenced this conference in the following news item (December 12):

KKK's David Duke Tells Iran Holocaust Conference That Gas Chambers Not Used to Kill Jews

If you have other articles, bring 'em on. This needs to be discussed. It is interesting to read some of the Holocaust denial arguments, for example, I read one stating how long it takes to gas how many bodies, and how it would have been impossible to do as many as are claimed, etc.). These things need to be soundly rebutted.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; I hate to break this to you but the argument that will come from Holocaust deniers will be why did it take so long to bring these records out. My own observation of these individuals is that facts and evidence do not interest them. I think you would find the same mind-set with people who deny evolution

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... the argument that will come from Holocaust deniers will be why did it take so long to bring these records out. My own observation of these individuals is that facts and evidence do not interest them.

Chris,

I agree with you except for one point. Not all of the Holocaust deniers swallow the party line. Look at the story of Hirsi Ali. Her sister thinks Jews are evil and the Holocaust was invented by them. She does not. They both see the same evidence, albeit her sister had more indoctrination. I don't know what Hirsi Ali's effect on her sister is, but I bet it is one that seriously challenges the bigotry premise in her sister's mind.

The beauty of the unveiling of the Holocaust records is that 16 miles--that right, miles--of shelves of records are a lot of records to blank out by any standard, even a bigoted one.

The reason we have to keep pounding away at the facts is because of the people like Hirsi Ali out there among the billion plus Muslims. They will do the rest.

As to the records, I don't know why they were kept secret so long, but I imagine one reason was to minimize reprisals against the families of Nazi officials. Not only are the prisoners listed, but so are the officials who signed the forms. Another would be to ensure that the records would not be destroyed or altered (assuming that they were not tampered with).

16 miles...

Michael

[Kat]

I can't believe that anyone would deny that the Holocaust happened and that whatever happened to the Jews was all about Islam. Ick! I am glad to live in a country where this type of information is not suppressed.

If we were going to be dropping bombs, that meeting would have been a perfect target. We don't need that kind of hate in this world. Had he been alive, I'm sure Hitler himself would have attended.

Kat

[Danneskjold]

Oops, sorry for missing that. No, the article I have is really nothing new. Just a quick explanation of it all. Hate like this is really dumb not to mention the PR from officially holding your own meeting on such an issue cannot be good.

I'm sure Hitler himself would have attended.

Ya, I'd have to agree with you there. Especially since he'd have the most to gain from it.

[Chris Grieb]

Somebody pointed out that Hitler was the first denier. Hitler would have been one of the main speakers.

[Robert Campbell]

I watched the 60 Minutes segment on the Holocaust documents. It was well worth seeing.

I agree with Michael's surmise that the records were kept confidential, not to protect victims or their families, but to protect the bureaucrats whose names were on the documents. West Germany was far from completely de-Nazified after World War II; East Germany simply absorbed Nazi bureaucrats into the Communist apparat.

I've never understood why Nazis would deny the Holocaust, since Nazis would presumably all agree that exterminating Jews was a good thing to do. Why people who don't want others to know that they are Nazi sympathizers would deny the Holocaust is a whole 'nother matter...

Robert Campbell

[Danneskjold]

PR would be why. You want your belief system to win favor you might want to try and deny those little details like killing millions of Jews.

[Chris Grieb]

Robert; I think it is in part a moral equalvence argument. If you reduce the Nazi's crimes to much smaller number you can argue the problem is "war". Your comment about protecting German buraecrats is correct.