How could the Nazis have been so heartless?

mommy3b2c

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:26 am

The excuses people are writing in this thread are making me want to vomit.

Raisin

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:37 am

gp2.0 wrote:

Also, eugenics was a popular idea at the time in countries like England and the US. Professors discussed, in theory, the idea of creating a perfect human race and the ways it would be possible to do so. There was a lot of scientific funding towards this goal. But the most extreme idea they came up with was sterilization, not mass murder.

The Nazi ideas of a perfect human race didn't exist in a vacuum. The eugenics movement was very popular and the Nazis claimed to have based their ideas on it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik.....tates

At exactly the same time blacks in the south of the USA suffered under similar laws as the Jews initially did in Nazi Germany. Jews in the USA and other countries also experienced discrimination such as being barred from clubs, quotas in university's, etc.

The world was a very different place then.

But horrible stuff still goes on today, just mostly not in the west.

Raisin

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:40 am

OP, you might find this book helpful. It's about a Nazi soldier who approaches SImon Weisenthal, full of remorse, asking for forgiveness. So obviously some did feel bad. Especially ordinary german soldiers who were not necessarily part of the nazi party or SS.

https://www.amazon.com/Sunflow.....10601

SixOfWands

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:43 am

amother wrote:

My question is always how can Hashem be so cruel to use the Nazim to torture His people?

Then I try to stop this thought because all it does is make me sad.

Hashem didn't. People did.

There were people who could have said no. People who could have stopped it. They all chose not to.

That's why each of us has to commit and re-commit ourselves to never again, not for Jews, not for anyone.

PinkFridge

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:44 am

mommy3b2c wrote:

The excuses people are writing in this thread are making me want to vomit.

Please elaborate.

mommy3b2c

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:48 am

SixOfWands wrote:

100% agree.

I cannot understand why nobody is doing anything about Isis.

mommy3b2c

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:48 am

PinkFridge wrote:

Please elaborate.

Maybe later.

amother

Aqua

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 9:50 am

With the nazis - if you want to say they wanted to exterminate the Jews to make themselvesa a perfect race - they can kill them.
But for grown men to make sports of killing babies at their own hands or feet (my grandmother saw this done to a sibling) is beyond comprehension. These were educated men - its beyond comprehension.

miami85

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 10:06 am

There have been many answers given that have been studied and we, as mortals, cannot fathom the complexity of the answer. The holocaust is still a "fresh" memory for us. When you read books about shibud mitzrayim or the Churban, in someways I feel like the Holocaust we "got off easy"--NOT TRYING TO MINIMIZE the Holocause Chas v'shalom--but putting it into perspective that its nothing new. Jews have been persecuted our WHOLE existence dating back to Eisav wanting to kill Yaakov. The metaphor that speaks to me is likened to a wild fire destroying the dried out trees to create room for fresh growth. Destruction is never easy to watch, but we have to focus on the good that comes out of it, and its never seen right away.

On a personal level, I went through a very psychologically traumatic experience that lasted several years that really destroyed some aspects of my personality and had a strong impact on my whole life. However b'siyatta dishmaya, I'm coming out of it and I am stronger and have better perspective of why many of those incidents occurred. I still cannot understand why some people had to be so cruel to me in the process--but what transpired because of their cruelty forced me to stretch myself in ways that I could not have foreseen and I have the experience I need now in my career to be successful.

I heard a power shiur about pain and suffering, I believe it was by Ms. Chevi Garfinkle, where she talks about forgiveness. Pain is only a "present" emotion. We cannot feel pain about the past. We can only feel pain about something that is affecting us NOW. If we feel pain about a past incident, it's because it has a NOW attached to it. That's probably one reason why Hashem has to keep sending us reminders that we're NOT supposed to be in galus and we need to feel pain. We need to feel the pain to motivate us to get OUT of galus.

trixx

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 10:09 am

Read "The Wave"

gp2.0

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 10:14 am

Mommy3b2c - none of these reasons are excuses for Nazi behavior.

But to say something is beyond comprehension is to say we can't do anything about it because we can't understand it. Understanding the factors and psychology behind actions like these doesnt excuse them. It only serves as a stark reminder of what can happen if we don't take steps to prevent it and fight against it.

FranticFrummie

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 10:24 am

mommy3b2c wrote:

The excuses people are writing in this thread are making me want to vomit.

If you think of them as "excuses", then yes, they will be nauseating. NOTHING excuses this. Nothing.

I think that people are not looking for excuses, but rather for REASONS. Part a human's survival instinct, is to examine something that is a threat to survival, and learn how to avoid it.

A study was done on why people slow down when they pass an auto accident. It's not like they are going to jump out of their car and do anything about it, especially if the police and ambulances are already taking care of things.

People slow down, because part of their brain is logging every single detail of the scene. Was the road wet? Was it a dangerous curve? Were the cars going to fast? How many people were injured? How many cars involved? What time of the day is it? Did they have their headlights on?

It's been shown at at parts of the road where accidents often occur, people who regularly travel that route will subconsciously slow down at that point, because they remember that it is a dangerous place.

As learning creatures, we are always evaluating and studying situations, desperate to not repeat the past. Hashem made us this way. It's our job to learn how to process that information, without blaming or shaming victims.

Excuses are for when we want to make ourselves look good, and feel superior. "If I were there, that never would have happened to me." or "I had nothing to do with that, I was just an innocent bystander."

Reasons are for us to learn from, so we do not repeat past mistakes, and hopefully become our better selves.

FranticFrummie

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 10:25 am

Gp2.0, I see we cross posted.

Laiya

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 10:29 am

Other more recent and current genocides occur(red) in Bosnia, Armenia, Darfur, Cambodia, the wholesale killing and torture going on right now in North Korea, the Christian Arabs targeted by Isis that other posters mentioned, and other Isis-affiliated groups currently slaughtering different African tribes.

Agree with FF and Gp2.0 regarding the importance of trying to understand.

sneakermom

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 10:59 am

German culture had a lot of features of OCD personality. Life was regimented, you focused on perfection and purging anything that didn't fit into that idea of perfection.

If you managed to acheive that status as perfect, and you wanted to maintain that, you would have to find a place to project or dump any insecure or intolerable feelings. Such as feelings of being dirty, lazy, stupid, ugly etc.

Before the nazi era these feelings might be dumped onto a family scapegoat. Ensuring that everyone else can maintain their superiority.

Hitler capitalized on this mindset. He used it to get the Germans to believe that killing the Jews was "the right thing".

He put Jews into the unacceptable category. The bad ones that need to be purged.

An OCD personality person can be very kind. But only if they find you acceptable. If you in any way fall into the "bad" category then they will no longer show any compassion and they can be cruel. The only thing that matters in their eyes, is to do what they consider to be the "right thing".

I am not sure Hitler was OCD personality. But he was a real narcissistic maniac who knew how to manipulate the crowds. To get them to become emotionally dependent on him. To believe that he was their strength and he would make them strong.

Germany became like play dough in his hands. He brainwashed them and took over their minds. And also made them feel better than they could ever remember.

He gave them security, nationalism, a sense of great belonging, and a sense of superiority that they craved and loved.

It was manical. And very contagious. The Germans were being used for the safistic appetite of Hitler.

Hitler also exterminated thousands upon thousands of German kids who were born with disabilities.

He sterilized any person who suffered a mental breakdown. If they refused they were locked up for forty five years. To prevent propagation.

He kidnapped two hundred thousand non jewish children from all over Europe, that had the Aryan look. Blond hair, blue eyes. They were smuggled back to Germany, and brought to special "kinder homes" where they were forced to forget their mother tongue and speak only German. They were given forged documents about their origins, and later adopted by German families. Many of these kids would never know their true history.

At the end of the war, when Hitler knew it was lost. He did nothing to protect his army or people. Instead he forced fifteen year old kids, elderly men to defend the Reich. In essence he gave them a suicide mission and prolonged the war unnecessarily. At least fifty thousand of these soldiers died in a few days.

It is clear at the end of the day that the world had been almost completely destroyed by a man who posssessed the ability to brainwash and dominate. He also brought onto his team any sadist that lived in that generation. And that's how the evil plan became so brilliantly orchestrated.

All this is clearly no excuse. All my grandparents went through the holocaust and I can't wrap my head around their suffering.

May Hashem avenge the blood of all those that were murdered. And may he avenge their suffering and the suffering that was passed down from one generation to the next.

cnc

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 11:05 am

trixx wrote:

Read "The Wave"

This.
Or better yet, watch the video.

Some people say that the experiment never happened, but either way it does give a bit of insight.

aquad

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 11:37 am

Read Hitler's Willing Executioners. By Daniel Goldhagen. It is an academic book about how did ordinary Germans became killers. It's excellent.

groovy1224

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 12:05 pm

amother wrote:

Klausenberger Rebbe lost a wife and 11 kids and after the war instead of mopping and being depressed he helped Jewry to continue on and being there for so many people by giving them strength to go on. He remarried had another nice size family. When you read the Holocaust books you also see there were so many miracles also.

Moping? Are you serious? Is that what you think other holocaust survivors did?

sequoia

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 12:06 pm

aquad wrote:

Read Hitler's Willing Executioners. By Daniel Goldhagen. It is an academic book about how did ordinary Germans became killers. It's excellent.

Hasn't it been widely discredited?

hope22

Thu, Jan 19 2017, 12:19 pm

I have a better question
how is ISIS able to do what they're doing in 2017 without anyone stopping them?!?