They killed their neighbors: genocide's foot soldiers

CNN.com/Europe ^ | December 4, 2008 | Courtney Yager

[Star Traveler]

(CNN) -- Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic. They are household names, infamous for masterminding genocide. But who were the foot soldiers who did the dirty work?

Recently discovered photos show Nazi officers relaxing at a retreat near Auschwitz. 1 of 4

In many cases they were equally notorious in their communities because they were the friends, neighbors and co-workers of those they raped, slaughtered and buried alive.

Nusreta Sivac watched ordinary people become killers while imprisoned in a concentration camp in Bosnia.

She saw prisoners beaten beyond recognition and watched camp guards force a Muslim prisoner to rape a Muslim woman in front of everyone.

She was shocked to see people she knew running the camp. "They acted as if they had never seen me before," she said. "It was difficult for me to understand how people could turn into beasts overnight."

[Star Traveler]

Posting this for another Freeper, upon request...

[Star Traveler]

Here’s the article..., “comment away...” :-)

[Lorianne]

From the article:

Group identity is one of the foundations of genocide.

[MrEdd]

what ever happened to those “fields of genocide” you could see from the air?

We have no interest in occupying the Balkans. Let Europe do it if they want it done.

[Bahbah]

"People tend to believe the world is a just place," psychologist Staub said. So the targeted group "is seen as though they did something to deserve the suffering." The propaganda machine portrays the victim group as less than human. In Rwanda, the Hutus called their Tutsi neighbors 'cockroaches.' In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge said their victims were "worms." To the Nazis, Jews were "vermin." Dehumanization is the most powerful psychological tool used in all mass murder and genocides, Zimbardo said. "Dehumanization blurs your vision. You look at these people and you do not see them as human." Instead, the enemy is treated as a germ -- as something to eradicate, or else face the threat of infection.

Like conservatives, maybe? Like Christians? Like the current President? Or maybe the evil Vice President.

Or maybe it's the blood thirsty military that Dick Durbin had in mind. Anyone see what has been going on here?

[robomatik]

i remember an experiment we studied in psychology class. a group of students was randomly split into two groups -inmates and guards. the experiment had to be called off because the "guards" became more brutal towards the "inmates" as time progressed. each side, over time, came to identify themselves by the role they played.

sadly, the human mind is quite malleable, especially under duress.

[verklaring]

Its called original sin, and the total depravity of a fallen human nature.

[Sleeping Freeper]

Nightmare side of human nature... that's why we must preserve “freedom” and our way of life at all costs... in spite of what the liberals in our midst do. The idiot running Iran denies the Holocaust ever happened... and there are many others much like him in places of high power.... As we've seen from the last election, many people in this country are short sited lemmings....

[QBFimi2]

“The dividing line between good and evil runs through the center of the human heart.” (Author unknown.)

[Soothesayer]

Those Nazi officers are posing like air-headed liberal dipsticks. Connection?

[vetvetdoug]

Eickes' Totenkampf Soldiers of the SS. These soldiers were first used to guard and implement the policies that resulted in the Holocaust. The soldiers after spending their time in the camps were then loosed upon the Russians. One of the few times the US troops ever met them was at Malmedy...

[Soothesayer]

“What happened,” he vows, “will never happen again.”

Everyone keeps saying that.

[DCPatriot]

Anyone see what has been going on here?

I do.

And I would argue the 1930's German citizen was in no way intellectually inferior to the typical 2008 American.

It certainly could happen right here, IMO.

Why is CNN covering this now?

Bahbah...is it us? Do we need drug intervention? WTF is going on??

At the very minimum it's rude.

[Soothesayer]

If we look around, we can see that dehumanization is an everyday part of life. It comes natural to social creatures like ourselves.

I’m trying to catch myself before I use a dehumanizing term for my enemy. It’s very difficult to do. Dehumanization is THAT natural!

[BenLurkin]

CNN is still trying to compare Slobodan Milosevic to Pol Pot and Hitler (funny Stalin's name was left off that list) to resurrect the reputation of Slick Willy and his phony intervention.

[QBFimi2]

My ex-mother in law (from the ‘70s) was born in Vienna in the 1920s. On a trip there, we walked by a little street named “Judengasse” (literally the “little Jewish Lane”). I asked: “Did you ever suspect what the Nazis were doing with the Jews?” Her nonchalant answer stunned me: “Do you think we were stupid? Of course we knew. One day the Jews were all there; the next day they were gone”.

[Soothesayer]

It’s always the same.

[Bahbah]

It certainly could happen right here, IMO. Why is CNN covering this now?

Yes, it could. It is, in a creeping way, doing so. Good grief, we even have our anti-Jew contingent. Hard to grasp, but it's there. And there is the criminalization of the political opposition. The demonization...culture of corruption, which we all remember. A complicit media. The ends justifying the means.

You have to not have any memory of history not to see what is happening here. But we don't teach history.

[Deo volente]

Some of the Auschwitz staff enjoying a respite from their murderous tasks:

[Revolting cat!]

For fairness sake, why not post happy pictures of the Waco killers, of the Elian Gonzalez kidnappers, of the Amirault family accusers, of Roosevelt and his buddy Stalin?