Posted on 01/12/2005 5:35:52 PM PST by It's me
There has been a tremendous amount of false information (not to mention innuendo) published about the Pope's actions during WWII.
Bottom line, the Pope had little recourse to change events then as now.
Sorry, jews might have been able to help more with the war effort if they weren't stuck in concentration camps at the time. Dearest apologies.
There were plenty of Jews that fought back. They were all killed. All of them. Just like in Iraq. There was no fighting back. That would just get your whole family killed and tossed in the garbage. Maybe your whole neighborhood.
How offensive these people are!
I understand the defensiveness of Catholics on this issue. But the facts are the facts, while motives are harder to pin down. Being curious about them doesn't mean I want to deny anything.
Ping
But then it would not fit into his false view.
Have you read much history? I certainly have read less than many people on FR, but even I know that in Germany Jews had been repressed for years, tormented for years, denied basic rights for years. And most important, been denied the right to arm themselves for years.
If someone is torn apart by a vicious dog, do you criticize the victim or the dog?
Maybe many Jews just couldn't imagine how bad things would get, that the Nazis would be such inhuman beasts. And maybe other countries didn't step in to help sooner. When people want to do evil, they are often possessed of very great power, determination, and strength. If someone cannot fight hard enough against the evil to survive, are they to be condemned?
I don't think so. We are here on earth to help one another, not condemn those who suffered and died.
Looks like you're eating crow on this one.
for reading later
"passive?"
I honestly don't think people realized the scope of what was going on before it was too late. People being made into bars of soap?
Being gassed in giant buildings like a factory?
While appreciate the support you say you have for Israel and "jews" in general I don't think you have any right to critizize the actions of the victims at the time.
You're missing the most obvious tool Hitler had: starvation.
The Nazis controlled all sources of food. People only revolt when they feel they have nothing to lose, but years before that point, the Germans starved the Jews so that they had no energy, no hope, only the effort to make it to the next rationed meal.
The Germans played off the Jews' hopes well. Everything was couched in lies that led people to believe they were essential workers, they would be protected, if only they cooperated. This is human nature. The starving will go where there is food if they're told their labor is valuable. The Holocaust was fundamentally irrational. How do you live without hope?
The Jews had no weapons to fight back, no strength, no money. If they escaped a ghetto, they had nowhere to go. The peasants were as much under the thumb of the Germans as they were, and few were looking to hide people on their farm, giving them food and shelter and getting nothing in return but the possibility of a firing squad.
Look, it's a good rule of thumb for history that if you look back at a people and say all of their decisions were STUPID or COWARDLY, that maybe you don't understand the circumstances under which their decisions were made. The sad truth of the Holocaust is that the victims were all humans, all ordinary people, just like you and me. All we have over them is hindsight. In extremis, you have no way of knowing how you'd have behaved.
Sitting on your fat ass, enjoying your brandy?
What kind of contemptible rat would practice revisionism on a race that was targeted for extinction?
I suppose you'd feel better if they were all shot down in the streets.
"Dem Joos, at least dey went down fightin'!"
I don't know who you are, or what you think you're accomplishing with this kind of tripe.
Enjoy your feather bed, cretin.
We'll see. Meanwhile, why are you sitting back while a revisionist reviles the Jews who died in death camps?
Typical liberal BS. Claim a document says the exact opposite of what is written and expect it to be accepted unquestioned.
I guess you haven't ever read about the battle of the Berlin Ghetto, where the jews stood off the Nazis for several day with nothing but old rifles and guts. I am not jewish by the way. The Jews in Germany were disarmed and faced not only the Government but the German people as well. Most of the people jumped on the band wagon and turned in jews that were trying to escape or hide. It is kinda hard to fight without weapons and when the Gov has a record of where you live. The Germans registered all the Jews first and then started to round them up. Siting innocent reasons for it. I am sure if they were told that they were going to be sent to torture chambers and gassed that many would probably have decided to fight.
Jews today, in Israel, fight hard and fight most everyday. Liberals say the fight to much and you are saying they don't carry their weight? Get real, read some history now and then, read some real news every day. Get a life.
I'd like to point out that even Thermonuke's comments on this topic would be the best one would hope to find on a liberal blog.
Crying about an "arab holocaust" would've started right away, followed by outrage about the unfair slander that Islamic terrorists suffer on a daily basis in the US. By the end everyone would be pledging to either send money to Hamas or write an angry letter to FoxNews.
The views on this site are refreshing to see.
(especially when working late.)
Zenit is a Catholic news agency. As far as I know it is independent (not run by the Vatican or by church officials).
See my tagline. Everyone knows that revisionists reviling the Jews who died in death camps is unworthy of debate.
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