You must log in or register to comment.
I think non-Germans can’t understand the deep social guilt that’s been drilled into them since WWII. Since childhood they’re told how horrible they were to the Jews, what atrocities they committed; they’re taken on field trips to concentration camps where it’s explained in graphic detail what their grandparents did to the Jews; there is a deep cultural guilt around the Holocaust, and although many different people suffered, it’s specifically focused on Jews. Even I don’t understand it; when I was living there I asked some question I don’t even remember about the Holocaust of one of my German friends, and he quite politely told me “we don’t talk about that.” It’s a subject of guilt and embarrassment.
It’s easy to criticize the West for not taking a stand against the genocide in Palestine that Israel is perpetrating; we do not, and can not, understand what Germans (in general, there always exists some racist fascists in every country) have to overcome to take such a stand. You might think they’d be champions against genocide, but what it ended up being was cultural guilt about murdering Jews.
All those Germans in power now were the children of a generation who survived the war as children, and who all had it beaten into them how horrible a people they were and how terrible the atrocity against the Jews they executed. If any country is going to struggle with condemning Israel, it’s going to be Germany, and the people who the rest of the world has been using as the villain in TV and movies for 80 years; who’ve been beaten on the head about the Holocaust since childhood.
I think non-Germans can’t understand the deep social guilt that’s been drilled into them since WWII
Except they only defend Israel…
LGBT was a target too, is Germany standing up for LGBT?
What about the Romani?
What about communists?
What about people who spoke out against genocide?
The Jewish victims of the Holocaust made up about 50% of it’s victims. Why unquestionable support for them, but not for other groups?
It’s great Germany’s seeing the light now, but don’t act like they had a rational excuse for blindly supporting a genocide of a different group.
That’s exactly the point op is making.
All those Germans in power now were the children of a generation who survived the war as children, and who all had it beaten into them how horrible a people they were and how terrible the atrocity against the Jews they executed.
They’re ignoring 50% of the people their parent’s generation killed, and excusing the other 50%'s children committing their own genocide against a different group…
They’re explicitly not making the same point as me…
there is a deep cultural guilt around the Holocaust, and although many different people suffered, it’s specifically focused on Jews. Even I don’t understand it;
OP isn’t ignoring it, the culture is.
Is it an excuse, or an explanation?
You didn’t read what I wrote; I’ll assume because it was too verbose for you.
I said
although many different people suffered, it’s specifically focused on Jews.
and
You might think they’d be champions against genocide, but what it ended up being was cultural guilt about murdering Jews.
In the West we ignore the communist victims because we were in a cold war with the Communists. We ignore the LGBTQ because we also oppressed the LBGTQ communities. We didn’t carve a new country out of other country’s land for anyone except Jews. And the West was a, if not the, major force directing the reeducation of the German populous after WWII.
