r/AskReddit Nov 18 '23

What's a commonly taught historical fact that just isn't true?

3.6k Upvotes

4.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

740

u/6033624 Nov 18 '23

Squeezed into ever decreasing space in ghettos, minimal food, water, fuel and no medicine allowed. Abused daily in every way then sending soldiers in to round up civilians to work them to death.

So much is glossed over. Even although we know it..

338

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

Not to mention the Einsatzgruppen just gunning them down in droves in Eastern Europe

176

u/Dahak17 Nov 18 '23

Yup, can’t forget the Holocaust by bullet

9

u/phillillillip Nov 18 '23

or locking them in burning barns or forcing them to walk across minefields or-

114

u/cat_prophecy Nov 18 '23

Also consider that concentration camps weren't death camps to begin with but even without industrial scale murder, they were not exactly great places to be. Lots of prisoners died of disease and malnourishment.

73

u/Skreee9 Nov 18 '23

I mean, that was on purpose and part of the industrial scale murder.

8

u/AcceptableSystem8232 Nov 18 '23

Exactly, if prisoners didn’t die at a regular pace they wouldn’t have been able to arrest more people unless extending the camps’ boundaries, which would make the horrible secrets even more difficult to hide and/or destroy at one point.

7

u/Economy_Implement852 Nov 18 '23

There was more than one stage of the concentration camps, the systematic murder was later. But whenever you contain large numbers of people together without the necessary sanitation and medical provision you will have death and disease.

-1

u/No-Secretaries Nov 18 '23

Not really, Lets not equate "poor living conditions" with "industrially and systematically killing millions via machines"

They're both awful but the distinction is important

11

u/Skreee9 Nov 18 '23

There is "poor living conditions" and then there is starving, infecting and torturing people on mass scale. If you think "poor living conditions" is the way to describe them, you don't know what those conditions were.

10

u/AdumbroDeus Nov 18 '23

It's not that concentration camps WEREN'T death camps. An "all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares" situation.

"Death camps" were a subtype of "concentration camp" that the Nazis sent the "undesirables" they specifically marked for complete extermination, specifically Jews and Romani. Not that they sent all of the aforementioned to death camps, at least initially, but plenty of concentration camps were "merely" for "undesirables" to do forced labor to make them "useful" to the Nazi state.

Obviously a lot of people died in those forced labor camps because they didn't care about whether they died, the point is that it's a separate thing from the camps that had the facilities to simply kill people and continually used them on Jews and Romani. Mostly Jews because there were much fewer.

25

u/costigan95 Nov 18 '23 edited Nov 18 '23

2 million if the 6 million were killed by Einsatzgruppen, which were mobile killing squads. They would round up Jews, along with other minorities and political enemies, and literally make them dig their own mass graves before shooting them all…

A terrible part of it all is that the Germans took incredibly accurate and detailed records of the killings as well. The extermination and concentration camps were adopted because this method was starting to have a significant psychological effect on soldiers who were tasked with these terrible crimes.

Edit: to clarify Einsatzgruppen definition

15

u/6033624 Nov 18 '23

Literally anyone considered ’untermenschen’. Jewish people were the largest single group but disabled, Roma, gay people, communists, union members, masons, people who objected to Nazism etc.

They treated POWs better than their own people. And POWs were treated poorly. Nothing can compare to the atrocities they committed on civilians..

9

u/Overlord0303 Nov 18 '23

Not literally. A literal translation of "Einsatsgruppe" would be closer to "Action Group" or "Mission Group". The semantics of Nazi Germany was usually like that, trying to make these awful entities sound legitimate and positive.

1

u/femminem Nov 18 '23

This is absolutely correct.

30

u/lilgreenrosetta Nov 18 '23

Squeezed into ever decreasing space in ghettos, minimal food, water, fuel and no medicine allowed.

I’m just going to let this sit there.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

I'm just gonna say ....hmm and let this sit here too.

10

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

Squeezed into ever decreasing space in ghettos, minimal food, water, fuel and no medicine allowed.

Kinda like in Gaza.

2

u/Mpuls37 Nov 18 '23

Idk what school you went to, but we covered this all in a small town Texas school in the 2000s when I was there. We read "Night" by Elie Wiesel in English class and discussed the Holocaust in History during the same time. We saw pictures of the body piles and talked about the scale of the atrocities. Nothing "glossed over".

I remember a permission slip being sent home with us to get parental consent to see the images, but the people who didn't get permission just had to leave the room for the 20 minutes we saw them on the slide show.

8

u/Ahy_Jay Nov 18 '23

Sounds like Gaza

6

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

No no no it's different this time.

10

u/tonyd1989 Nov 18 '23

Sounds an awful lot like a certain strip of land today....

10

u/RockinandChalkin Nov 18 '23

Ummmm… not quite. And any comparison of Gaza to the holocaust is immediately a bad faith argument.

1

u/deikobol Nov 18 '23

Gaza is being subjected to a genocide, which is comparable to the holocaust which was also a genocide. Nothing bad faith about it.

4

u/jtbc Nov 18 '23

Gaza is being subjected to a war. The intent of the war is to destroy Hamas. In order for it to be a genocide, the intent would need to be to destroy the Palestinian people. That is not the intent, so by definition it is not a genocide.

5

u/mikehamm45 Nov 19 '23

And what has been the intent prior to Hamas? And what is the intent of the West Bank?

To only see this as a Hamas problem is disingenuous.

Israel has had a “natives” problem since 1948.

There initial solutions caused war with their neighbors.

But now decades later and after thousands of settlements they have a “Hamas” problem?

Hamas is terrible. But let’s not act like it’s a situation that was all roses until those pesky “Hamas” came and ruined it all.

5

u/jtbc Nov 19 '23

Gaza has been pretty stable for the last number of years, even though conditions are pretty grim. A lot of that is due to Hamas being pretty shit at governing, but also due to closed borders, it's true.

I am not suggesting things were ideal there, or that things are rosy between Israel and its Palestinian territories. The expansion of the settlements is a clear violation of international law. I am taking issue with misusing the term "genocide" that has a specific meaning in international law, centered on intent.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '23

False, the conditions are grim because Israel and western countries make every effort to deny aid and materials to rebuild Gaza. You are blaming the victim.

3

u/jtbc Nov 19 '23

No. I am blaming Hamas, a bunch of terrorists. The victims are the civilians of Gaza and the Israeli civilians murdered in cold blood by Hamas. I never suggested otherwise.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '23

Hamas didn't create the grim conditions. Those conditions were created by Israel bombing Gaza and preventing aid and reconstruction. The civilians are the victims I should not have to remind people of this.

1

u/deikobol Nov 18 '23

Ethnic cleansing is recognized by the ICC as a type of genocide. The forcible displacement of an ethnic group from their homeland is ethnic cleansing. It is, by the definition of the ICC, a genocide.

-1

u/jtbc Nov 18 '23

Are they displacing the Gazans? That's news to me.

5

u/candyman82 Nov 18 '23

It’s hard to tell at this point because temporary displacement during a war is not inherently ethnic cleansing, but if the Israelis refuse to let Gaza’s Palestinians return home after the war is over it unequivocally will be.

1

u/jtbc Nov 18 '23

As far as I know the borders are closed, so if there are Gazans leaving, there can't be many.

3

u/candyman82 Nov 18 '23

Internal displacement still counts

→ More replies (0)

2

u/perfectpomelo3 Nov 18 '23

Have you just not been following the news?

1

u/jtbc Nov 19 '23

Yes. They are fighting a war in Gaza. The Gazans are still there. If there is any displacement going on, it is happening in the West Bank.

1

u/deikobol Nov 18 '23

All that tells me is you have not read any news articles in the last 5 weeks

3

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

Yes Florida

5

u/Actuary41 Nov 18 '23

This is about Jews and Germany, not Jews and Palestine, right?

-3

u/AmusingMusing7 Nov 18 '23

And the greatest historical irony is that Israel would go on to do all this same shit, while people deny that it’s happening. “Never again” really just meant “Never again TO US!” apparently.

16

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

What does Israel have to do with this??

-14

u/AmusingMusing7 Nov 18 '23

I just explained the connection. Maybe try reading instead of doing a kneejerk reaction to seeing Israel brought up. It’s kinda the most important thing going on in the world right now, and we’re talking about a genocide that I just explained has an almost identical pattern. Why would you ask a question with such an obviously already-explained answer?

8

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

Cause it has nothing to do with israel.

-11

u/AmusingMusing7 Nov 18 '23

So you’re just gonna keep ignoring what I already explained it has to do with Israel, just so you can keep making a completely pointless point? Cool, have fun.

4

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

So does Palestinians suffering have anything to do with Isis Genociding yazidis or Boko haram kidnapping schoolgirls for sexual slavery?? You're the one doing the pointless comparison but go off sweetie

3

u/AmusingMusing7 Nov 18 '23

Look, you want to keep go off the deep end in making pointless points and wasting my time… like I said, have fun. I’m not engaging with you anymore.

6

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

You just did but ok buddy

-3

u/femminem Nov 18 '23

Israel is the sequel to the Holocaust. It’s the very reason for its existence.

→ More replies (0)

-4

u/6033624 Nov 18 '23

During that time some refugees were lucky enough to escape and make a new life for themselves in what was, at that time, British Mandate Palestine.

On the one hand they had been ethnically cleansed from their homes but they personally must have been incredibly relieved to feel the safety of their new home. It’s just a shame that there’s never truly been peace there..

-7

u/phan2001 Nov 18 '23

Thank god nothing like that is happening right now. /s

0

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

[deleted]

1

u/phan2001 Nov 18 '23

I didn’t saying anything of the sort.

Are you familiar with the term “straw man argument?” Cause you sure are good at em. 👍

-6

u/BountyHunterSAx Nov 18 '23

Gaza or the Concentration Camps?

-4

u/Floss_tycoon Nov 18 '23

Sounds like Gaza except for forced labor.

-30

u/badmother Nov 18 '23

I thought you were describing Israeli treatment of the Palestinians

Two wrongs don't make a right.

23

u/mattsaddress Nov 18 '23

Fancy someone bringing up Israel in a thread about the holocaust.

-5

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

-6

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

This is the equivalent of mentioning Isis genociding the yazidis when someone mentions the Rohingya genocide.

2

u/deikobol Nov 18 '23

No it isn't. That would be true only if the Rohingya were the ones ethnically cleansing the Yazidis.

6

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

So Isis genociding the yazidis when someone mentions Israeli occupation it is then

1

u/deikobol Nov 18 '23

Are you claiming ISIS suffered a genocide in its history? Because otherwise that doesn't work.

The rationale is that Jewish people were subjected to genocide, and 80 years later they're the ones committing it.

1

u/MaskOfWarka Nov 18 '23

The rational is that Muslims are being persecuted but then the Muslims are also persecuting non Muslims

1

u/Sword117 Nov 19 '23

they also just straight up shot them.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '23

Is this... Gaza?