this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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Only tangentially related -
I once read a book by a Holocaust survivor where he said (paraphrased) that the really nice ones didn't survive the camps - the ones giving away part of their rations, the ones giving away their blankets to the sick, the ones standing up for their fellows, the ones trying to help the weaker, they were the first ones to be shot, or going into the gas chambers, or dying of hunger or disease. And those willing to be selfish were the ones more likely to survive.
Obviously no judgement or blame either way, in situations like these you'll have to do what's necessary but that point of view hit me really hard at the time "the really nice ones didn't survive the camps".
It made me truly realize the horror those camps represented, they didn't just take their belongings, or their lives, or their dignity - they robbed them of their humanity to the point where being nice to your fellow people would get you killed and that was a horrific aspect that never made it into my consciousness until I read that sentence " the really nice ones didn't survive the camps."
In highschool my German teacher's first memory was her train that was headed to a concentration camp being attacked and they were able to run into the woods.
Her family had belonged to one of the Christian churches that originally didn't say anything but eventually spoke up against the Holocaust.
So the congregation was either killed or in the process of getting sent to the same camps they didn't speak out against first.
It's not enough to eventually do the right thing, you have to stand up for shit immediately, hesitate and it's too late. If everyone stands up at once, it's enough people.
People forget that less than half the people killed in the Holocaust was because they were Jewish.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims
There were 6 million for being Jewish. And 11 million more for other reasons, which is really close to 1/3 than half.
Because when it started with Jewish people, not everybody stood up at once.
https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/the-need-for-solidarity-between-leftist-movements-b7b3d4f63b22
Is that your article? Neat