Dave Sim does it again

[MartinRedmond]

http://judenhass.com/main.html

Nice to know there's someone like Dave Sim making sure to sort who was jewish from who wasn't in the pile of cadavers.

[rick]

http://judenhass.com/main.html

Nice to know there's someone like Dave Sim making sure to sort who was jewish from who wasn't in the pile of cadavers.


He does not say anything of the kind in the preview or anywhere on the website.

Kind of sad that you are so busy trying to find bad things to say about Sim that you are completely missing the point of what he wrote in that preview.

[Crowley]

Because he feels that lumping in gipsies, intellectuals, homosexuals etc along with jews as victims of the holocaust cheapens it's significance. I'm speechless, god I hate that guy.

Anyway, props for having the courage to speak up against a dictatorship that's been dead and buried for well over half a century.

So wow, he automatically doesn't need to pay for anything he uses. Second, you can't complain about his book being a gimmick for sympathy without being branded anti semite. Nice to know there's someone like that making sure to sort who was jewish from who wasn't in the pile of cadavers.

Where does he say ANY of this?

This looks like a really good thing he's working on... much as I don't care for them his past words don't get to damn him at EVERY end.

[MartinRedmond]

He says that lumping jews along with the other holocaust victims cheapens it's impact. It's a comic to reaffirm that only jews mattered as victims of nazi opression.

[MartinRedmond]

Kind of sad that you are so busy trying to find bad things to say about Sim that you are completely missing the point of what he wrote in that preview.

Then maybe you should read it again properly.

[Crowley]

He says that lumping jews along with the other holocaust victims cheapens it's impact. It's a comic to reaffirm that only jews mattered as victims of nazi opression.

WHERE DOES HE SAY THAT?

If he says that fine... but WHERE?

[rick]

He says that lumping jews along with the other holocaust victims cheapens it's impact. It's a comic to reaffirm that only jews mattered as victims of nazi opression.


That is not even close to being correct.

The quote I am assuming that offends you is....

The Shoah was done to Jews – And, yes, to others as well. But the fact that “To others as well” has become a universal interjection when the subject of the Holocaust comes up, it seems to me, points to a central and malignant evasiveness on the part of non-jews.


If you read the entire piece it is clear that what Sim is talking about is that the Shoah was a distillation of generations of virulent hatred of the Jews. And that while it is true that all sorts of other people were also killed in the Holocaust the primacy of the event was aimed at the Jews. And finally he is stating that very often non-Jews use the fact that others were killed to blunt the reality that the Shoah was primarily about hatred for Jews.

What in the world is there in that statement for you to argue with?

[BnL]

He says that lumping jews along with the other holocaust victims cheapens it's impact. It's a comic to reaffirm that only jews mattered as victims of nazi opression.

It's extremely common for people to only acknowledge the Jewish victims of the holocaust, whether intentional or not. Considering some of Sim's beliefs, it's not surprising that such an omission would raise some eyebrows, though I'm not prepared to draw any conclusions myself just yet.

[dogzilla]

Considering some of Sim's beliefs, it's not surprising that such an omission would raise some eyebrows
Well we know how he feels about those pesky feminist-homosexualist-gypsyists

[rick]

Well we know how he feels about those pesky feminist-homosexualist-gypsyists


Did you actually read what the man wrote or are you just going for the cliche out of reflex?

[dogzilla]

Actually I was just making a joke but never mind

I'll buy this book but only if everytime he says Judenhass it's in that awesome gothic font

[rick]

Actually I was just making a joke but never mind

I'll buy this book but only if everytime he says Judenhass it's in that awesome gothic font


Sorry about that.

In these Sim threads it's sometimes hard to tell.

And yeah, he is just an amazing letterer.

[dogzilla]

I was joking about the font thing as well, sorry :(

[dogzilla]

But joking aside, this does read like people looking for excuses to pile on Sim for something new

Arguably they may have good reason to be suspicious of him given some of the crazy ass shit he's come out with in the past, but having a go at someone because they're upset about the Holocaust seems pretty crazy in itself

[rick]

I was joking about the font thing as well, sorry :(

Ack!!!! :eek:

You break my heart already. :rolleyes:

By the way, I see you only have a few posts so far, so let me welcome you to the boards.

They can be damm aggravating but are still good fun.

[dogzilla]

By the way, I see you only have a few posts so far, so let me welcome you to the boards.
They can be damm aggravating but are still good fun.
Thank you! :)

I've been reading the columns for a long time but for one reason or another never ventured into the forums before a few days ago

[Hybrid2]

He says that lumping jews along with the other holocaust victims cheapens it's impact. It's a comic to reaffirm that only jews mattered as victims of nazi opression.

A man wrote a book about the history of blacks during the holocaust.

Some said similar comments. I think they even sued him or he sued them for what they said about him and treats he got.
And he won.

[ShaunN]

This is a very difficult topic. I think that most people generally believe that the only people targeted during the Holocaust were Jews. Thus, pointing out that many other people of various categories were also targeted strikes me as correcting a false impression and paying some respect to the other people whose lives were lost, in many cases, simply because they fit into the "wrong" category - be that homosexual, mentally or physically handicapped, or gypsy.

On the other hand, it could certainly be argued that the Holocaust was primarily conceptualized as an effort to destroy the Jews and that the other people were thrown in more as peripheral groups that the Nazis wanted to destroy. After all, the Nazi philosophy specifically saw the Jews as the counterparts to/eternal enemies of the Aryans.

However, I am reluctant to argue that the fact that the Jews were the primary reason for the Holocaust means that the other people involved somehow matter less - which can easily be seen as the content/intention of Sim's comment. Isn't doing this somehow cheapening and degrading the many non-Jews who died in the Holocaust? Isn't treating them as somehow less important deeply morally offensive? Does it matter that they may not have been the primary targets of the Nazis? After all, they died too, and just as horribly as anyone else. Does the fact that the Nazis undervalued them mean that we should too? I'm just not sure I understand the point that Sim is trying to make here. If he is trying to make the point I think, then he is being really offensive (in my view).

Sincerely,

Shaun

[Charles RB]

I can't be holding with trying to saying it's "evasive" and bad to mention others died in the Holocaust, not when Hitler wanted to wipe out Poles, Slavs, Roma (the latter was hardly a group beloved over the centuries), the mentally ill and everyone who didn't fit the racial ideal. Obviously Jews faced the brunt of the Holocaust but there were still three million non-Jewish Poles killed by the Nazis IIRC.

[beetlebum]

This is a very difficult topic. I think that most people generally believe that the only people targeted during the Holocaust were Jews. Thus, pointing out that many other people of various categories were also targeted strikes me as correcting a false impression and paying some respect to the other people whose lives were lost, in many cases, simply because they fit into the "wrong" category - be that homosexual, mentally or physically handicapped, or gypsy.

On the other hand, it could certainly be argued that the Holocaust was primarily conceptualized as an effort to destroy the Jews and that the other people were thrown in more as peripheral groups that the Nazis wanted to destroy. After all, the Nazi philosophy specifically saw the Jews as the counterparts to/eternal enemies of the Aryans.

However, I am reluctant to argue that the fact that the Jews were the primary reason for the Holocaust means that the other people involved somehow matter less - which can easily be seen as the content/intention of Sim's comment. Isn't doing this somehow cheapening and degrading the many non-Jews who died in the Holocaust? Isn't treating them as somehow less important deeply morally offensive? Does it matter that they may not have been the primary targets of the Nazis? After all, they died too, and just as horribly as anyone else. Does the fact that the Nazis undervalued them mean that we should too? I'm just not sure I understand the point that Sim is trying to make here. If he is trying to make the point I think, then he is being really offensive (in my view).

Sincerely,

Shaun

It's Dave Sims. Logic and reason don't apply to him. :rolleyes:

Just read his comments about how women are "sucking voids" with brains inferior to men's.

Ignore how science says that, structurally, although there are differences between male and female brains, they go about things in different ways to achieve what are essentially the same results.

And apparently, we all want to be raped by doctors as well. :rolleyes: :mad:

[rick]

I know Dave is not anyone’s favorite person around these parts, but you folks are really reading something into what Sim wrote that just isn’t there.

Once more, and to quote myself....

If you read the entire piece it is clear that what Sim is talking about is that the Shoah was a distillation of generations of virulent hatred of the Jews. And that while it is true that all sorts of other people were also killed in the Holocaust the primacy of the event was aimed at the Jews. And finally he is stating that very often non-Jews use the fact that others were killed to blunt the reality that the Shoah was primarily about hatred for Jews.


Honestly you have to be weaing your best set of blinders to take it any other way.

[Solaris]

This is a very difficult topic. I think that most people generally believe that the only people targeted during the Holocaust were Jews. Thus, pointing out that many other people of various categories were also targeted strikes me as correcting a false impression and paying some respect to the other people whose lives were lost, in many cases, simply because they fit into the "wrong" category - be that homosexual, mentally or physically handicapped, or gypsy.

On the other hand, it could certainly be argued that the Holocaust was primarily conceptualized as an effort to destroy the Jews and that the other people were thrown in more as peripheral groups that the Nazis wanted to destroy. After all, the Nazi philosophy specifically saw the Jews as the counterparts to/eternal enemies of the Aryans.

However, I am reluctant to argue that the fact that the Jews were the primary reason for the Holocaust means that the other people involved somehow matter less - which can easily be seen as the content/intention of Sim's comment. Isn't doing this somehow cheapening and degrading the many non-Jews who died in the Holocaust? Isn't treating them as somehow less important deeply morally offensive? Does it matter that they may not have been the primary targets of the Nazis? After all, they died too, and just as horribly as anyone else. Does the fact that the Nazis undervalued them mean that we should too? I'm just not sure I understand the point that Sim is trying to make here. If he is trying to make the point I think, then he is being really offensive (in my view).

Sincerely,

Shaun

I haven't seen such a well-written post in a long long time.

Bravo! :)

Many died who were Jews, who became Hitler's primary targets.

Many died who were others he and the Nazis considered "undesirables," including those who protected/sheltered/aided Jews, those who protested or fought against the Nazi regime from within (which included Germans, Poles, French, and other nationalities), prisoners who refused to cooperate with the Nazis (i.e. performing artists from subjugated nations who refused to perform for them), homosexuals, Gypsies (he wiped out nearly all of them in that region, IIRC), the mentally and physically handicapped (including some of Germany's own veterans from WWI)...

Often, many of these other folks are forgotten---except, paradoxically, by the Jews themselves. There are many Jewish survivors who have spoken up, and spoken out, for those "others" who were also tortured and killed under the Nazi rule. Hitler's propeganda machine singled out the Jews, giving them the name of "The Beast"---but in reality, many others were also persecuted, tortured, and killed by the Nazi government. If the Jews who were there are able to both sorrow for the terrible things their people endured, yet also acknowledge that they had brothers and sisters in suffering who were not Jewish, that in the end, it was a terrible crime against the humanity of ALL who were subjected to it---why should we today quibble over defining who has more "entitlement" to the idea of "target of the Nazis"? Isn't it better to focus on the suffering of every human being who lived in fear, who was torn from home and family, branded, made to suffer, tortured and often died, under their rule and in their concentration camps? To say "Never Again" to ALL of it?

A great blow was dealt to the Jewish people. It is fitting that they, and we, acknowledge that, and mourn it for all the sorrow we are capable of feeling, being as most of us are removed in several ways from the stark horror a living breathing Jew faced in that time and place. It is also fitting that we acknowledge all those others who weren't Jewish, but who still suffered the same or similar fates.

After all---aren't we all human?

And as ShaunN so wisely said, Should we accept the propeganda of the Nazis and start figuring out levels of entitlement to sympathy for suffering? IMO, on that path lies danger.

EDIT: I don't have a problem with the idea of understanding that prejudice and hatred against Jews had been building for a long time, in various parts of Europe. If Sim's point is to bring this out, and how it enabled making the Jews a propeganda target extremely easy for the Nazis to do, fine. That's all quite true.

If people have been using the mentioning of *other* people besides Jews who suffered, who were sent to concentration camps, etc. to "water down" the whole hatred of Jews in Europe that pre-existed Nazi Germany, that's wrong. But it's equally wrong to try to set some sort of "relative value" on the suffering, or worth, of those who died, based upon whether or not they were the "all" (Jews) as spoken of by Nazi propeganda, or were those who still suffered and died, but weren't Jewish.

To me, the main relevance of the prior hatred of Jews making it easier for the Nazis to use them as racial scapegoats, is in ongoing efforts to point out *current* prejudice against and hatred of Jews in Europe---to show how it was a like environment before that helped enable the Nazis to institute such horror, which was visited on Jews and on non-Jews as well.

[The Xenos]

If you read the entire piece it is clear that what Sim is talking about is that the Shoah was a distillation of generations of virulent hatred of the Jews. And that while it is true that all sorts of other people were also killed in the Holocaust the primacy of the event was aimed at the Jews. And finally he is stating that very often non-Jews use the fact that others were killed to blunt the reality that the Shoah was primarily about hatred for Jews.

Well, you already said what I was going to add. Despite any of Sims other comments on other subjects, I think that's a very good point. Plus the focus on the book seems to be the history of hatred for the Jewish people.

[Tobias March]

Well, you already said what I was going to add. Despite any of Sims other comments on other subjects, I think that's a very good point. Plus the focus on the book seems to be the history of hatred for the Jewish people.

I take the point, but I agree with Solaris above. We can't allow ourselves to subscribe to gradations of contempt which the Nazis attempted to 'scientifically' justify. This was not just an eruption of hate towards the Jews, but towards all of humanity. Jews, gays, the mentally ill, Slavs, gypsies, political dissidents...if we were drawing a Venn diagram, exactly how many people are not targeted for destruction? I also do not view the Holocaust as an isolated event by an aberrant people - it is ongoing, in every sense, not simply the use of concentration camps, which occurred before and has since - but the callous resort to genocide is recurrent. So just as we are all potentially the victims of hatred, we are also all potentially perpetrators of it - by both our actions or inactions.

[rick]

Well, you already said what I was going to add. Despite any of Sims other comments on other subjects, I think that's a very good point. Plus the focus on the book seems to be the history of hatred for the Jewish people.


Well it is named Judenhass.

So yeah, we can assume that it is about hating Jews.

[rick]

I haven't seen such a well-written post in a long long time.

Bravo! :)

Many died who were Jews, who became Hitler's primary targets.

Many died who were others he and the Nazis considered "undesirables," including those who protected/sheltered/aided Jews, those who protested or fought against the Nazi regime from within (which included Germans, Poles, French, and other nationalities), prisoners who refused to cooperate with the Nazis (i.e. performing artists from subjugated nations who refused to perform for them), homosexuals, Gypsies (he wiped out nearly all of them in that region, IIRC), the mentally and physically handicapped (including some of Germany's own veterans from WWI)...

Often, many of these other folks are forgotten---except, paradoxically, by the Jews themselves. There are many Jewish survivors who have spoken up, and spoken out, for those "others" who were also tortured and killed under the Nazi rule. Hitler's propeganda machine singled out the Jews, giving them the name of "The Beast"---but in reality, many others were also persecuted, tortured, and killed by the Nazi government. If the Jews who were there are able to both sorrow for the terrible things their people endured, yet also acknowledge that they had brothers and sisters in suffering who were not Jewish, that in the end, it was a terrible crime against the humanity of ALL who were subjected to it---why should we today quibble over defining who has more "entitlement" to the idea of "target of the Nazis"? Isn't it better to focus on the suffering of every human being who lived in fear, who was torn from home and family, branded, made to suffer, tortured and often died, under their rule and in their concentration camps? To say "Never Again" to ALL of it?

A great blow was dealt to the Jewish people. It is fitting that they, and we, acknowledge that, and mourn it for all the sorrow we are capable of feeling, being as most of us are removed in several ways from the stark horror a living breathing Jew faced in that time and place. It is also fitting that we acknowledge all those others who weren't Jewish, but who still suffered the same or similar fates.

After all---aren't we all human?

And as ShaunN so wisely said, Should we accept the propeganda of the Nazis and start figuring out levels of entitlement to sympathy for suffering? IMO, on that path lies danger.

EDIT: I don't have a problem with the idea of understanding that prejudice and hatred against Jews had been building for a long time, in various parts of Europe. If Sim's point is to bring this out, and how it enabled making the Jews a propeganda target extremely easy for the Nazis to do, fine. That's all quite true.

If people have been using the mentioning of *other* people besides Jews who suffered, who were sent to concentration camps, etc. to "water down" the whole hatred of Jews in Europe that pre-existed Nazi Germany, that's wrong. But it's equally wrong to try to set some sort of "relative value" on the suffering, or worth, of those who died, based upon whether or not they were the "all" (Jews) as spoken of by Nazi propeganda, or were those who still suffered and died, but weren't Jewish.

To me, the main relevance of the prior hatred of Jews making it easier for the Nazis to use them as racial scapegoats, is in ongoing efforts to point out *current* prejudice against and hatred of Jews in Europe---to show how it was a like environment before that helped enable the Nazis to institute such horror, which was visited on Jews and on non-Jews as well.


I totally agree that we should not forget all of the different people who were murdered under the Nazi regime, nor should we lessen one groups suffering versus over another.

However sticking to the comicbook preview at hand, Dave Sim is not saying anything of the kind. Sim is quite correct in saying that the Shoah happened because of the systematic hatred of the Jews in Europe and that while these others were murdered as well, the mass killings were started to eliminate specifically Jews.

And as anyone who has read anything on the Wannsee Conference can tell you, Sim is correct.

He is not lessening, at least in the preview available, anyone else killed by the Nazi’s, but what he is saying is that non-Jews have a bad habit of using the reality of these other killings to ignore or minimize the truth that the murders were a specific result of generations of hatred and murder directed at Jews.


Edit: Also despite all the Sim love going on around here, wouldn't it make sense to actually wait for the piece to come out before everyone comes to their conculsions about what Sim believes?

Or does it really make sense to say that Sim is telling everyone to ignore or lessen the horror of everyone else killed in the Holocaust based on one paragraph that in fact doesn't say anything of the kind?

[ShaunN]

Dear Rick,

I see your point and I agree that we should probably wait until the work comes out to see exactly what it does say. However, I do disagree with some of what you are saying. I think that the one paragraph we have been referencing says quite a bit and raises most of the disturbing questions we've been discussing.

For example, Sim is saying that people who bring up the fact that the Holocaust involved more than the destruction of the Jews are doing so because they want to minimize the event - but on what is he basing this? I would argue that the issue comes up as a correction to a common misperception. If you asked most people who don't know too much about the Holocaust what it was, the most common answer would be "it was Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews". Many people would not know that many millions of other people also died in the concentration camps because they were the wrong sort of people. I would argue that pointing out this error is part of the process of honouring and remembering the victims.

Also, we cannot say for certain that without the object of destroying the Jewish people, the Holocaust would not have occurred. The Nazis despised many people and, I am quite certain, had already started exterminating handicapped people and others -maybe as a "test run" - before they began killing Jews in mass numbers. It is very likely that millions of non-Jews would have been killed in concentration camps anyway.

I think that we get back to the same problem - how to talk about the Holocaust without making it seem - as the quote from Mr. Sim does, in my view - that all the people killed did not matter equally? I can see Mr. Sim writing a book about the historical hatred of Jews in Europe which culminates in the Holocaust but which also does not minimize the suffering or the reality of the millions of non-Jews who died there too. But the quote seems to indicate that he is drawing a line. I question the need and even the morality of drawing that line. He could just as easily do a book on how the view of the handicapped in human societies through time culminated in the Holocaust and it would be no less valid.

Sincerely,

Shaun

[rick]

For example, Sim is saying that people who bring up the fact that the Holocaust involved more than the destruction of the Jews are doing so because they want to minimize the event - but on what is he basing this?

Hi Shaun.

I think that many of you are misreading what Sim wrote, I really do.

To begin with Sim is not talking about anyone minimizing the Holocaust.

What he is talking about is people minimizing thousands of years of systematic hatred and violence directed toward the Jews.

And in the sentence in question he is saying that non-Jews use the fact that others were killed in the Shoah to avoid the truth about “our” collective assault over the Jewish people during the last couple of thousand years.

His work does lead to the Shoah no doubt, but it is not about the Holocaust specifically and is instead more about the reason why people like us could bring about a horror like the Holocaust in the first place.

[ShaunN]

Dear Rick,

Thanks. I'll try re-reading what Sim's wrote with what you are saying in mind and see if it comes out differently. God knows how easy it is to misread words and intent.

Sincerely,

Shaun

[rick]

Dear Rick,

Thanks. I'll try re-reading what Sim's wrote with what you are saying in mind and see if it comes out differently. God knows how easy it is to misread words and intent.

Sincerely,

Shaun


Thanks for going to take a second look.

Even if we still end up disagreeing, I appreciate the effort.

[Charles RB]

what he is saying is that non-Jews have a bad habit of using the reality of these other killings to ignore or minimize the truth that the murders were a specific result of generations of hatred and murder directed at Jews.

I've never actually seen anyone say that the Final Solution wasn't the result of building hatred against Jews - and history classes here have uniformly presented it as the result of escalating hate & Nazi policies, "doing this bad thing led to this worse thing" - and didn't know anyone wanted to ignore/minimise that until I saw Sim's quote. Who's been saying that?

[rick]

I've never actually seen anyone say that the Final Solution wasn't the result of building hatred against Jews - and history classes here have uniformly presented it as the result of escalating hate & Nazi policies, "doing this bad thing led to this worse thing" - and didn't know anyone wanted to ignore/minimise that until I saw Sim's quote. Who's been saying that?


I don't know who Sim is refering to, I need to read the rest of his piece first.

But still, that argument is a very different one then what was being said on this board.

[ShaunN]

Dear Rick,

This is a hard one. I don't have time to write much at this moment, but in re-reading the relevant quote from Sim's book (and reading the rest of the preview) I do think that there is a lot to support Martin Redmond's interpretation. Sim is focusing on the Shoah as a primarily Jewish event. On one hand, as I said earlier, there is no denying that the Jews were the primary targets of the Shoah though, as I also pointed out, there are reasons to believe that a Holocaust would have occurred even if there were no Jews present in Europe at the time.

I think that Sim's dismissal of people pointing out that "others" were victims of the Holocaust as something that demonstrates a "central and malignant evasiveness on the part of non-Jews" is the problem. The fact is that someone could point this out because most people don't know that the Holocaust also included - in huge numbers - many non-Jews. (Indeed, if my memory serves, some experts put the number of people who died in concentration camps at about 13 million, which would mean the majority were not Jewish).And it could be, as I said earlier, a desire to acknowledge the other victims of this horrendous event and pay them their necessary due. It does not need to be of "malignant" intention and Sim needs to explain how acknowledging these other people is malignant. I think that from this,it is possible to draw Martin's inference that Sim is implying that recognizing others who suffered from the Holocaust is a detraction from Jewish suffering.

I assume that what Sim is getting at is that many people feel that Jews have appropriated the Holocaust as their own, while ignoring the many others who were also victims. Thus the "and others too" remark is meant to universalize the Jewish experience and take away from its unique qualities. The problem is that the remark is true - so it leads back to the issue or question of what to do with and how to respectfully acknowledge that the Holocaust was a HUMAN event and that it's lessons have to do with the targeting of many groups of human beings. But it seems to me that Sim doesn't want to say this - he is too dismissive of the "others" who died in the Holocaust and considers that their being mentioned is part of an evasiveness on the part of non-Jews, presumably part of some desire to not acknowledge Jewish suffering or, perhaps, the implications of that suffering. He may be right, to some degree, but this does not preclude the need to honor and acknowledge all of the dead. So, this is a problem.

This whole thing is complicated by the fact that the Holocaust has become a real political football over the past few decades, particularly in how it relates to/affects the Arab-Israeli conflict, the emergence of anti-Jewish sentiment in the Muslim world, and other complex issues that I'd rather not get into. So, Sim is walking into a minefield that requires a real sensitivity.

So, I guess I would say that Sim is not wrong in wanting to do something that reflects upon the Jewish experiences that led to the Holocaust, but he does need to wrestle with the idea that the Holocaust may, in fact, be a human experience that could and should have resonance and meaning far beyond the Jewish community precisely because it consumed many other communities. (For example, I've never seen anything written or documented on how the Shoah affected or is remembered by the Roma community) He does not want to seem to do that. There is nothing wrong with that, but he needs to be much more sensitive in how he handles the people whose deaths he does not want to discuss.

I hope this makes sense. As I keep saying, this is a tough one.

Sincerely,

Shaun

[MacQuarrie]

Sim has a point.

I read somewhere that Napoleon once remarked that the continued existence of the Jewish people is proof of existence of God, because they have survived despite centuries of attempted genocide, expulsions and purges.

The Holocaust covers a lot of territory, including political assassinations and execution of dissidents, but the "Final Solution" part was a direct assault on the Jews and those who aided them.

[rick]

I still do not see how anyone can be saying that Sim is claiming that the others killed in the Holocaust don’t matter. Because what he wrote clearly says nothing of the kind.

Sim is talking about how some people will try to call the Holocaust an aberration of the Nazi’s that could never happen anywhere else or at any other time. Or to say that the Holocaust, because others were killed, was not about hatred of Jews.

And he is quite correct in this observation.

Sim is writing that because of centuries of hatred and persecution directed toward the Jews, the Shoah was actually no aberration, that it was in fact, as Sim writes, inevitable.

I'm not at all sure where the whole, Sim is lessing the importance of the others killed comes from, except maybe for people making assumptions about Sim himself and not what he is actually writing.

Edit: Although I honestly hope that is not the case.

[Charles RB]

Sim is talking about how some people will try to call the Holocaust an aberration of the Nazi’s that could never happen anywhere else or at any other time.

Some people really think and say that? How do you manage to think that without permanently cutting all ties with the outside world and its repeated instances of ethnic cleansing, genocide and hatred? What do they think is going on in Darfur?

[rick]

Some people really think and say that? How do you manage to think that without permanently cutting all ties with the outside world and its repeated instances of ethnic cleansing, genocide and hatred? What do they think is going on in Darfur?


You are missing Sims point.

He is saying that what people often look at as an aberration is the treatment of the Jews under the Nazi's, when in fact Jews have been being murdered, displaced and just generally treated horribly for thousands of years.

He is not saying that mass murder or genocide is the supposed aberration that people talk about, he is saying that Jew Hatred is.

Hence the title of the book, Judenhass.

[Charles RB]

He is not saying that mass murder or genocide is the supposed aberration that people talk about, he is saying that Jew Hatred is.

And that has me even more suprised - political groups, paramilitaries, some governments and suspect individuals express hatred against Jews repeatedly and publically. Who are these people who think that no longer happens? How do they think it no longer happens?

[rick]

And that has me even more suprised - political groups, paramilitaries, some governments and suspect individuals express hatred against Jews repeatedly and publically. Who are these people who think that no longer happens? How do they think it no longer happens?


Who said anything about people thinking it no longer happens?

Sim is talking about people not having a clear understanding of history.

I have no idea what Dave is going to use as an example, but I think that it is pretty safe to say that the vast majority of non-Jews, living in the Western world have at most a vague understanding of the horrors that have been inflicted on the Jews over the last couple of thousand years.

But like I said, I have no idea what Dave is going to write.

My suggestion is that we wait until Sim publishes his book and see what he has to say.

Honestly as much as I would like it to be otherwise I don’t have the ability to conjure a copy up in front of me to answer your questions.

[Charles RB]

Sim is talking about people not having a clear understanding of history.

I have no idea what Dave is going to use as an example, but I think that it is pretty safe to say that the vast majority of non-Jews, living in the Western world have at most a vague understanding of the horrors that have been inflicted on the Jews over the last couple of thousand years.

Ah, right, now I get you.

[Typo Lad]

Many died who were others he and the Nazis considered "undesirables," including those who protected/sheltered/aided Jews, those who protested or fought against the Nazi regime from within (which included Germans, Poles, French, and other nationalities), prisoners who refused to cooperate with the Nazis (i.e. performing artists from subjugated nations who refused to perform for them), homosexuals, Gypsies (he wiped out nearly all of them in that region, IIRC), the mentally and physically handicapped (including some of Germany's own veterans from WWI)...

Often, many of these other folks are forgotten---except, paradoxically, by the Jews themselves. There are many Jewish survivors who have spoken up, and spoken out, for those "others" who were also tortured and killed under the Nazi rule.

I have yet to be at a Shoah memorial that did not mention the other groups.

Incidentally, if anyone is interested, there are some fascinating documentaries out there about the Rom and the Shoah and specifically a great one about Homosexuals in the Holocaust.

I'm now torn, because I have not been buying any Sim on principle, and now he publishes something I'm somewhat interested.

[MartinRedmond]

Yeah, whatever, I'm gonna thug on people's sympathy denouncing a long dead dictatorship for easy money is more like it. And the art, well, I'll just trace over period photographs. He's still a poser.

Oh, and I'm also gonna ignore all the people who were targets that I didn't like.

[rick]

Yeah, whatever, I'm gonna thug on people's sympathy denouncing a long dead dictatorship for easy money is more like it. And the art, well, I'll just trace over period photographs. He's still a poser.

Oh, and I'm also gonna ignore all the people who were targets that I didn't like.


Well Martin, it's pretty clear that you are reacting to the artist and not the work or what he wrote in that piece.

As such you really don't have much to actually add here now do you?

[Gothos]

ShaunN, after rereading the offending passage, said:

"I think that from this,it is possible to draw Martin's inference that Sim is implying that recognizing others who suffered from the Holocaust is a detraction from Jewish suffering."

After my rereading both Sim and this discussion, I think the problem is using words out of context.

I don't think Sim feels that "recognizing others" detracts from Jewish suffering. He's saying that it detracts from acknowledging that "Judenhass" is a specific form of bigotry with a specific etiology. Now, given Sim's religious take on things, he may indeed have some notion that the suffering of the Jews is literally more important than the suffering of, say, the gypsies. But he never says that.

Sim never says that it's wrong to recognize the sufferings of other groups. His target is people whom he thinks try to use those sufferings of non-Jews as a rhetorical weapon; in effect, saying, "See, it wasn't JUST about the Jews." But Rick correctly points out that historically it is demonstrable that the fear/hatred of Jews was the center of the Nazi cause, while the hatred of all those others was, as Rick more or less says, "peripheral," at least in terms of the intensity of the hate-rhetoric.

Here's a helpful section from Wikipedia's "History of the Jews in Germany" that may clarify the etiology:

"Napoleon emancipated the Jews across Europe, but with Napoleon’s fall in 1815, growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression. In 1819, Hep-Hep riots—according to one interpretation from the Latin Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is lost), the rallying cry of the Crusaders, but more likely derived from the traditional herding cries of the German Folk—destroyed Jewish property and killed many Jews. The Revolution of 1848 swung the pendulum back towards freedom for the Jews, but the financial crisis of 1873 created another era of repression. Starting in the 1870s, anti-Semites of the völkisch movement were the first to describe themselves as such, because they viewed Jews as part of a Semitic race that could never be properly assimilated into German society. Such was the ferocity of the anti-Jewish feeling of the völkisch movement that by 1900, anti-Semitic had entered English to describe anyone who had anti-Jewish feelings. However, despite massive protests and petitions, the völkisch movement failed to persuade the government to revoke Jewish emancipation, and in the 1912 Reichstag elections, the parties with völkisch-movement sympathies suffered a temporary defeat.

Jews experienced a period of legal equality from 1848 until the rise of Nazi Germany. In the opinion of historian Fritz Stern, by the end of the 19th century, what had emerged was a Jewish-German symbiosis, where German Jews had merged elements of German and Jewish culture into a unique new one."

For all I know Sim may plan to cover some of this-- the 19th-century stuff would certainly be useful in proving his end-statement, that the Holocaust was not aberrational but inevitable-- but let me draw particular attention to the section stating that Jews had enjoyed "legal equality" for a little under a century. The history of movements like the Volkisch shows that for that entire time a fair number of Christian Germans were hugely offended by the emancipation of Jews, and continues to be so offended until the Nazis overthrew the Republican Government.

This sort of history is important to understanding the history of Judenhass, and understanding why it is a phenomenon that should be set apart rather than being lumped in with bigotry toward homosexuals and gypsies. It's not that the latter peoples aren't important, but smoldering resentments of German Christians toward those groups could (in my opinion at least) never have resulted in a Holocaust. That's why I think Sim is leery of generalizing too much about all the diverse bigotries of the Nazis. It would be like saying, "Well, yes, many blacks were harmed by the Jim Crow laws, but white Southern Christians oppressed Jews and Mexicans too." It's not wrong to acknowledge other sufferings but it's conceivable that the acknowledgement can be used as a tool to blunt one's understanding of specific cultural conflicts.

I wish that Sim had provided a concrete example of someone supposedly dampening the horror of the Jewish Holocaust by bringing in tales of other groups' sufferings. It's not something I personally have observed, that I can recall at least.

But it's certainly a possibility, and I think Sim's right to be leery of what he terms "evasiveness" by non-Jews on this subject.

[Charles RB]

But Rick correctly points out that historically it is demonstrable that the fear/hatred of Jews was the center of the Nazi cause, while the hatred of all those others was, as Rick more or less says, "peripheral," at least in terms of the intensity of the hate-rhetoric.

I am not sure how easy it would be to claim hatred of all the others the Nazis killed was "peripheral" when the Nazis were still killing them in vast numbers as part of their ideology, produced propaganda encouraging people to think it was right to do this (I've seen a short Nazi propaganda film on the moral right to kill the mentally ill), and wanted to cull the Poles en masse (which they did) except for those they'd keep as slaves.

[ShaunN]

Dear Gothos and Rick,

I think that I do understand the points you are making. My response, in part, is that it doesn't matter that much if the primary targets of the Nazis were the Jews - the fact is that many other millions of people were also consumed by the Holocaust. Their deaths are just as important as those of the primary targets. I think that dealing with that fact and treating it with respect is very important. As I mentioned in my first post, treating these people as peripheral, just as the Nazis may have done, is compounding the problem and treating this class of victim with disrespect.

In saying this, I am not criticizing Sim's overall project. If he wants to write a history of Jewish oppression in Europe that culminated in the Holocaust, that's absolutely fine. I would be a bit leery if he tries to link that history of oppression directly into present-day realities, however. I think that it is perfectly understandable that many Jews may see Arab hostility towards Jews, for example, as part of a historical continuity. However, I would also argue that such a characterization greatly oversimplifies what is actually happening in that case, and I don't know if Sim will be sensitive to that reality. But, we'll have to wait and see what the book actually says.

Rick, I must explain that I have nothing against Sim and certainly no strong feelings about him. Indeed, until a few days ago, I had no idea what his ideas on women are and that he is such a controversial figure in the comics world. So, that is not a factor affecting my judgment here.

I hope that I am not completely misreading Sim or reading too much into the few lines that we have been discussing. I think that the point I'm trying to make is that the only time Sim mentions the "others" killed in the Holocaust is in the context of saying that these "others" are mentioned by non-Jews as part of an effort to undermine the Jewish experience. I guess what I'd like him to do is be more respectful of the "others" and I don't get the sense from what he has written that he is. Maybe this will become much clearer, one way or the other, in the final book.

I hope this clarifies things a bit.

Sincerely,

Shaun

[MacQuarrie]

Yeah, whatever, I'm gonna thug on people's sympathy denouncing a long dead dictatorship for easy money is more like it. And the art, well, I'll just trace over period photographs. He's still a poser.

Oh, and I'm also gonna ignore all the people who were targets that I didn't like.
That's one of the most impenetrable posts I've ever seen here, and I can wade through J-Bolt's babblings. What in the world are you trying to say?

[Gothos]

Darn, and I was hoping for a good cyber-bloodbath.

Especially after gafiating from Comicon.com, which was once a domain filled with spirited debate and is now but a wasteland of posers...