on tv yesterday morn there was this debate i caught abit of, regarding the holocaust and nazi hunters.

 

basically some elderly jews still want to hunt down people involved with the death camps and put them on trial... one such suspect had to be taken into court on a stretcher he was so frail.

 

i think the main culprits, the ones who ordered the extermination of jews, gays, gypsies are already in jail or dead. an elderly embittered jew though still wants to put on trial the people who carried out the orders, the ordinary soldier.

 

this raises a difficult question... they were 'only following orders'...now whilst that sounds like a lame excuse, the truth is that if they didnt follow orders they too would be executed.

 

what would YOU do?

 

is it right that after nearly 70 years some jews are still embittered or should they move on?

 

'NEVER AGAIN' is what the jewish people say, we should never forget, but if thats the case, why wasnt there a jewish outcry at many mass murders since? in the balkans, in africa, in recent years... or are jewish people so insular that they dont care for any other holocaust?

They should move on. :rolleyes: Gosh it's 70 years ago now! Most perpetrators will either be dead or too old now.

Edited March 22, 201015 yr by Victor Meldrew

I think it to be entirely wrong for them to be hunting the sorts of people who were in a 'kill or be killed' position...however, I have no objections to them hunting down the givers of such orders.

As Jewish people surely they believe in forgiveness/turning the other cheek/moving on. We don't forget it, it's still taught (?) and it's common knowledge what hapened in WWII.

I think it to be entirely wrong for them to be hunting the sorts of people who were in a 'kill or be killed' position...however, I have no objections to them hunting down the givers of such orders.

 

agreed :)

They all go on about "Crimes against Humanity", but how many of these people who put so much resources into hunting Nazi war criminals have put anything like as much into hunting down perpetrators of more recent atrocities such as Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, etc...?

 

I think the focus needs to shift now, onto these more recent atrocities and the much younger perpetrators who can and should be brought to justice... But, where's the political will to do this...? Pretty much absent... Surely ANY crime against humanity deserves the same vigour in being pursued and prosecuted...

 

 

I don't think it's right. Whilst the pain and torment the Jewish people in Nazi Germany and Eastern Europe must have felt, the ordinary Nazi soldier was only following orders, or had been completely taken in by the propaganda, which i'm sure not many people can deny was very good. It's a long time since the Holocaust, and there have been other similar goings on yet none of them get as much attention. Like it's already been stated, the main culprits are either dead, have payed for their crimes or have fled to be never found again. It's wrong to victimise so much hate on one individual who was most likely only following orders, or else he'd suffer the same fate.

I think it to be entirely wrong for them to be hunting the sorts of people who were in a 'kill or be killed' position...however, I have no objections to them hunting down the givers of such orders.

 

I'm not sure they WERE in a "kill or be killed" position though. My understanding is that anyone who worked at a concentration camp actually chose to be there; there were examples of people who said they weren't comfortable working at camps and so were "redistributed" to the armed forces instead.

 

I don't know... it's one thing to fight in Hitler's army if you believed he was in the right, but I think it's another thing to actually actively contribute to the imprisonment/slaughter of innocent people. No matter how much propaganda you've been fed, I just don't think a decent human being would feel OK doing that, assuming they DID have the choice to work there (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong on that).

 

I'm not saying we should hunt down these people, but I don't think we should say they're totally blameless either.

the ordinary Nazi soldier was only following orders, or had been completely taken in by the propaganda

 

While that may be true, it's not really an excuse, murder is murder at the end of the day, and while I can feel some modicum of sympathy for the average Nazi soldier, it's only right and correct that they were punished at the time for being a participant in it, those who felt genuine remorse would have accepted their punishment and asked for forgiveness, the really guilty ones, were the ones that fled justice and their just punishment... There surely comes a moment in your own mind where you think "hang on, this just isn't right"....

 

This is the whole problem with "Patriotism", "Propaganda", "Groupthink", etc.... People need to reject these notions and think for themselves, some "orders" should never be followed....

I'm not sure they WERE in a "kill or be killed" position though. My understanding is that anyone who worked at a concentration camp actually chose to be there; there were examples of people who said they weren't comfortable working at camps and so were "redistributed" to the armed forces instead.

 

Actually, yeah, that's a good point... The ones in the Concentration Camps were the real b'astards... Not remotely anything like the Luftwaffe or the Wehrmacht who were essentially just soldiers fighting a war (even the Prosecutors in the Nuremberg Trials never saw the Wehrmacht as an inherently criminal organisation although some individuals were guilty of warcrimes), the SS and Gestapo were the really evil ones, and their crimes were absolutely unforgivable......

A crime is a crime, old age or ill health should not be a factor in whether someone is bought to account for their crimes or not

 

Mugabe is 84 yet who would not want to see him on genocide charges ?

 

Someone who has committed serious crimes like murder or genocide or whatever should still face justice so hunting down the nazi's that are still alive is fair to me

 

I don't buy this "oh he may have killed 20,000 people but leave him be he is old and frail" thing, regardless of whether it is jew related or not

They should move on. :rolleyes: Gosh it's 70 years ago now! Most perpetrators will either be dead or too old now.

 

Weren't you one of those that was calling for General Pinochet to be facing trial ? he was 83 at the time of his arrest

Edited March 23, 201015 yr by B.A Baracus

A crime is a crime, old age or ill health should not be a factor in whether someone is bought to account for their crimes or not

 

Mugabe is 84 yet who would not want to see him on genocide charges ?

Someone who has committed serious crimes like murder or genocide or whatever should still face justice so hunting down the nazi's that are still alive is fair to me

 

I don't buy this "oh he may have killed 20,000 people but leave him be he is old and frail" thing, regardless of whether it is jew related or not

 

Yeah, I suppose that's a true actually, I'd not exactly lose much sleep over Mugabe rotting away in a prison cell for the rest of his days... But then surely the same for General Pinochet though.. Although you'd probably continue to disagree with this even though he was actually wanted by The Spanish for the murder of their nationals, in that case, I still maintain that the UK Govt had no right whatsoever to interfere, I think we had a duty to turn him over to the Spanish seeing as how they had an arrest warrant and they're our EU partners...

 

Also, Milosevic, well he died in prison during his trial at the Hague, and all the big boo-hooing done about that.. Well, tough sh!t.. The only bad thing was that he died before he could be convicted, I have no doubt at all that he deserved to lose his liberty and die in prison for what he caused to happen in the Former Yugoslavia, you cant let people like him roam free and poison peoples' minds with racism and bigotry....

A crime is a crime, old age or ill health should not be a factor in whether someone is bought to account for their crimes or not

 

Mugabe is 84 yet who would not want to see him on genocide charges ?

 

Someone who has committed serious crimes like murder or genocide or whatever should still face justice so hunting down the nazi's that are still alive is fair to me

 

I don't buy this "oh he may have killed 20,000 people but leave him be he is old and frail" thing, regardless of whether it is jew related or not

 

id agree that the ones that gave the orders should be tried... but not the ordinary soldier who had to carry out the orders.

 

id have more sympathy for the jews if they were condemning more recent attrocities, but they didnt, i feel abit uncomfortable in being made to remember the jewish holocaust and not the other attrocities... i dont think the recent massacres in the balkans, africa or iraq are any the less lamentable then the jewish holocaust.... besides what about the gay people and romanies that were gassed too?...

id agree that the ones that gave the orders should be tried... but not the ordinary soldier who had to carry out the orders.

 

id have more sympathy for the jews if they were condemning more recent attrocities, but they didnt, i feel abit uncomfortable in being made to remember the jewish holocaust and not the other attrocities... i dont think the recent massacres in the balkans, africa or iraq are any the less lamentable then the jewish holocaust.... besides what about the gay people and romanies that were gassed too?...

 

Indeed Rob... Funny how the "Nazi Hunters" dont address the massacres commited upon those groups, nor indeed the hundreds of thousands of Poles, Czechs, Russians, etc, as well as the disabled who were killed because they were also regarded as "inferior"....

id agree that the ones that gave the orders should be tried... but not the ordinary soldier who had to carry out the orders.

 

id have more sympathy for the jews if they were condemning more recent attrocities, but they didnt, i feel abit uncomfortable in being made to remember the jewish holocaust and not the other attrocities... i dont think the recent massacres in the balkans, africa or iraq are any the less lamentable then the jewish holocaust.... besides what about the gay people and romanies that were gassed too?...

Or the millions that died under Stalins rule.. :lol: Not that it's funny, but you make a good point.