From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Cruelty in Human History (was Re: The Painted Bird)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 21:23:01 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.202303.22003@midway.uchicago.edu> mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>Still, while keeping the memory of the Nazi holocaust alive is vital,
>it's equally important _not_ to think of it as so unique that we put
>it into a special box and don't imagine it relates to other people
>in other places.

On the other hand, there is another risk that comes of trying to downplay
the Holocaust's uniqueness. Arguments that the Holocaust is just one of
many examples of historical mass murders are arguments that ultimately
lessen the impact of the Holocaust. 

Besides, I think there are strong arguments that the Holocaust was
unique--not in the number of people killed, of course, but in the scope,
the target, and the sheer cruelty of the effort. It can be truly said that
the target of the Final Solution was *every Jew on Earth*, and all Jews
for all future time. Hence the ingathering of children from every
territory controlled by the Nazis--children who were later killed just as
cruelly as the adults. Neither the Stalin purges nor the Pol Pot massacres
aimed so "high".

In sheer cruelty and hatred, only the Cambodian massacres come close to
the Holocaust--Stalin looks merciful in comparison. (Where Stalin would be
content to starve perceived enemies to death, the impatient Nazis would
insist on deaths that were far more cruel and more humiliating.)

> The NKVD and KGB managed cruelties which matched the
>Nazis in individual impact if not on quite as wide a scale, and Stalin
>outdid Hitler in mass murder, racking up tens of millions of deaths
>(not counting WWII, which, as is occasionally forgotten, he helped
>start).

Granted that Stalin killed more people. But I've read a lot of
accounts both of NKVD and KGB tortures and atrocities and of
Nazi atrocities. I believe the Nazis surpassed the Soviets in the sheer
weird pathology of their insistence on cruelty and humiliation *prior to
murder*. Sure, some Soviet secret police were as vicious as their Nazi
counterparts--human variation accounts for that--but, as a class, the
Nazis' insanity eclipses Soviet fanaticism.

> I suppose the point is not to de-emphasize the Nazi holocaust,
>but to increase the number of people who are aware of the crimes
>of Stalin and Pol Pot (and one wishes that the CCP would fall in China
>so that we can get a good look at how many deaths Mao managed).

This is worth doing.

>Most Germans, even German anti-Semites, doubtless thought in
>terms of expulsion or ghettoization, not extermination.

I wouldn't assume this. It is possible you underestimate the viciousness
of European anti-Semitism. Recall that after the end of the war there were
incidents in which Germans and Poles (not soldiers or police) murdered
people who had escaped or been freed from the camps.

>At some point, it ceases to be a
>unique aberration, and starts to be, like murder for the individual, a
>crime, which decent people abhor, but one they concede exists and take
>steps to guard against.

I think mass murder of the Nazi variety is, if not unique, a very rare
circumstance that reveals a vicious cultural pathology. Sure, we're all
potentially monsters, but, in real life, some individuals, and some
cultures, are far more monstrous than others.



--Mike





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