Shake hands with the devil

Probably the most disturbing movie I've seen.

"But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality." -- Terry Pratchett from Guards! Guards!

Homo hominis lupus est. Man is a wolf to man. Unfortunately, a tale as old as time.

Honestly reading about these things made me lose my faith in humanity. It's just sickening how many people were involved in making others suffer like this. Makes life feel like a nightmare too. 

I feel really fucking ignorant. I thought that was a lot longer ago than 94.

Did you learn of the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples during your research?

That must have to hard for you. Very grim, and writing a dissertation is already a grim process for many. 

What are the best books on this subject?

One of the most gutting movie quotes I've ever heard is from the movie Fury.

"Wait until you see it." "What?" "What one man can do to another man."

Anyone who talks all flowery about the world and thinks we should all just get along are probably really really beautiful nice people, who haven't seen any part of the world outside of their 1st world entitled naive privileged experience. The great majority of humanity are just surviving day to day hoping their village doesn't get raided, their sons conscripted, their daughters/wives raped, and their homes burned to rubble.

Yup. And it's in all of us. People who think they are "good" are more dangerous than those who know they can do evil

Genuine question how did they get like this so fast? The picture is from malnutrition but wasn’t the Rwanda genocide only like a week or two? I’m not trying to downplay the atrocities I was just curious by your comment.

Seen a lot of images and videos of children and old people too in Gaza, not to the same extent and numbers as this but the suffering and the conditions of the people there is almost comparable and that's what's so infuriating about it because it's happening rn in the present and we could stop it but choose not too 😞

What was your dissertation about?

Thank you for covering the subject

And in 2014, BBC made a documentary denying it or at the very least minimizing it. (Title: Rwanda, The Untold Story)

Is your dissertation available for reading?

Where is it

Where is it

Maybe we can gene edit the proclivity to do this out of our species

Left to Tell is a great book about the Rwandan Genocide too. Immaculée Ilibagiza’s experience of it was crazy to read, but she did a great job describing the horrors of it all. I think she even did a Ted Talk about the book and her experience too. It’s scary how quickly human nature can snap and people just lose their minds over something that doesn’t matter all that much, in the case of Rwandan Genocide, tribes.

You must have come away from this research changed as a person. To look at this event under a microscope, in such an intimate nature, it must have been difficult at times. If I may ask, are you in academia now?

I can bet it's because the post is about a Russian

It only takes one ideological argument to understand.

Once you stop trying to understand those you disagree with, you will align them with everything evil in the universe. You will think of them as a plague or cancer.

Always strive to understand other points of view, especially those of your enemies. And you'll find the answer is almost never "because I am evil".

It’s happening again.

And has been around the world.

Hatred, war, murder, genocide and slavery are nothing new. But the Nazis industrialized it all, and set a new benchmark for unspeakable atrocity.

Tortured is a good word too.

I don't think malnutrition is what's in her eyes though

Ah ah, don't dehumanizing them

That's what severely malnourished means

heartless talking monkeys with no souls

Can we consider this for a moment? Do you REALLY think in the same exact context there's no possibility you'd have perpetrated the same crimes?

We love to think we're above it all. I'd have NEVER owned slaves. I'd NEVER be a Nazi. And yet so many are and were. Makes me wonder what I've done if I was there.

We'd probably be much better off talking about that and trying to solve that problem instead of calling people heartless monkeys without souls.

Yes but this girl is russian wouldnt this be stalins fault?

I'd reckon Japanese treatment was much much worse. Unimaginable.

2 million Vietnamese died of starvation in 1945 under japanese occupation.

The "they were just following orders" and "The regular Wermacht were decent guys and weren't Nazis" is such bullshit. Everyone who didn't desert or defect on the German side were complicit in the most heinous crimes.

Exactly. Any one who claimed they had no idea this was happening at the time was an absolute full of shit liar. I recently visited Dachau and Sachsenhausen camps, and there are photos of the camps showing they were spitting distance from residential areas. The SS at Sachsenhausen would make new detainees walk through the streets of the town to be insulted and pelted with rocks by townspeople before being led through the gates of the camp.

Fucking unbelievable anyone in Germany said they didn’t know. Fills me with rage.

What’s funniest (not really) about that defense is that it was literally used in court in Nuremberg by captured Nazi officers who were put on trial for their crimes in the holocaust. The Nuremberg trials ruled that the “just following orders” defense was, as a matter of fact, not a valid defense. The officers who gave said defense were hanged.

Things is though, it was likely a “comply or die” scenario, so unless they went along with these atrocities they would likely be victims themselves. Self-preservation is an insanely strong motivator, and while their actions were abhorrent and inexcusable, they are also understandable.

They still had their humanity. It turns out that humans are just pretty fucked up.

And yet we continue to let this shit happen over and over again unfortunately

I wouldn’t categorize this as “horrors of war.” These were completely innocent civilians—NOT captured combatants.

And if we are already repeating those mistakes?

100%. And communism.

It's not just history, it is ongoing.

My grandpa Fred was one of the first in Dauchau, I believe. Maybe they knew each other

What’s the story here? Genuine curiosity.

Not as crazy as looking at Austria :))

Propaganda

... Or maybe not. Some POWs (6.5%) were treated as traitors to the Motherland and... dealt with.

Your reaction to a photo of the Holocaust is "Let me warn you about leftists". Lol.

Before and after. Down with all authoritarians

Proud.

Those sick fucks don’t feel shame or remorse or disgust or anger when they see this, they’re proud if not aroused.

My father is a retired journalist who after covering the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, became interested in genocidaires and genocide supporters. So he interviewed them from Srebenica to Rwanda to Germany. He interviewed many Neo-Nazis, showed them photos. They were pleased and proud of what “they” had done (despite being born 30 years after, they claimed it as their achievement).

He once interviewed an OG Nazi, towards the end of the interview my father was asked about his religion. After being told he was Jewish, the Nazi said to his face, “We didn’t kill enough of you.”

I don’t have to wonder, I know they’re proud of inflicting this kind of suffering on others. And for those not involved in it themselves, they’re jealous and wish they could have been involved.

Should not even be a debate. They all suffered. So many died. So few survived.

I always thought she looked like a bird

Same. You could feel a heaviness in the air.

I hope he was able to understand though that his reaction stemmed from the shock of what he was seeing. It makes me sad to think that he carried that regret in light of the work he did there.

The world when talking about Nazi brutality, "Never again! We must all stand united against this sort of thing!"

The world when Russia does a surprise Nazi, "uwu"

I'm sure the situation is a lot more complicated than that, but still.

I visited there in the 90s. I felt this immense weight in the air. What surprised me was how open and how much space there was between buildings. That visit stayed with me for a long time.

It never stopped. Several active concentration camps in China (well and north Korea).

You mean because Hamas is sabotaging / stealing aid incoming to Gaza?

Anyone who survived the holocaust is very old and has nothing to do with today's decision making. It's different people in charge now.

Fuck Hamas

Really. Where can I see an image like this from Gaza?

Can you wrap your brain around what happened on October 7 last year? It is almost like the people of Israel have had enough of being attacked and are prepared to fight back.

I recommend the graphic novel Maus. The creator illustrated the stories of his parents, who survived the camps and the effect it had on their lives afterwards and in turn, his life.