Why is Denying Nanking ok and Denying the Holocaust not?

[Athryn]

I know, you usually expect this kind of thing from Dirt, but I was reading this review (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/11/DDHNUC130.DTL&type=movies) of a documentary about Nanking coming out, and it still baffles me. Stuff like Unit 731 and Nanking seem to be swept under the rug, whereas when Iran questions the idea of the Holocaust, everyone jumps all over condemning them and it makes our news. Is it because we're embarassed at our own mistreatment of US citizens of Japanese ancestry? I'm not sure, but it does irk me. Perhaps the documentary will help bring more awareness about it or something.

[Lum]

Danying Nanking isn't OK. I don't think anyone gives Japanese historical revisionists a free pass. I've personally pointed to revisionist Japanese propaganda (http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/english/qanda.html#4) disparagingly more than once.

[mystery]

Everything pales in comparison to the Victorian Holocaust (http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1674478,00.html), and the similar "sweeping under the rug" treatment it receives.

[Tankero]

What? Film records aren't good enough?

[Athryn]

Danying Nanking isn't OK. I don't think anyone gives Japanese historical revisionists a free pass. I've personally pointed to revisionist Japanese propaganda (http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/english/qanda.html#4) disparagingly more than once.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean that we thought it was ok here, it's kinda just my dissatisfaction with the universe, or something. Most of Europe is pretty guilty in regards to the exploitation of Africa, for instance. I think that the further it goes back in history, the 'sting' of it is lessened. But it shouldn't be forgotten, and should be apologized for.

[Dirt]

Because, as Communists now, the Chinese have become traditional enemies of the USA. And China doesn't make a big deal out of it unless the Prime Minister of Japan visits Yakasuni Shrine. I think there's a certain amount of ethnocentric pride involved too, at least where China is concerned. It doesn't like to bring up, to admit, that there was a time that China was a victim of Japan. If China doesn't represent itself as a victim, there's no reason for anybody to see it as victim. It's just another tragedy of war. Plus, as a society, the Chinese do not like to share their dirty laundry outside of the "family." It's shameful moment in their history that is ultimately between China and Japan.

Edit: Thank you for posting the review.

[Morkilus]

Most of Europe is pretty guilty in regards to the exploitation of Africa, for instance.

There's this part in Churchill's biography where he's thrilled at the excitement of running down hordes of Africans as part of the cavalry. Dehumanization wasn't started with Guantanamo.

[MikeSofaer]

What makes the WWII Holocaust different is that it was an engineering project, mathematically optimized for the most efficient genocide possible. It's the impassivity of the German try at genocide that makes it rise to its own level of horror.

[Kalle]

What makes the WWII Holocaust different is that it was an engineering project, mathematically optimized for the most efficient genocide possible. It's the impassivity of the German try at genocide that makes it rise to its own level of horror.

Impassivity? How would that be any different from the British enforced starvation in India?

The ww2 holocaust has the distinction of applying industrial methods to genocide, but neither the results nor the motivations behind it stand out as some sort of exceptional atrocity amongst which all other atrocities pale. I don't mean to act callous, It is certainly a horrifying event and one of the great tragedies of history, I just fail to see why this is *more* horrible than any of the other horrors visited on populations by genocidal rulers.

[Jason McCullough]

The Holocaust gets press because the victims are considered "white" today, it's an issue that still comes up in relation to the middle east, they have an extremely effective set of lobbying groups, and all the other major genocides have various political roadblocks to relevance. I don't think you need any other explanations.

[Uncle Larry]

they have an extremely effective set of lobbying groups

The Jews control the media!

[Aeon221]

The Holocaust gets press because the victims are considered "white" today, it's an issue that still comes up in relation to the middle east, they have an extremely effective set of lobbying groups, and all the other major genocides have various political roadblocks to relevance. I don't think you need any other explanations.

That's a fairly ignorant thing to say.


Impassivity? How would that be any different from the British enforced starvation in India?

The ww2 holocaust has the distinction of applying industrial methods to genocide, but neither the results nor the motivations behind it stand out as some sort of exceptional atrocity amongst which all other atrocities pale. I don't mean to act callous, It is certainly a horrifying event and one of the great tragedies of history, I just fail to see why this is *more* horrible than any of the other horrors visited on populations by genocidal rulers.

Most people agree that there is a difference between poor or callous management and the systematic destruction of life as an end in and of itself. In law, the distinction is best observed in the terms manslaughter and murder.

As the European Holocaust was a highly organized death machine, it tends to impress itself firmly upon the memory of a world used to bumbling accidental holocausts.


But if we're going for worst Pre-World War offenders, the Dutch certainly take the cake. They've committed genocide everywhere from the Congo, where the bones of locals worked to death were ground and used to pave pathways, to South East Asia, where entire peoples were butchered so as to more efficiently control the production of cloves.

[Ed Solomon]

That's a fairly ignorant thing to say.



Most people agree that there is a difference between poor or callous management and the systematic destruction of life as an end in and of itself. In law, the distinction is best observed in the terms manslaughter and murder.

As the European Holocaust was a highly organized death machine, it tends to impress itself firmly upon the memory of a world used to bumbling accidental holocausts.


But if we're going for worst Pre-World War offenders, the Dutch certainly take the cake. They've committed genocide everywhere from the Congo, where the bones of locals worked to death were ground and used to pave pathways, to South East Asia, where entire peoples were butchered so as to more efficiently control the production of cloves.
Are you saying that the destruction of the Congo was a strictly Flemish enterprise or does Belgium=Netherlands to you?

[Jason McCullough]

God, you just can't have a reasonable discussion about this subject. AIPAC is like Bigfoot or something.

[Dirt]

http://www.documentary.org/programs/docuweek_qa_07.php?progid=B

An interview with the filmmakers.

God, you just can't have a reasonable discussion about this subject. AIPAC is like Bigfoot or something.

I've found this to be true as well. When I first brought this up on the boards I frequent, it was met with apathy. The harder I pressed for recognition on this topic, the more derision I received. In response, I became a fanatic on the subject. Which, honestly, didn't help the message.

[SlyFrog]

Impassivity? How would that be any different from the British enforced starvation in India?

Or the Stalin enforced starvation of the Ukraine? Where you can also say that the full power of the state was used (through removing all food from the Ukraine, selling much of it to other countries) to ensure that starvation would occur?

[Rollory]

What's different about the Holocaust is that the people targeted are 1) terrified that it will happen again, 2) capable and willing to take action they think will prevent it from happening again.

The Chinese are not afraid of it happening again because the Chinese will damn well nuke anyone who tries. And everybody knows it, to the point where it isn't even necessary to point this out.

The American Indians aren't plugged in to the cultural life of the West, so don't have the ability to cast themselves as unique victims. Also, their war is over. It's lost and done. Things are what they are.

The Rwandan Tutsis built themselves an army and stopped things by their own force of arms, so there goes the victim card. Also, there's the undercurrent of "it's just a bunch of black savages massacring each other; who cares". Same thing as the response to Darfur now.

Genghis Khan made mountains of skulls, in cities nobody remembers now. And also some we do but that don't make a big deal of it. The Mongols are largely responsible for turning that open and tolerant Islamic Caliphate the appeasers keep lecturing us about back into a desert wasteland full of reactionary and paranoid tribesmen and no dependable central authority anywhere. Also, the destruction of the Persian highland irrigation system, which was never replaced.

The Aztecs, whose descendants now work for your local construction crews and landscaping businesses, were so unspeakably brutal that the other Mexican tribes instantly defected to a few hundred Spanish adventurers, because no option could be worse than the status quo.

Stalin and Mao each killed far more than Hitler ever did. But those victims weren't Jews.

What makes the Holocaust unique is that it targeted the Jews. That's it. It was not unique as an act of human evil or any such thing. Worse things have been done in the past and will be done again. It's just that *this* time, it was the Jews, and a lot of Jewish people are perfectly willing to use whatever influence they have to see it doesn't happen to them again.

[NoWayJose]

God, you just can't have a reasonable discussion about this subject. AIPAC is like Bigfoot or something. Didn't you just get done saying no explanations other than yours are needed? And now you're wondering where the reasonable discussions have gone.

What a schmuck.

[Midnight Son]

Turks. Armenians. Discuss.

[Jason McCullough]

Didn't you just get done saying no explanations other than yours are needed? And now you're wondering where the reasonable discussions have gone.

I meant that you didn't need to dig around for complicated explanations involving industrial methods, or what grounds would define the worse incident, or what ever else, as a few simple observations about politics apparently explain it all. I do wish the other victims could get the sympathy and public awareness the jewish do.

[Aleck]

The Holocaust gets press because the victims are considered "white" today, it's an issue that still comes up in relation to the middle east, they have an extremely effective set of lobbying groups, and all the other major genocides have various political roadblocks to relevance. I don't think you need any other explanations.

Your argument about the skin color of the victims neatly ignores one of the other critical events of the twentieth century: the unparalleled barbarism of the Stalinist regime, which killed somewhere between 15,000,000 and 30,000,000 people through political purges, starvation, and poor economic planning. Where's the outrage that we don't pay enough attention to that?

When comparing the Nazi atrocities to Nanking, There's also the issue of scale. Nanking, while utterly horrific, was about 200,000 people killed in an orgy of violence. This violence cannot -- and should not -- be forgotten or excused, and outside the occasional Japanese extremist, isn't. It's remembered as a horrific event of the 20th century by most people who pay any attention to world history (which is to say not many Americans).

The Nazi concentration camps killed approximately 12,000,000 people (6 million Jews plus 6 million non-Jews), or SIXTY times as many people were killed in Nanking. There's also the fact that the Nazis virtually exterminated the Jews in the areas they controlled, wiping out a significant proportion of the total number of Jews in the world; they similarly scourged the Roma. Nanking did not represent a similar blow to Chinese civilization.

On a purely proportional scale, the Nazi atrocities should get 60 times as much attention as the Nanking massacre (and they probably do). I won't deny the Jewish lobby probably has something to do with this attention, but a great deal more of it is that Jews really care about this issue and publicize it, while most Chinese I know aren't carrying a huge chip on their shoulder regarding Nanking (although they may not care for Japan, it's not the same visceral reaction that Jews seem to have relative to the Nazis).*

There's another thing that makes the Nazi atrocities seem more horrific to Westerners: it was perpetrated by a "civilized" nation on other "civilized" nations. From the Western perspective, that makes it relatively unique in modern times. The horrors of the Nazi atrocities also came as a huge shock to many who thought that the War to End All Wars would indeed prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

Anyway, I think it's hugely oversimplifying the comparison between the Nazi atrocities and Nanking to simply say the difference is race. There's a lot more at play, though race does clearly play a factor.

*I'm not Jewish, but my wife is. My maternal family is Dutch, and my grandfather and great uncles never had a positive thing to say about Germans that I ever heard. My in laws whip out the holocaust at the drop of a hat when anyone does something they perceive as discriminatory -- every discussion with them is Godwinized within a few minutes if there's any way to spin it that way.

[Lum]

The Holocaust was unique in modern times in that it was the most thoroughly depraved genocide humans can possibly concieve of.

Think about it - the Ukranian Holodomor, the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, the Japanese rape of the Chinese cities - these were horrifying crimes, but they also were the result of something else - the Turks annexing Armenia, Japan at war and brutally pacifying a people that vastly outnumbered them. Horrifying crimes, and human behavior gone woefully wrong, but at least there was some reason that someone would find rational at some point.

Germany killed six million Jews because they were a race that the Germans found wanting. There was no justification other than that. They were exterminated because of their ancestry, in a calm, methodical, dispassionate manner. It's literally as evil an act of 'governance' as man can conceive.

The only act that comes close in the 20th century in terms of sheer perversity would be the Holodomor (the forced Ukranian famine as a cynical means of exterminating a class opposed to Stalin's goals) and even that was amateur hour compared to the gas chambers.

In fact, I'll go even further in Godwinizing this thread - people who seek to minimize the Holocaust usually have an agenda in so doing. It usually involves Jews.

[NoWayJose]

The Holocaust gets more play in America because America was involved in ending it, after which a huge influx of European Jews emigrated here. The stories remain fresh because they are being told by survivors or American soldiers or their direct descendants still.

[Stroker Ace]

http://www.playwithlinn.com/Images/funny%20pics/oh%20snap.jpg

[Johan O]

The Holocaust was unique in modern times in that it was the most thoroughly depraved genocide humans can possibly concieve of.

Think about it - the Ukranian Holodomor, the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, the Japanese rape of the Chinese cities - these were horrifying crimes, but they also were the result of something else - the Turks annexing Armenia, Japan at war and brutally pacifying a people that vastly outnumbered them. Horrifying crimes, and human behavior gone woefully wrong, but at least there was some reason that someone would find rational at some point.

Germany killed six million Jews because they were a race that the Germans found wanting. There was no justification other than that. They were exterminated because of their ancestry, in a calm, methodical, dispassionate manner. It's literally as evil an act of 'governance' as man can conceive.

The only act that comes close in the 20th century in terms of sheer perversity would be the Holodomor (the forced Ukranian famine as a cynical means of exterminating a class opposed to Stalin's goals) and even that was amateur hour compared to the gas chambers.

In fact, I'll go even further in Godwinizing this thread - people who seek to minimize the Holocaust usually have an agenda in so doing. It usually involves Jews.
In a way I think the Rwandian genocide has it beat, in that it was a conscious effort to get the majority of the nation to be a part of the genocide. The perveresly personal nature of the Rwandian genocide makes it all the more horrendous.

Edit. also I'm drunk and feel the need to insult, so feel insulted, and we can all go along on our separate ways peacefully.

[Sarkus]

What makes anyone think Nanking and other Japanese WW2 atrocities are being "swept under the rug?" Just because they don't get as much attention as the Jewish Holocaust (for reasons already mentioned) doesn't mean they are being ingnored. Just about every general history of WW2 in the Pacific mentions Nanking, and there are a number of books about what Japan did.

It is true that the Japanese government still seems to have issues taking full responsibility for what happened, but that is a different matter. While Germany has done a number of things to recognize their national role in the Holocaust, even they are criticized by some who would like to see them do more.

[Dirt]

Hitler killed the Jewish because they weren't Christians. It doesn't matter how you kill someone. The Germans (who weren't Jewish) had intent to kill the Jewish to achieve their goals. The Japanese had the same intent; they wanted to exterminate as many Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans as they could to reach their goals. Whether you chop someone's head off with someone wielding an axe or you use the guillotine, they're still dead. In a way, what's more humane? Gassing someone in a room where only the people who are being killed can stand witness, or bayoneting someone to death in plain sight for everyone to see? U 731 shows that the killing of Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos was just as systematic as anything that anyone else did.

[Lum]

It was not a goal of the Japanese government to exterminate all Chinese (or other nationalities) from the planet. Enslave, yes. Abuse, sure. Wipe all trace from the earth because their very existence was seen as an abomination? Uh, no. Whereas "wipe all trace of Jews from the earth because their very existence was seen as an abomination" is a succinct summary of Nazi racial ideology.

While millions of Chinese died at the hands of Imperial Japan, it wasn't QUITE as obscene a horror as the extermination camps of Germany, if only because it was less organized and more a by-product of a lack of caring for the fate of subject peoples. Whereas Germany cared quite a bit, and went to great lengths to make sure no Jews remained alive under their dominion.

Death camps like Unit 731 were not the intended fate of all Chinese. Death camps like Auschwitz were the intended fate of all Jews. It makes a difference.

[Dirt]

The idea that you can exterminate all Chinese people (as the Jewish people were exterminated) was practically impossible. Even if you exterminated all Jewish people in Germany, there were a lot of Jewish people all across the world. Germany may have wanted to exterminate all Jewish people, but they had to conqueror the world first. The Jewish were a scapegoat. The Chinese were an obstacle. Both were massacred with intent and without regret. Japan, with the influence of the USA, is a lot more open now, racially and culturally. However, at the time, if you weren't Japanese or you weren't useful, then you weren't human.

[NoWayJose]

The Jewish what? Humor? Food? Jewish is an adjective, Jew is a noun.

I tried to put this into a language you could understand by throwing a bunch of pots and pans down the stairs and recording it, but I don't know how to post MP3s here.

[Dirt]

The Jewish what? Humor? Food? Jewish is an adjective, Jew is a noun.

I tried to put this into a language you could understand by throwing a bunch of pots and pans down the stairs and recording it, but I don't know how to post MP3s here.
If it's one thing I've learned when talking about the people who follow the Torah, it's that not everyone defines themselves the same. Hell, not all Jewish/Jews follow the Torah although they define themselves as Jewish/Jews (religion? culture? ethnicity? something else?). I've found it to be very complicated. And there's little room for making the wrong assumptions, any wrong ideas (even if it's wrong for only that Jewish person) are met with accusations of anti-Semitism.

[metta]

What's most remarkable about the Nazi Holocaust is so few remember the other 6 million.

12 million perished in The Shoah.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

Whoa, Lum, let's not get so succinct that we leave out the parts of Nazi ideology where they claimed to be superior in every respect to all other races and cultures. I think that was pretty central, too.

[MattKeil]

As the European Holocaust was a highly organized death machine, it tends to impress itself firmly upon the memory of a world used to bumbling accidental holocausts.

So the Nanking genocide isn't as well known because it was JUST TOO DARN WACKY?!

What. The. Fucking. Fuckity. Fuck.

The Nazi death camps were pretty fucking far from being the only systematic genocide attempt in history. Humanity has a long, long tradition of trying to kill everyone that doesn't look or sound like one particular group, and Germany was hardly the first time it was institutionalized. It was, however, the first time the masses were able to see photographs of it. Funny that.

[Jason McCullough]

Your argument about the skin color of the victims neatly ignores one of the other critical events of the twentieth century: the unparalleled barbarism of the Stalinist regime, which killed somewhere between 15,000,000 and 30,000,000 people through political purges, starvation, and poor economic planning. Where's the outrage that we don't pay enough attention to that?
It was a self-inflicted wound, more or less, so there's no clearly defined enemy, so people don't care as much.

On relative size, the Nanking massacre wasn't the only time the Japanese killed civilians in Manchuria. Wikipedia gives total Chinese civilian casualties as 9 million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War#Chinese_casualties) killed in combat, and 8.4 million outside of combat.

I won't deny the Jewish lobby probably has something to do with this attention, but a great deal more of it is that Jews really care about this issue and publicize it, while most Chinese I know aren't carrying a huge chip on their shoulder regarding Nanking (although they may not care for Japan, it's not the same visceral reaction that Jews seem to have relative to the Nazis).*
Good point.

Anyway, I think it's hugely oversimplifying the comparison between the Nazi atrocities and Nanking to simply say the difference is race. There's a lot more at play, though race does clearly play a factor.
Which is why race is only one of the points I made, you'll note.

On the specific thread question of why Japanese barbarism in WWII doesn't get as much outrage, it's because the aggrieved party is a poor dictatorship that intentionally keeps a lid on opinion in this area, only letting it flare up when they want, then quickly tamping it back down. Additionally, the Chinese only very recently have stopped being the focus of western anti-communist outrage, which interferes with western sympathy generation. Finally, the Japanese were just as loved for Cold War reasons as the Chinese weren't, so that again minimizes it in the west.

Part of the reason I do think it's mostly circumstances of politics and race (cultural relevance, less crassly) is the giant piles of people the western empires killed that no one even knows about, much less gets upset about, as mentioned in mystery's link in the third post. It's a pretty extreme case, but it's a dead end of history.

This isn't to minimize the Holocaust in any way. It's more of annoyance that the other incidents get no attention or lessons learned.

[Dirt]

Nanking is not in Manchuria. I'm just saying.

When comparing the Nazi atrocities to Nanking, There's also the issue of scale. Nanking, while utterly horrific, was about 200,000 people killed in an orgy of violence. This violence cannot -- and should not -- be forgotten or excused, and outside the occasional Japanese extremist, isn't. It's remembered as a horrific event of the 20th century by most people who pay any attention to world history (which is to say not many Americans).

The 200,000 murders occurred in about 3 months time. And there were people actively (thankfully) protecting as many Chinese people as they could. The Jewish Holocaust occurred between 1938 to 1945. 6 million in 7 years.

[Jason McCullough]

Whoops, apparently Nanking was the next thing after the Manchurian campaign. Still, same war, same deal.

[StGabe]

All I know is that I've been hearing about the Holocaust, a lot, throughout my life and all other similar atrocities rarely come up.

Personally I think it has a lot to do with race and circumstance. Face it: we as predominantly white Americans and Europeans identify with the Jewish holocaust far more than we do with other holocausts. It's very easy to point at the other atrocities and trivialize them as "not as organized" or whatnot. What we really mean is that we just aren't able to personally identify as well and so we can more easily talk about those instances in terms of statistics instead of considering real people dying.

Personally, while I think the holocaust was horrible I do think it gets far too much press and would certainly appreciate more attention being given to other genocides (whether such genocides were well-executed or not).

[Dirt]

There was a Polish Holocaust too. And they are also white. As are many Armenians. I point this out because I think that it goes deeper than that. It's a combination of many things. Race, religion, creed, pictures, political affliliation. There's no question in my mind that the surviving Jewish/Jews benefited from their dead. They deserve the goodwill they have received.

[metta]

The Jewish Holocaust occurred between 1938 to 1945. 6 million in 7 years.

12 million in 7 years. And it wasn't just Jews. The Nazi Final Solution wasn't only a 'Jewish' Holocaust.

[Hugin]

The Holocaust is extremely well documented compared to other genocides. It took place right when advances in communications, transportation, and recording technology (particularly film), made wide dissemination of information faster and easier than it had ever been before. And it took place within societies that have (post war at least) relatively transparent governments and relatively free presses. Moreover, the winners of the conflict had and continue to have a great interest in and great infrastructural capability to chronicling, even mythologizing to some extent their role in the war and the moral value of their actions, using the Holocaust as an example.


A lot of the lesser known genocides, either the people involved are all dead now, and/or it was or is very difficult to get good documentation out of those areas, the witnesses have little or no media control or access, and/or the "winners" have a vested interest in suppressing the narrative, not spreading it, and/or there's no clear winner (or no clear good or bad guy) yet, so a coherent, pleasing (not pleasing Disney funtimes but pleasing as in philosophically or culturally satisfying) narrative is difficult to establish.

The Nazi Holocaust has a clear good guy, a clear group of victims, impressive scale, and tons of flashy documentation in the hands of people with the machinery and motivation to publicize it well, basically. I know that makes it sound like trying to sell a AAA game in a crowded holiday market, but there are some relevant parallels.

[Flowers]

You know what I am sick of? Movies about fancy types during the Holocaust. I don't think you should have to have been a violin or piano player in order for people to care whether you got shoved into one of Hitler's ovens. In fact, I think I'd care more whether you were good at martial arts.

But really people, it's not just some racial thing that makes the Holocaust the most horrifying event that people love to talk about. You can accuse people of caring more about the Jews than about people from the Indian subcontinent all you want, but there's a difference. In India and Pakistan, people would frequently stop trains and butcher the people inside, in Germany, butchery was the entire purpose of the train. Maybe in the U.S.S.R., some minister conspired with Stalin to think of a way to accuse the Ukranians of theft, but government ministers conspire to cover up murder all the time, in Germany, scientists engineered ovens that could melt bodies quickly, not just off the top of their heads, but based on the function of the other ovens that they had built to melt bodies. The Japanese may have slaughtered an entire city full of people, but even they were not wicked enough to ship the people off to be gassed because bullets were at a premium.

And they filmed it.

[Aeon221]

Are you saying that the destruction of the Congo was a strictly Flemish enterprise or does Belgium=Netherlands to you?

Or maybe I just blame the Dutch for everything, whether they're in the top seven or the bottom ten?

[Andrew Mayer]

Personally I think it has a lot to do with race and circumstance. Face it: we as predominantly white Americans and Europeans identify with the Jewish holocaust far more than we do with other holocausts. It's very easy to point at the other atrocities and trivialize them as "not as organized" or whatnot. What we really mean is that we just aren't able to personally identify as well and so we can more easily talk about those instances in terms of statistics instead of considering real people dying.

Personally, while I think the holocaust was horrible I do think it gets far too much press and would certainly appreciate more attention being given to other genocides (whether such genocides were well-executed or not).

Fair enough. But it's not just about who it was done to that makes it particularly poignant for us Westerners.

It's also about who did it.

[Aeon221]

So the Nanking genocide isn't as well known because it was JUST TOO DARN WACKY?!

What. The. Fucking. Fuckity. Fuck.

The Nazi death camps were pretty fucking far from being the only systematic genocide attempt in history. Humanity has a long, long tradition of trying to kill everyone that doesn't look or sound like one particular group, and Germany was hardly the first time it was institutionalized. It was, however, the first time the masses were able to see photographs of it. Funny that.

Um, what? I didn't say jack all about the Nanking massacre, or it's wackyness or, um, even anything about China.

If anything, I'd guess that Nanking is somewhat unknown because it's pretty similar to the innumerable other slaughters, pogroms, massacres, and other fucked up things people have been doing to one another. In my mind, it ranks way closer to Kristallnacht than it does to the Holocaust. For chrissake, the Nazis even screwed around with turning turning people into soap (http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/10/tests-show-that-nazis-used-human.html).

Which isn't to say that the Japanese government wasn't also incredibly fucked up. Go go wiki power:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Icky.

[Aleck]

The 200,000 murders occurred in about 3 months time. And there were people actively (thankfully) protecting as many Chinese people as they could. The Jewish Holocaust occurred between 1938 to 1945. 6 million in 7 years.

Understood.

Nanking: 200,000 deaths, 3 months, let's call it 67,000 people murdered per month, lasting a total of three months. Absolutely, positively horrific -- no one in their right mind can dispute that.

The Nazi activities killed approximately 12 million (per my earlier post, approx. 6 million Jews and 6 million non-Jews, give or take). While the death distribution was wildly uneven, lets assume it was even over the 7 years it took place. It comes out to 142,000+ people per month, every month, for seven years -- 71,000 or so Jews, and 71,000 or so non-Jews. Even as a matter of scale controlling for the duration, the Nazis were managing to wipe out twice as many folks per month as the Japanese were (at least in Nanking).

As for the overall civilian casualties, Wikipedia indicates an estimate of 40,000,000 civilian casualties worldwide, in addition to the 20,000,000 soldiers killed. 7 million civilians in Europe (in addition to the victims of the concentration camps, for a total of just shy of 19 million total), and 7.5 million in China.

None of this is to take away from Nanking, obviously, but attempts to equate Nanking with the Nazi atrocities are a stretch, to say the least, in terms of number of people killed. Morally, I'd say they're pretty much on par at "wrong."

[Dirt]

12 million in 7 years. And it wasn't just Jews. The Nazi Final Solution wasn't only a 'Jewish' Holocaust.
I'll go with the internationally accepted number. Yeah, there were also alot of gypsies. We never really hear about them. The Jewish Holocaust wasn't the only atrocity occurring in the world at the time, as this thread shows.

None of this is to take away from Nanking, obviously, but attempts to equate Nanking with the Nazi atrocities are a stretch, to say the least, in terms of number of people killed. Morally, I'd say they're pretty much on par at "wrong."
There have been entire races of people wiped off the face of the earth in human history. By that comparison, the Jewish Holocaust, while horrible and vile, did not destroy the entire Jewish people. By number of lives lost, the worst is the war between the Qing Dynasty and the Heavenly Empire of Great Peace. And that was a war of culture and religion. The leader of HEGP thought that he was the other son of God. By percentages, the worst might be the An Lu Shan Rebellion.

Yeah, Chinese people are pretty good at killing themselves.

[Aleck]

There have been entire races of people wiped off the face of the earth in human history. By that comparison, the Jewish Holocaust, while horrible and vile, did not destroy the entire Jewish people. By number of lives lost, the worst is the war between the Qing Dynasty and the Heavenly Empire of Great Peace. And that was a war of culture and religion. The leader of HEGP thought that he was the other son of God. By percentages, the worst might be the An Lu Shan Rebellion.

Yeah, Chinese people are pretty good at killing themselves.

Niggling point: there are a number of Jewish subgroups that were entirely decimated as a result of the Holocaust. I don't know if that's true of the Roma, too, but it wouldn't surprise me.

The "Chinese" (which as you no doubt know is also a highly heterodox group!) seem to pretty much stomp the competition when it comes to killing one another, though. For the casualties listing on Wikipedia, I think the Chinese are what I'd consider primary parties in four of the five conflicts listed -- the exception being WW2!

[Ed Solomon]

Or maybe I just blame the Dutch for everything, whether they're in the top seven or the bottom ten?
Scott: Hello. My name is Ed.

Mark: [speaks sing-songy throughout] He's sick of the Swiss.

Scott: That's right! I'm sick of their good reputation.

Mark: He's realllly sick of the Swiss.

Scott: I'm sick of their cheese. I'm sick of their chocolate. And, I'm especially sick of their blocky heroine, Heidi.

Mark: He's sick of the Swiss. He don't like `em.

Scott: I mean, every other nation in the world has taken their turn being maligned and slandered. But not the Swi-iss!

Mark: Icky, yucky, stinky, stupid Switzerland.

Scott: Well, that situation is over as of now. *Move* over America; there's a new asshole on the map! I've had it up to here with your skiing heroes! I've had it up to here with your mountains! I've had it up to here with your secret *bank* accounts! From now on, Switzerland, your name is mud.

Mark: If you roast `em all in a fondue pot, sure bet ya that they'll complain a lot. Whiny, whiny Switzerland.

Scott: Yeah. It's *war* between the Swiss and me. "But, they've never done anything wrong," you say.

Both: Ha!

Scott: What about the clock?

Mark: The clock.

Scott: Huh? If they hadn't invented the clock, I'd still be in bed. . .dreaming!

Mark: It's time. It's time. [looks at watch] Oh! It's time to hate the Swiss.

Scott: Zuricheads! Cuckoo cuckoos! Land locked losers!

Mark: Zuricheads. . .

Scott: Neutral ninnies! Boring bankers! Chalet pimps!!

Mark: Oh yeah, his name is Ed--he'd like to see the Swiss dead! He's sick of the Swiss!

Scott: [sticks finger in mouth and gags]

Mark: Hey! Got a problem with that Belgium?!

Scott: [gives the two-handed equivalent to the finger] Umph!

[Jakub]

No one denies Nanking.

Most are unaware of it.

Some are.

Of those "some", enough have read about it to understand that it was not intended, whether by the IJA or the IH. The war in China was brutal but it was not specifically genocidal.

This is ultimately what sets the Holocaust apart from all the other atrocities in history: those were set in motion to achieve a goal other than the atrocity itself. The Belgian Congo was the result of greed; the Japanese conducted campaigns of brutal pacification; the Khmer Rogue and Soviets culled the undesirable, questionable, seditious, and likely seditious from their own populace.

The Germans exterminated Jews, Slavs, and Roma simply because they were Jews, Slavs, and Roma. Though greed for land played a part in some of the genocide, it was ancillary, a mere bonus to what was already set in motion because of the need to assert the superiority of the Aryan race.

[Anaxagoras]

Of those "some", enough have read about it to understand that it was not intended, whether by the IJA or the IH. The war in China was brutal but it was not specifically genocidal.

I understand your point, and the goal of the Japanese leadership wasn't genocidal, exactly. But their goal (and attitude) was right on the edge. It wasn't just a matter of them losing control of their troops during the massacre... they very intentionally set up an attitude where such atrocities could happen. And as I understand it, when the leadership found out about the Nanking incident, they weren't opposed to it at all.

[Jason McCullough]

I'm pretty sure if your government and country approved of killing millions of civilian chinese for shits and giggles - but didn't actually want to exterminate all of China - that doesn't translate into "not intended." Japanese newspapers were happilly covering a contest where soldiers competed to behead the most civilians, for example.

[Stormbinder]

The Holocaust was unique in modern times in that it was the most thoroughly depraved genocide humans can possibly concieve of.

Think about it - the Ukranian Holodomor, the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, the Japanese rape of the Chinese cities - these were horrifying crimes, but they also were the result of something else - the Turks annexing Armenia, Japan at war and brutally pacifying a people that vastly outnumbered them. Horrifying crimes, and human behavior gone woefully wrong, but at least there was some reason that someone would find rational at some point.

Germany killed six million Jews because they were a race that the Germans found wanting. There was no justification other than that. They were exterminated because of their ancestry, in a calm, methodical, dispassionate manner. It's literally as evil an act of 'governance' as man can conceive.

The only act that comes close in the 20th century in terms of sheer perversity would be the Holodomor (the forced Ukranian famine as a cynical means of exterminating a class opposed to Stalin's goals) and even that was amateur hour compared to the gas chambers.

In fact, I'll go even further in Godwinizing this thread - people who seek to minimize the Holocaust usually have an agenda in so doing. It usually involves Jews.

Well said.

[shift6]

Hitler killed the Jewish because they weren't Christians.
My friend, stop. Just stop. Go read a book - any book - on Anti-Semitism.

[Gav]

My friend, stop. Just stop. Go read a book - any book - on Anti-Semitism.
Dirt's proven a whole bunch of times that he's not really interested in reading up about Judaism. He'd much rather talk about Jews than actually know anything about them.

[Njal]

Minor holocaust footnote. There were six jews killed in Finland by the Nazis. This was because of a anti-semite Fin who was stopped rather quickly. Because the Fins have a good sense of humour they usually assigned Finnish Jews as liason officers to the German units in Finland.

This holocaust footnote provided by way of my wife.

[ydejin]

No one denies Nanking.
I don't think that's accurate. Haven't there been a number of controversies about official Japanese textbooks trying to wash over Nanking and other actions taken by Imperial Japan? Here's a quote from Wikipedia (yeah, I know, not the most accurate source):



Controversy flared up again in 1982, when the Japanese Ministry of Education censored any mention of the Nanking Massacre in a high school textbook. The reason given by the ministry was that the Nanking Massacre was not a well-established historical event. The author of the textbook, Professor Saburō Ienaga, sued the Ministry of Education in an extended case, which was won by the plaintiff in 1997.

A number of Japanese cabinet ministers, as well as some high-ranking politicians, have also made comments denying the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army in World War II. Some subsequently resigned after protests from China and South Korea. In response to these and similar incidents, a number of Japanese journalists and historians formed the Nankin Jiken Chōsa Kenkyūkai (Nanjing Incident Research Group). The research group has collected large quantities of archival materials as well as testimonies from both Chinese and Japanese sources.

The more hardline members of the government cabinet feel that the extent of crimes committed has been exaggerated as a pretext to surging Chinese nationalism. Such conservative forces have been accused of gradually reducing the number of casualties by manipulating data.

[Dirt]

My friend, stop. Just stop. Go read a book - any book - on Anti-Semitism.
I'm talking about Hitler.

Dirt's proven a whole bunch of times that he's not really interested in reading up about Judaism. He'd much rather talk about Jews than actually know anything about them.
I spend most of my time trying to wrap my head around what it means to be Chinese.

I think Nanking is ignored because people will always use the Jewish Holocaust as some kind of a yardstick for what genocide should be. To most people, it is the wickedest of what man can achieve through technology. Which, ironically, makes it more difficult for people to humanize the Chinese, the Armenians, the Polish, etc., and the massacres that were perpetrated against them.

[Gav]

My friend, stop. Just stop. Go read a book - any book - on Anti-Semitism.I'm talking about Hitler.
Yes, but you were wrong. (Just for context, Dirt had originally said "Hitler killed the Jewish because they weren't Christians.") Even the most cursory reading about anti-semitism would have told you that you were wrong. FWIW, I'm pretty sure that someone here on Q23 has explained to you at some point how wrong you are on this point.


I spend most of my time trying to wrap my head around what it means to be Chinese.

Then why do you keep posting about what it means to be Jewish? I keep trying to wrap my head around topology, but I don't go into random threads explaining to mathematicians that everything they know is wrong.

[Dirt]

Yes, but you were wrong. (Just for context, Dirt had originally said "Hitler killed the Jewish because they weren't Christians.") Even the most cursory reading about anti-semitism would have told you that you were wrong. FWIW, I'm pretty sure that someone here on Q23 has explained to you at some point how wrong you are on this point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs

Read the bottom of the wiki article, it has quotes from Mein Kampf in regards to what I've spoken of before. All debatable, of course. And Hitler is all over the map where religion is concerned; I think his greatest concern was to destroy anything that would oppose his power. Even all the Christians that he originally identified with; ultimately, I think he would have set himself up as God and the Nazi Party as his church. The man was, indeed, insane.

[Lum]

I think trying too hard to ascribe motives for the author of what incontestably is one of the worst atrocities of modern times isn't very useful.

[Dirt]

I think trying too hard to ascribe motives for the author of what incontestably is one of the worst atrocities of modern times isn't very useful.
If we as a society won't do that, how will we learn from societies' past mistakes?

Gav is quick to defend the Jewish Holocaust as the worst thing to ever happen in history. I would think that as a person whose people survived through such a thing, he would be more apt to express sympathy for others who have had experienced something similar.

[Jason McCullough]

I don't think "well if I was in their shoes, I'd do this" works very well as a general principle.

[Dirt]

I don't think "well if I was in their shoes, I'd do this" works very well as a general principle.
If the shoe fits... And I'm speaking specifically of Gav. Broadening beyond him would only be met with accusations of anti-Semitism.

[Gav]

Gav is quick to defend the Jewish Holocaust as the worst thing to ever happen in history.

Actually, I don't think I ever have. I think it's qualitatively different from most other atrocities, but I don't get into a penis-measuring contest about who's suffered more.

I would think that as a person whose people survived through such a thing, he would be more apt to express sympathy for others who have had experienced something similar.
You're right. For example, I'm very sympathetic to the Tibetans.

[Gav]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs

Read the bottom of the wiki article, it has quotes from Mein Kampf in regards to what I've spoken of before. All debatable, of course. And Hitler is all over the map where religion is concerned; I think his greatest concern was to destroy anything that would oppose his power. Even all the Christians that he originally identified with; ultimately, I think he would have set himself up as God and the Nazi Party as his church. The man was, indeed, insane.
If you're going to use wikipedia, look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_antisemitism, particularly the section on the Holocaust.

Better yet, don't use wikipedia; use a real book. If you look at things like the Nuremberg Laws, it's clear that the Nazis were against Jews as a race, not as a religion.

[Gav]

I think trying too hard to ascribe motives for the author of what incontestably is one of the worst atrocities of modern times isn't very useful.
It's useful because the Nazis are part of a line of anti-semitism. It's interesting to see how anti-semitism mutates from an anti-religious view through an anti-"Jewish Bankers" view through to a racial view.

That also may have ramifications for other groups which suffer persecution. To some extent, I think we're starting to see the mutation in anti-gay speech. It used to be that it was evil because the bible said so. Now, I tend to hear more of it being bad for some allegedly "scientific" reason or other.

[Dirt]

It's useful because the Nazis are part of a line of anti-semitism. It's interesting to see how anti-semitism mutates from an anti-religious view through an anti-"Jewish Bankers" view through to a racial view.
I'm pretty sure I said something to this effect when I pointed to Hitler's words in Mein Kampf (all propaganda, really) and his later secularist thinking. He was against anything in his path to power. The last bit I gave (him as God) is pure conjecture, of course.

You're right. For example, I'm very sympathetic to the Tibetans.
Yes, but what do you think about the Nanjing Massacre?

[Gav]

I'm pretty sure I said something to this effect when I pointed to Hitler's words in Mein Kampf (all propaganda, really) and his later secularist thinking. He was against anything in his path to power. The last bit I gave (him as God) is pure conjecture, of course.
So you'd agree, then, that it would be incorrect to say "Hitler killed the Jewish because they weren't Christians." Glad we cleared that up.

Yes, but what do you think about the Nanjing Massacre?
It was an atrocity. Obviously. The Chinese people deserve their own homeland, just like the Jews and Tibetans. Don't you agree?

[Dirt]

So you'd agree, then, that it would be incorrect to say "Hitler killed the Jewish because they weren't Christians." Glad we cleared that up.
I'd say that it was one of his original points of propaganda, uniting the Germans under his rule.

It was an atrocity. Obviously. The Chinese people deserve their own homeland, just like the Jews and Tibetans. Don't you agree?
This isn't about having a homeland; that doesn't play into this at all. This is about the genocide of the Chinese by the Imperial Japanese at Nanjing. The only political agenda I have is to see this atrocity be more well known and receive a more direct apology from Japan.

[Gav]

I'd say that it was one of his original points of propaganda, uniting the Germans under his rule.

And you're wrong. He didn't say that if all the Jews converted to Christianity, they needn't be killed (that's more of an 18th century and earlier idea).

This isn't about having a homeland; that doesn't play into this at all. This is about the genocide of the Chinese by the Imperial Japanese at Nanjing.
A defensible homeland's a good way of preventing others from committing genocide on your people. Oh, right. I forgot. Genocide is only bad when it happens in Nanjing. Not when the Chinese invade Tibet.

[Dirt]

And you're wrong. He didn't say that if all the Jews converted to Christianity, they needn't be killed (that's more of an 18th century and earlier idea).
Uh, what? There are many instances in Christiandom where killing was favored over conversion. So, I'm not sure where you're going with the above comment.

A defensible homeland's a good way of preventing others from committing genocide on your people. Oh, right. I forgot. Genocide is only bad when it happens in Nanjing. Not when the Chinese invade Tibet.
I'm only asking you to respond to the OP's topic.

[Flowers]

A defensible homeland's a good way of preventing others from committing genocide on your people. Oh, right. I forgot. Genocide is only bad when it happens in Nanjing. Not when the Chinese invade Tibet.

That's a strawman argument. Everyone knows Dirt does not condone the destruction of Tibet as a sovereign state by the Chinese Communists, that's me. I'm the one who condones the destruction of a corrupt theocracy by the Chinese people for the benefit of a class of oppressed farmers. I am sorry that many innocent people died as a result of that incident and callous mismanagement of resources all throughout China, but I shed no tears for dethroned godkings, no matter how cuddly they might appear. Capitalism over the past 50 years probably would have provided for the people of Tibet more so than Communism, but at the time, the essential failings of Communism were not yet known while those of Feudalism and Theocracy were.

Phhhhbbbtttt.

[Lum]

How many murlocs need to die before we recognize the need for a murloc national home?

[JeffL]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs

Read the bottom of the wiki article, it has quotes from Mein Kampf in regards to what I've spoken of before. All debatable, of course. And Hitler is all over the map where religion is concerned; I think his greatest concern was to destroy anything that would oppose his power. Even all the Christians that he originally identified with; ultimately, I think he would have set himself up as God and the Nazi Party as his church. The man was, indeed, insane.

I've done interviews with people who were in Germany at the time, and read quite a lot on the era, Hitler, etc. Hitler was pretty clever in determining what the German people would respond to. They were a very proud nation, and the very recent humiliation of the surrender in WWI, having to aquiesce to the various surrender terms, etc. were burning. Couple that with an economy in tatters: I've talked with people who lived there at the time who described rushing from where they worked with their paycheck to buy anything they could buy, just to have something "hard" for their currency that was becoming worthless. It was a very depressed nation.

Hitler played off of the perception that many Germans had that Jewish people had come in and taken advantage of the situation, that the Jewish had taken over their businesses, etc. When I interviewed some of the folks from that time period, they expressed, carefully, that perception. So it was not difficult for Hitler to push the buttons on people that had developed an anti-Jewish feeling, plus pushing some already present historic anti-semitism where it was lurking. Certainly, the average German citizen did not condone the massive torture and killings and horror of the camps, but as Hitler came in and suddenly things started looking better for the country, as he made moves that restored the national pride, it was not hard for him to point fingers. But it really wasn't a "religious" thing, any more than his going after other groups (such as gypsies) was religious.

[shift6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs

Read the bottom of the wiki article, it has quotes from Mein Kampf in regards to what I've spoken of before. All debatable, of course. And Hitler is all over the map where religion is concerned; I think his greatest concern was to destroy anything that would oppose his power. Even all the Christians that he originally identified with; ultimately, I think he would have set himself up as God and the Nazi Party as his church. The man was, indeed, insane.
So he killed Jews as a platform to increasing his personal power? That is a hypothesis I could agree with, if one further argues that his anti-Semitism was about identifying with and focusing the ire of the German people behind himself. But killing Jews "because they weren't Christians" (those quotes because that is what you said) just doesn't sound right.

[MikeSofaer]

But killing Jews "because they weren't Christians" (those quotes because that is what you said) just doesn't sound right.

I just want to thank Jason McCullough, and all who followed his lead, for debasing quotation marks to the point that this is necessary.

[Gav]

Uh, what? There are many instances in Christiandom where killing was favored over conversion. So, I'm not sure where you're going with the above comment.

Actually, not so many. In most places, if a Jew converted, he was safe from attack -- certainly, if a Jew converted and married a Christian his grandkids were safe. Not that facts really bother you one way or the other.

I'm only asking you to respond to the OP's topic.
And I did. You know, the part where I said it was an atrocity. The rest was just responding to your ignorance. And pointing out that someone who fully condones a genocide in one place (like Tibet) isn't really in a great moral position to lecture the rest of us about ignoring atrocities.

[Dirt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_about_Nanjing

Japanese War Criminals are martyrs like Jesus.

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUST30723520071126?feedType=RSS&feedName=entertainmentNews

[Tankero]

The necessary and unequivocal response. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma6nCkAzN7w)

[idrisz]

That's a strawman argument. Everyone knows Dirt does not condone the destruction of Tibet as a sovereign state by the Chinese Communists, that's me. I'm the one who condones the destruction of a corrupt theocracy by the Chinese people for the benefit of a class of oppressed farmers. I am sorry that many innocent people died as a result of that incident and callous mismanagement of resources all throughout China, but I shed no tears for dethroned godkings, no matter how cuddly they might appear. Capitalism over the past 50 years probably would have provided for the people of Tibet more so than Communism, but at the time, the essential failings of Communism were not yet known while those of Feudalism and Theocracy were.

Phhhhbbbtttt.

Agree with everything except.. what's the Phhhhbbbttt???

[Kraaze]

According to Google it's a misspelling. Correct spelling is phbbt.

Google is never wrong.

[Raife]

Pfft.

[Qenan]

Impassivity? How would that be any different from the British enforced starvation in India?

The ww2 holocaust has the distinction of applying industrial methods to genocide, but neither the results nor the motivations behind it stand out as some sort of exceptional atrocity amongst which all other atrocities pale. I don't mean to act callous, It is certainly a horrifying event and one of the great tragedies of history, I just fail to see why this is *more* horrible than any of the other horrors visited on populations by genocidal rulers.

Clearly you have not absorbed the lesson that when cultured, intelligent people like us die, it is ever so much worse than when dirty ignorant savages like them die. Get with the program.

[Dirt]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080331/ap_on_re_as/japan_war_shrine_documentary

A few Japanese theaters cancel a War Shrine film after receiving threats from the public.