Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 10:04:32 -0400
From: Stirling Newberry <allegro-AT-thecia.net>
Subject: Re: PLC: Turkey Curiosity of Pat Sloane


>
>And I thank you for the debate you have opened up re
>re-contextualisation of history. The most salient example which comes to
>my mind being the total whitewash given to the ostrich like actions of
>western leaders between 1930-1940 as Hitler began and accelerated the
>Holocaust.

Pat has been expressing interest in this issue. I have noted Lukac's book,
I will also note "The Myth of Rescue" which argues that more coud not have
been done to extricate Jews from Europe. The recontextualisation in America
is most interesting because <i>before</i> the war the question of Jews in
Europe was, quite literally, of no concern to most of America. However,
many of the Jews that were concerned about events in Europe fled here, many
who left as the danger grew. This grou cpntributed enormously to America -
most especially in areas requiring high levels of education. As a result -
<i>after</i> the war a large fraction of America's educated and literate
class were <i>highly</i> concerned with what happened in concentration
camps and before, they were <i>highly</i> concerned with anti-semitism, and
were very concentrated in the metropolis that had become "the capital of
the world".

Another layer of recontextualisation had to occur in America, not just
among conservatives, but among a wide range of people who admired Adolf
Hitler for his "reforms" in Germany. Many of those reforms paralelled
actions taken by FDR to resolve the economic crisis in America, and many of
those actions were not, to a pre-war American, as troubling as they would
be later on.

>Another example which galls me to no end is that throughout the 70's the
>world debated the veracity of the Holocaust and Germany made atoning
>moves vis-a-vis Israel, while everyone dumped the boat people back into
>the Pacific until nearly six million perished, if we are to believe the
>newspaper accounts of the day.

I am not aware of any source which sites 6 Million deaths from boat people.
Could you point me towards your source for this?


Stirling Newberry
business: openmarket.com
personal: allegro-AT-thecia.net
War and Romance: http://www.thecia.net/users/allegro/public_html




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