Further Things That Are Wrong (Part 1)

The point is that thereā€™s a difference between soldiering and concentration camps. That really shouldnā€™t have to be spelled out in fairness.

I personally canā€™t see the difference between the guard on the watch tower, the guy delivering the gas canisters and the pilot dropping bombs on Greater Manchester.

or the pilot dropping bombs on Dresden

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There are degrees of wrong. Factories to round up and exterminate people en mass based on race is at the apex. It is completely different to a soldier prosecuting war. The reason they are going after such low level people is that it is considered that the activities there were so morally repugnant that anyone that knew of what was going on there, and still participated, at whatever level, is guilty of a crime.

Itā€™s difficult to imagine what I might have done if I was in the camp guards position but I tend to agree with you.

Thatā€™s exactly it. You may have been killed for refusing to participate, but even at that any knowledge and participation in an enterprise so evil is considered a crime. Thatā€™s the reasoning behind it and Iā€™d tend to agree with it.

She was an 18 year old typist. I doubt she had much say in what she could refuse to do in the Third Reich.

Itā€™s prosecuting people for not being brave enough to be shot in the head.

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Whatā€™s the thoughts on dropping atomic bombs on 2 cities ā€œpour encourager les autresā€?

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I also think people are forgetting that a similar fate may have been visited upon their families.
Iā€™d like to think Iā€™d have refused, and taken a bullet, but plenty of decent people have been brainwashed by PR and fear and patriotism, and we are all, thankfully, armchair pundits. Siege mentality does strange things to people, never mind indoctrination from birth.
Plenty of otherwise Iā€™m sure perfectly decent people facilitated the Magdalene laundries.

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Disproportionate, unjustifiable, abhorrent.

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I often wonder could they not have dropped it somewhere in the Japanese countryside first, and said the next one is on your head?

I remember picking up the sheets my mother left in for cleaning from the Good Shepherd

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How many typists were killed/imprisoned over that?

The Japanese started it and then brought a knife to a nuclear war. They never apologized for their war crimes either.

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I remember the disquiet at the walls. I didnā€™t understand what it was about, but definitely had the feeling of stigma about one such establishment. We were only kids. Your ma will have thought it an act of charity, as who could believe the church could be bad ?

None that Iā€™m aware of. Thatā€™s not really relevant to anything though. And even then, it wasnā€™t as bad as genocide.

What are your thoughts on the tattooist of Auschwitz?
Iā€™ve often thought this a quandary.
I doubt he was overly popular amongst the poor souls he was branding.

No many countries donā€™t tend to apologise for their war crimes while they might still be held to account for them.

Iā€™ve not read it and donā€™t know anything about it Iā€™m afraid.

As regards disproportionate, whilst I wholeheartedly agree, many serious historians think the atomic bombs resulted in less loss of life than had the war dragged on.
Perhaps itā€™s best not to send other peopleā€™s children to attack another nation.