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Home » A little history lesson for AOC on camps, concentration and other

A little history lesson for AOC on camps, concentration and other

The New Neo Posted on by

Not that AOC actually cares about history.

AOC is a rabble rouser and a demagogue. She may be ignorant about a particular fact or she may actually know the truth and be blatantly lying about it. But either way, she is a smooth operator who knows exactly what she’s aiming for in terms of effect. She has many admirers who are simpatico with her inflammatory rhetoric and cheer her on.

Recently AOC got a lot of criticism (and attention, which she almost certainly has as a goal) for the following remarks of hers:

In her social-media remarks, the freshman congresswoman said she wants to talk to those “who are concerned enough with humanity to say that ‘never again’ means something.”

“The fact that concentrations camps are now an institutionalized practice in the Home of the Free is extraordinarily disturbing, and we need to do something about it,” she continued.

Ocasio-Cortez warned, “We are losing to an authoritarian and fascist presidency.”

“I don’t use those words lightly,” she continued. “I don’t use those words to just throw bombs. I use that word because that is what an administration that creates concentration camps is. A presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist, and it’s very difficult to say that.”

Well, I guess the US has long been fascist, then, including during the administration of President Obama, because detention centers have been in operation prior to Trump and under the previous president. And I suppose we’d have to include as “fascists” the victorious allies over the Nazis in World War II, with their postwar displaced person camps:

Displaced persons camps in post-World War II Europe were established in Germany, Austria, and Italy, primarily for refugees from Eastern Europe and for the former inmates of the Nazi German concentration camps. A “displaced persons camp” is a temporary facility for displaced persons, whether refugees or internally displaced persons. Two years after the end of World War II in Europe, some 850,000 people lived in displaced persons camps across Europe, among them Armenians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Yugoslavs, Jews, Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians and Czechoslovaks.

At the end of the Second World War, at least 11 million people had been displaced from their home countries, with about seven million in Allied-occupied Germany. These included former prisoners of war, released slave laborers, and both non-Jewish and Jewish concentration-camp survivors. The Allies categorized the refugees as “displaced persons” (DPs) and assigned the responsibility for their care to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).

These camps were an enormous undertaking and involved an enormous number of people, and it took a long while—commonly longer than people are held in a detention center in the US—to sort it out.

And I suppose that all the countries of Europe and Asia and Africa that hold refugees in camps are fascists as well.

In fact, everyone except AOC and her supporters are probably fascists.

AOC later pointed out to her critics that she didn’t say present-day camps were like “death camps” during WWII, and she didn’t. But of course she knows that most people are unaware of the distinction between WWII work/labor camps and death camps, and she’s aware that death camps are what is conjured up by the phrase “concentration camps” and the words “fascist” as well as the phrase “never again” (which refers to the Holocaust).

What AOC may or may not know is what the Nazi concentration camps (or labor or work camps) of WWII (as opposed to the death camps) were actually like. They were usually a form of death camp, too. Although the Nazis had various ways of treating different populations within these camps, some were mistreated more than others. But the basic idea of a Nazi concentration/work/labor camp was to work people to death and then replace them with others, who would in turn be worked to death. That’s different than gassing people outright on arrival, to be sure. But it’s horrific, vicious, and evil nonetheless (you can find more information and links here).

And those camps bear no resemblance whatsoever to detention centers for illegal immigrants to this country, and it’s obscene to say it does. Just for starters, those in our camps have only to return to their countries of origin and they’re perfectly free. They are kept under conditions that would seem almost paradisaical to those in Nazi work camps.

Unlike those people who think AOC is merely ignorant, I believe that AOC knows at least something of the truth and would prefer to lie for political reasons. I can’t prove that—maybe she really is a fool rather than a knave. But that’s been my impression.

[NOTE: And for those who would defend AOC by saying that concentration camps originated during the Boer War, that couldn’t be more irrelevant. AOC was clearly referring to WWII with the words “fascist” and the phrase “never again.”]

Comments

A little history lesson for AOC on camps, concentration and other — 33 Comments

  1. See “The Wild Place” by Hulme. DO camp after the war. Great review on Amazon.

  2. “Concentration” camps concentrated the “inmates”. Prison camps could be call CC’s too. The evil connotations of the Nazis CC’s is what AOC was alluding too. She knew what she was saying. Scum!

  3. AOC is an interesting phenom. I find her saying things that are patently false, but she says them with such conviction that you almost think they might be true. That maybe you could be wrong. You check and find that she is wrong and you’re right, and you wonder why she seems so convincing. She can convince people that she knows the truth when she doesn’t. I can see in her the kind of personality that becomes a cult leader. Self assured, well-spoken, an engaging personality – it’s quite a package. Perhaps Hitler had the same appeal for 1930s Germans. Anyway, I believe she is a very dangerous person to our freedom and well-being. Her lies/half-truths/innuendoes/guesses/ false opinions must be challenged at every turn. Otherwise, the MSM will turn her into an battering ram for liberal fascism.

  4. AOC makes Obama seem somewhat humble compared to her arrogance. Her use of the term concentration camp was intended for her ignorant fan base who are fools.

  5. “A little history lesson for AOC on camps, concentration and other…”
    You can’t teach those who don’t want to learn.

    We are sitting on a powder keg right now, & Sleepy Joe thinks it President Trump, but the reality is it’s AOC, Tlaib, Omar & the hot mess of PelosiSchumerSanders et al. The language and messaging is so intentionally inflammatory & attack-based now as to guarantee street-level violence…which I believe is the intention.

  6. After WWII, hundreds of thousands of post war refugees in Europe were housed by the Allied forces in DP camps, displaced persons camps, which I was surprised to learn were the former Nazi concentration camps.

    Also surprising to me, the Jewish prisoners weren’t freed into the sunshine from the concentration camps, the camps were just renamed DP camps and they were stuck there for years.. at first together with their Nazi guards, though that got sorted fast enough.

    One would have to be pretty dense not to see the difference between Displaced Persons Camps and a Nazi concentration camps, even if they used the same buildings, but with today’s logic, who knows.

  7. “AOC is a rabble rouser and a demagogue.”

    She, along with Omar and Tlaib and all the other democrat crazy politicians are “the gift that keeps on giving”. Rep. Nadler acts as an apologist. Rep. Pelosi refuses to condemn her remarks. And in that refusal and apologia, the democrats OWN her anti-American hate.

    To paraphrase Napoleon; ‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’

  8. I dont know what all the hair splitting on the left is all about on the term “concentration camp”. Whatever they would like you to think it is, their definition is just as purposely extreme and hyperbolic compared to what’s really going on anyway.

  9. AOC is a pretty girl with an ignorant mind. She has handlers and was picked for her current role. She is a Maxine Waters at a younger, prettier age. Who too is ignorant. Give AOC a few years, her looks will fade and she will be less popular. AOC and Maxine may have political talents, but they do not know how to govern.
    Also, if she doesn’t like the conditions at the border, blame Congress. It is the House who writes the bills that become law. She is a member of the House and she does nothing! Maybe she could at least buy diapers ‘like’ the border patrol advents do with their own money.

  10. Esther, You are a little off base. I went to Dachau and different story was presented. A lot of the survivors of the camps ended up in towns, which the camps were located. Also, a lot of people died after being freed. The pictures of the smiles and tears do not lie at Dachau. Do not simplify what happened when WWII ended. It was a mess and it would take years to rebuild. However, the victims of the camps were not keeped in the camps for years.

  11. Maybe AOC is not as scary a threat as she seems. A piece at the Wall St. Journal talking about the latest Fox News poll has this:

    Fox asked these Democratic voters whether they wanted “steady, reliable leadership” or a “bold, new agenda.” Steady and reliable crushed bold and new by 72% to 25%.

    Anyone consuming the media every day the past year would have concluded that the Democratic left’s “bold, new agenda” had taken over the Democratic Party lock, stock and barrel. Most of their presidential candidates obviously thought so. …

    In fact, when Fox asked these Democrats what they most wanted from their candidate, 74% chose “unite Americans” against just 23% who want to “fight against extreme right-wing beliefs.” Looks like there’s a silent majority inside the Democratic Party, unmoved by the propaganda of social media.

  12. I was talking with one of my neighbors earlier today about the AOC concentration camps nonsense and the msm/dem effort to deflect criticism. His comment was hilarious, “Trump is a genius. He has lured tens of thousands to come from thousands of miles away and then climb fences to get into his concentration camps.” Beautiful.

  13. Oh, come on. The right-wing, libertarian in America, are Nazis. AOC is a diversitist and indulges in color judgments. Principles be damned.

  14. Emigration reform to mitigate the collateral damage from immigration reform at both ends of the bridge and throughout. Immigration that does not exceed the rate of assimilation and integration before planned parenthood. Social justice anywhere is injustice everywhere. #HateLovesAbortion

  15. JHC, Yes, it’s complicated. I don’t know about Jewish Dachau survivors remaining in town, but I do know that not too many Jews chose to remain in Poland afterwards.

    My Polish born Jewish mother survived the war in Russian Gulags and then Turkistan. After the war was over she tried to return to Poland but fled for her life in the exodus.

    She made her way across Europe and snuck into the DP camps in the American zone in Germany. She wasn’t entitled to go, because of the iron curtain.

    She, along with other survivors, hopped from one DP camp to another, and being a pack rat, she saved photos and receipts.

    Then they snuck over the Alps into Italy and made their way across the Mediterranean to Israel, where they were not allowed to go either.

    Most European refugees were resettled quickly after the war. Jewish refugees had a more difficult time, though the DP camps were reportedly quite vibrant.

  16. Esther:

    Your mother must be a strong woman.

    An interesting book about the aftermath of the war as experienced by camp survivors is Primo Levi’s The Reawakening.

  17. Esther, it must hurt deeply when you here/see the term Nazis bandied about when your Mother knows the real Nazis.

  18. Lynn, The way people have been throwing the term Nazi around is so absurd it hadn’t occurred to me to feel hurt. If anything, I feel sorry for them, and a little scared that they’re so stupid.

    My mother actually didn’t consider herself a survivor because she “had it good in the gulags.”

    I had an aunt who was in a concentration camp, but she also didn’t consider herself a survivor —because she escaped.

    I will look up that book Neo, thanks for the suggestion.

  19. Esther, Your mother sounds like an incredible human being. A person with a great deal of courage. Did she find a country to settle?
    I have a friend who’s parents were from Poland and they were Catholics. His mother was in a concentration camp and his father was in a work camp. They met after they immigrated. They never talked about their experiences and my friend found it very sad that there was a part of their life he would never know about.
    Thank you for sharing your history. Your mother’s story should not be forgotten .

  20. Geoffrey Britain on June 19, 2019 at 6:26 pm said:
    …
    To paraphrase Napoleon; ‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’
    * * *
    Never understimate the ability of the GOP to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
    It’s possible that the tide can turn while the Right is busy not interfering with the Left, because there are so many ignorant, willing fools ready to believe the bilge ladled out by AOC & Co.
    However, the poll Ann quotes was somewhat heartening.

  21. Most Europeans are totally unaware that the USA sent Japanese Americans to internment camps / concentration camps.

    I actually think it would be good to separate “Death camps”, which is what the National Socialists have, from other work camps, labor camps, detention camps, prison camps, re-education camps, indoctrination camps.

    The NAZI death camps had 3 things:
    1) concentration of people (like all camps),
    2) hard, very hard work; for many “worked to death” — like the Commie gulags,
    3) Murder of many.

    The death camps murdered many of those kept.

    The Commie gulags were not as bad, tho there also executions. Yet one dirty trick they did was the working almost to death, but when the prisoner was sick and seemed on the way to dying, releasing them back to die with the family. And avoid being listed in the statistics as dying in the gulag.

    It’s too bad there are not more discussions about these differences. Death camps are now Crimes Against Humanity. And should be. Most prisons and camps are not death camps. The Chinese indoctrination camps of their Western Muslims are only now starting to get attention — responses to AOC should include how the Communist Socialists have real indoctrination camps in China.

    Again it’s the Dems deliberately misusing language. Control the language, control the thoughts. 1984, with Big Dem Brother is their goal.

  22. parker on June 19, 2019 at 9:30 pm said:
    I was talking with one of my neighbors earlier today about the AOC concentration camps nonsense and the msm/dem effort to deflect criticism. His comment was hilarious, “Trump is a genius. He has lured tens of thousands to come from thousands of miles away and then climb fences to get into his concentration camps.” Beautiful.
    * * *
    An illustration for your anecdote.

    https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2019/06/20/166246

  23. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/449454-chuck-todd-ocasio-cortezs-concentration-camp-remarks-do-border-detainees

    NBC “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd on Wednesday condemned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) comments comparing the Trump administration’s detention centers near the southern border to concentration camps, saying the remarks were a “tremendous disservice” to the detainees.

    “You can call our government’s detention of migrants many things, depending on how you see it. It’s a stain on our nation maybe, a necessary evil to others, a deal with untenable situation perhaps. But do you know what you can’t call it,” Todd said on MSNBC’s “Meet The Press Daily,” before transitioning to a clip of the freshman lawmaker stating that Trump was “running concentration camps on our southern border.”

  25. Aewop, very nice cartoon — thanks. :>)

    Following links, I find this (my boldface):

    The Hill’s Kevin Brock published a quote from an anonymous Wyoming rancher. This shrewd man said, “We know that old boy didn’t actually steal any horses, but he’s obviously guilty of trying to avoid being hanged for it.”

    https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/06/19/wyoming-rancher-sums-mueller-report-language-every-american-can-understand/

    Dunno how that would stand up to the arguments of a smart lawyer trying to prosecute the “obstruction of justice” charge, but the fact of the matter is surely clear enough.

    Not all rubes are dumb. In fact not all rubes are rubes. :>))

  30. From Barry’s PJM link above, AOC said:

    “…[I]t takes a process, a slow gradual process of increasingly dehumanizing steps, and once you have convinced an electorate or once you have convinced a community that a certain group of people are bad or less than it justifies and it allows people to feel more comfortable with the dehumanization and the dehumanizing acts in violation of their rights,” she added.”

    Quite right, that’s exactly how it’s down and the strategy that’s been followed for over half a century by AOC’s political forebears — and her contemporaries among present leftists, the Democratic Party (with a few exceptions), and herself.

  32. JHCocoran, my mother made a beeline for the soon to be Israel and only came to the US much later. She didn’t tell me any of her history growing up, I only found out when a world history professor in college assigned us to interview our parents, since we’re all part of history.

    Hilariously, she snatched back my one copy of the report, hid it and claimed to have ‘lost’ it for decades. She would probably not think it would be safe for me to share her story if I was in college now. “Keep your head down and don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  33. The latest entry In AOC’s “Don’t confuse me with the facts department”–

    I note the news that, according to one article **, AOC has been asked to go on the Holocaust Museum’s website and look at what is presented there, she has refused Rep. Steve King’s suggestion that she go to Europe and look at the death camps, saying that:

    “The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop.??

    So I’m going to have to decline your invite. But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain. https://twitter.com/stevekingia/status/1142618644142284801 …”

    and there has also been an offer from Dominik Tarczynski, a member of the Polish Parliament, for her to come to Poland and be given tours of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzek, Majdenek and other real death camps.

    Who thinks that AOC will take up any of these suggestions and offers?

    ** See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/06/sick-socialist-ocasio-cortez-refuses-invite-to-holocaust-camps-saying-its-far-right-manipulation-for-political-gain/

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-invited-to-tour-auschwitz-will-she-accept/

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