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Those Polish death camps — 25 Comments

  1. Once again, the myth of the “smartest” man to sit in the oval office falls falt on its face.

    To describe someone as “smart” is the same as describing them as “rich.” These are collective adjectives and either one is open to a wide definition (Is a brilliant physicist who consistently forgets to turn his auto off when he gets out “smart?” Is a person making $150,000/yr “rich?” $200,000? $250,000?)

    What can be said about Obama & Co. is that, intelligence aside, they are not really very worldly. Like a horse with blinders they are ignorant of the myriad realities around them, yet they persist in thinking of themselves as cultured and urbane.

    I remember the comment made about John Kerry’s contact with the common man (only when he removes a canape from the silver tray the commoner holds), and Obama falls into the same category. Just as he ignores his biracial heritage because it’s politically advantageous for him to do so, he has also adopted the pretense of the educated elite with which he chooses to rub elbows. He claims he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but you’d never know that from his behavior. He is a man who has dismissed his heritage and his past.

    On the death camps, throughout my life I’ve read much about the death camps and the work camps. It absolutely infuriates me when the weak are victimized by the strong and Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Sobibor et. al. take that to an exponential degree. That the Nazi’s would execute children to intimidate the populace is despicable (words fail but this is the best one can do). That Armendariz of the EPA should cloak that same technique in the guise of a Roman crucifixion speaks volumes about this administration and clearly evinces that there is nothing new under the sun.

  2. Wasn’t Obama suppose to rebuild our image with other nations of the world?

    I guess that hopey-change thing isn’t working out too well either.

  3. The Lefties have become used to treating their words as the Divine Logos (as in: “God said Let there be Light, and there was Light, and it was Good”).

    Lefties say, “We’re doing xyz for Justice”, and they fully expect Justice to manifest itself when they speak the Word. They use the “Word” as a token of the thing they want to manifest. (That’s why, in their messianic little minds, they simply CAN NOT SEE that something they do might have unintended consequences.)

    This Word-As-Token thing makes being a Lefty/ Progressive SO EASY, because all you have to do is “Present the Token” and it’s just as good as having done the engineering course work, gotten the degree, drawn up the plans, had the product fabricated, and have the final result ready for consumption, all shiny-new, perfect, and complete.

    To tie this idea back to the awkward phrasing of the “Polish camp” (and of Hillary’s famous Russian “reset” button which actually said “overcharged”): They’ve spent a lifetime with educrats who have rewarded them for “thinking outside the [dreary traditionalist results-oriented] box”.] They’ve been carefully taught that “Society” is responsible for anything that isn’t 100% wonderful. They’ve been told how bright they are, how special, unique, and precious they are, throughout their formative years. They’ve been primed for self-importance, and graded on creativity (not rote-learning or practicality), and told they have “so much to offer the world” … and of course they’ve believed it; who wouldn’t? So, armed with their worldview that they are simply Better People, and that they Benevolently Seek The Good, and that their Intentions (the only way to judge oneself, you see) are Noble — they see no need to double-check what language the Austrians speak, or who ran the Death-camps, or what the Russian-looking squiggles on the prop button really mean.

    It all comes down to: the would-be destroyers of Western Civilization don’t have to find a psychopathic “Dr. Evil” to do their dirty work. All they need to do is create a couple generations of “entitled children” (adult in body, but never taught that evil resides in all hearts, even theirs; that the quest for “enough power to change things for the better” ENSURES that the power-wielders will have more-than-enough power to change things for the worse; that ALL choices and actions DO have unintended consequences) and let human nature take its course. Voila! The Fall of the West.

  4. People pay attention to that which they care about. Neither Obama nor his script writers care about Karski’s deeds, especially as they benefited Jews.

    Obama has consistently demonstrated these assertions, most recently in the recent Medal of Honor ceremony. As he placed the Medal’s ribbon around Sgt. Meyer’s neck, Obama’s facial expressions were entirely negative, quite at odds with the demeanor one would expect of the Commander-in-Chief as he rendered our nations highest military honor upon a man whose bravery and worthiness is undeniable. There was absolutely no pride, no pleasure, no respect upon Obama’s face.

  5. I believe that when normal people are confronted with the “help or not to help decision”, they know (at least unconsciously) this is a no going back, turn it all loose, and let it fly moment that they doubt they’ll or anyone else will survive. There is much more comfort in the 99% doubt than 1% optimism. I think this explains why 99% of heroic acts are unthinking.”I just did it, it was

  6. Because Poland was originally one of the most welcoming and tolerant nations in Europe for the Jews.

    That was true of the various principalities that became modern Germany, too. They welcomed Jews at the time of Inquisition, when France and England either forbade their entrance or severely restricted their numbers.

  7. Obama’s gaffe strikes another blow at the “smartest man in the room” meme the liberals have pushed for so long. The man is a dolt, and obviously an ignoramus. First he refers to his father (grandfather?) liberating Auschwitz, then talks about Polish death camps. Surely he knew Auschwitz was a death camp, and so either he didn’t know that Auschwitz was in Poland, or he didn’t know that the Allies did not liberate Poland.

    Either scenario reveals a shocking ignorance of geopolitical history on the part of a man whose job description comes down to making more of it.

  8. neo, thanks. Have you read Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews? If so, what did you think of it?

  9. No doubt being a citizen of the world, as he annointed himself in Berlin in 08, is a very demanding role. He can’t possibly keep track of every little sparrow that falls.

  10. How much do you want to bet that Obama is relying on a very small group of political advisors, his friends and confidants? They probably are probably smug about their abilities and do not feel it is necessary to vet Obama’s speeches or policy decisions. Hence the numerous examples of ignorance and incompetence.

  11. Not to be pedantic: The German railroads were a perennial target for Allied bombers. Since, as Karski said, it’s hard to hit rail lines from so far up, the targets were frequently places like marshalling yards which are big and concentrate the railroads.
    Problem is, the Germans kept spare parts and they repair guys got overtime and lived nearby, so the bombers had to keep coming back.
    There were special attacks, like 617 Squadron and their Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs.
    Closer to England, fighters would strafe individual trains and you will see lots of dramatic stock footage.
    Some Jews complain–this is the actual complaint–that the Allies didn’t bomb the spurs from the mainlines to the camps.
    True. Bombing the mainlines slows the war effort and the transports. If the mainlines were good up until the spur, the transport passengers would be made to get out and walk. (Duh!) And bombing the spurs wouldn’t slow the German war effort. If you’re going to spend aircrews’ lives and spend bombers, you may as well accomplish both, at least, which means the main lines, marshalling yards, concentrations of lines as they approached bridges, etc.
    The Circular Error Probable for US heavy bombers was a quarter mile, more or less. Meant that half the bombs dropped landed within a quarter mile of the aiming point–a circle a half a mile in diameter–and the other half didn’t. So, even if the target was half a mile in diameter, and had no redeeming qualities, such as civilian homes, half the bombs dropped would not be there. They’d be someplace else.
    The movie “Memphis Belle” was run up by the Air Corps to prove to bomber crews and their parents that you could, indeed, make twenty-five missions, the required number. The Belle was one of the first to do so without bringing back dead crew.
    If you’re going to spend like this, you need to get value for it. Bombing spurs helps nobody, including the Jews.
    None of this is particularly complex. IMO, there are some who wish to find yet others to blame, even if they have to make it up.

  12. Richard Aubrey: On the other hand, I remember reading memoirs by camp survivors (don’t remember which ones) who said the inmates wanted the Allies to bomb the camps themselves. Why not? Almost all of them were going to die anyway, and suffer dreadfully into the bargain before that (that is, the ones who weren’t gassed right away), so why not take the whole camps down with them?

    Of course, although the Allies knew something of the conditions in the camps, they were not aware of the full horror in all its details, so it’s hard to see how they could have justified bombing the camps.

  13. If I had been in one of those camps they would have shot me while I painted huge goddamn bulls eye above my bed. Then again can you imagine the german propaganda if we had bombed.

  14. neo. If the inmates were going to die, by German hand or Allied bombing, they were going to die. The Allies didn’t need to spend their planes and aircrew to speed things along. Winning the war was the most important thing, including to the Jews, whether in hiding or incarcerated.
    Most of the concentration camps/slave labor camps/death camps, except for Dachau and its satellites, were at the end of US bomber range.
    Targets that far were attacked by continuing to Russian fields, gassing up, and returning. Getting cooperation from the Russians was always tricky and the extended flight time over the Reich increased the casualties.
    The Mighty Eighth’s Black Thursday involved raids on Schweinfurt and Regensburg. Twenty percent of the bombers were shot down and many of the rest were written off when they returned, along with dead and wounded aircrew.
    Say, altogether, thirty percent of the men and the planes were lost to further use. You can’t maintain a bomber force when you lose a third in one day very often.
    The Brits’ heavy bombers didn’t have the armor or guns to survive in daylight, so they bombed at night, trying very hard to hit targets as small as cities. They lost about 50k guys, maybe 40%. But, given their need to area bomb at night, I don’t suppose they are relevant to the discussion.
    Point is, it’s easy to say this or that should have been done–and it’s axiomatic that whatever wasn’t done would have worked perfectly–without thinking of the opportunity cost. Including the opportunity to end the war faster.

  15. Richard Aubrey: bombing the camps would have been to destroy the gas chambers and ovens—the apparatus of killing—as well as the guards, etc.. In the pandemonium that ensued, some prisoners might have been able to escape (although most probably wouldn’t have survived without papers and that sort of thing). It would have delayed the killing, and it would have taken some time and expense to rebuild and restaff and reorganize the camps.

    I’m not saying it should have been done, though. The logistics made it hard, and I agree that furthering the defeat of Germany was the main thing, because that was the only thing that would stop the engine that drove it all.

  16. the inmates wanted the Allies to bomb the camps themselves

    Much as I like Monday morning quarterbacking, there are any number of problems with this criticism.

    First, Allied planners probably didn’t fully appreciate the situation in the camps. Even if apprised of it, they probably discounted the reports to some extent as incredible, since they were unprecedented. The suspicion that they were propaganda must have been strong.

    Second, if they had bombed them, no one can tell me that leftists wouldn’t be howling about that now. Without the firm conviction that killing camp inmates was preferable to the alternative, it would be impossible to give the order to kill them. Hindsight in this case is 20/10.

    Third, the primary allegiance of Allied war planners was to citizens of Allied nations, and more particularly to spare the lives of servicemen of Allied nations, not to foreign nationals who were out of odor, for whatever reason, with their governments.

    To put it most pointedly, how many boys from Kansas would you be wiling to have die not for a strategic war aim, but to save, e.g., George Soros? What if you were of those boys from Kansas? Would you be willing to tell a mom from Kansas that you were responsible for her son’s dying so that some foreign nationals might live?

    Even with perfect information, that would be a tough question. With imperfect information – i.e., in the real world situation – there is no way anyone – anyone – would ever take that decision.

  17. Occam’s Beard: it’s not a criticism. I’m not saying they should have bombed the camps. In fact, here, I pretty much say I don’t think it would have been a good idea.

    I’m merely saying some people who were in the camps wished they would have.

  18. I remember reading a declassified memo from the British Foreign Office that said, in essence, that the problem with bombing the rail lines leading into the death camps was that every Jew who survived the war was going to want to go to Palestine … and become His Majesty’s problem.

  19. Mike Lief.
    Seems the Brit’s FO hasn’t changed much, nor has the general opinion held by UK’s chattering classes.
    Fertilized by the need to seem unislamophobic.

  20. I got into this argument with an old buddy of mine years ago (he happened to be Jewish & a tenured prof at Michigan).
    He made the charge that the US didn’t do enough to stop the holocaust.
    I replied that we did exactly what we had to do, invade Europe and crush the Germans.
    I asked him what should we have done, dropped the 101st Airborne into Aushwitz and then what?
    He didn’t respond.
    Letting Patton loose, that’s what liberated the death camps.

  21. Neo: small clarification: In the Garden of the Righteous at Yad va Shem, Poles do outnumber individual honorees from other nations. However, taken as a whole, the most numerous “righteous” would be Danes. “King Christian X and the People of Denmark”, is the inscription on their plaque, the only sovereign and only entire nation so honored. This, of course, was for Denmark’s safe evacuation of almost all of its Jews, mostly to Sweden, from right under the noses of the Wehrmacht. Denmark was able to pull this off because of its unique maritime location, proximity to neutral Sweden, and because the Danes saw what was coming and gave a damn about getting their Jewish fellow citizens to safety. The Danes also suspected, rightly, that the German hand wouldn’t come down as heavily on them as it did on others, because in Nazi race theory, Danes were fellow “Aryans”. So they took maximum advantage of the relative freedom their conquerors gave them to smuggle their Jews out.

    As others (Occam, Richard Aubrey) have alluded to, bombing accuracy in WW2 was not what it is today. The Norden bombsight was the best in the world in its day, but simple gravity bombs, European weather, flak, and the Luftwaffe played havoc with whatever precision was theoretically achievable, especially until the long-range P-51 Mustangs arrived and the bombers could be escorted all the way to the target. While hitting the gas chambers, crematoria, or SS guards’ quarters might have been desirable, a bombing raid of any size was just as likely to take out the prisoners’ barracks. Add this to the risk of losing aircrew, and the diversion of bombing resources from other targets, and the rationale for attacking the camps becomes less persuasive.

  22. I already know what my family did and chose, and we are and were with those who risked it all.

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