Hyperreality

Relevant:

When Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at dawn on Thursday, he justified the “special military operation” as having the goal to “denazify” Ukraine. ... Ukraine does have a far-right movement, and its armed defenders include the Azov battalion ... But no democratic country is free of far-right nationalist groups, including the United States. In the 2019 election, the Ukrainian far right was humiliated, receiving only 2% of the vote. This is far less support than far-right parties receive across western Europe ... Ukraine is a democratic country, whose popular president was elected, in a free and fair election, with over 70% of the vote. That president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish, and comes from a family partially wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust. ... Putin ... has come to view himself as the global leader of Christian nationalism ... in part because of the global reach of recent Russian fascist thinkers such as Alexander Dugin and Alexander Prokhanov who laid its groundwork. ... The dominant version of antisemitism alive in parts of eastern Europe today is that Jews employ the Holocaust to seize the victimhood narrative from the “real” victims of the Nazis, who are Russian Christians. ... Those who embrace Russian Christian nationalist ideology will be especially susceptible to this strain of antisemitism. ... By claiming that the aim of the invasion is to “denazify” Ukraine, Putin appeals to the myths of contemporary eastern European antisemitism – that a global cabal of Jews were (and are) the real agents of violence against Russian Christians and the real victims of the Nazis were not the Jews, but rather this group.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify

I know Biden gets a lot of shit for it, but I suspect this is also one of the reasons why the Biden administration has delayed criticising Netenyahu and been very cautious in doing so.

They know Netenyahu would ignore them anyway, that it would damage their alliance with Israel, and have probably come to the conclusion that being too strong wouldn't help remove him from power.

Articles like this seem to back up my theory:

After cautious criticism by Biden, Netanyahu rallies Israel’s right wing

Not that I agree with the logic, but that might partly explain it.

Bit of a tangent, but from what I can tell the language barrier (and cold war history) really doesn't do Russia any favours. Because so many Russians speak poor English, they're effectively cut off from the English speaking world.

Obviously, the Anglosphere has more than enough weird conspiracies, and there is some bleed through, but Russia has surprisingly popular stuff like Fomenko's New Chronology. For those wondering:

The new chronology is a pseudohistorical conspiracy theory proposed by Anatoly Fomenko who argues that events of antiquity generally attributed to the ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece and Egypt actually occurred during the Middle Ages, more than a thousand years later. The conspiracy theory further proposes that world history prior to AD 1600 has been widely falsified to suit the interests of a number of different conspirators including the Vatican, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Russian House of Romanov, all working to obscure the "true" history of the world centered around a global empire called the "Russian Horde"

Some French people have come terms with their past. Some haven't.

I'll give you an example:

On 9 April, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s Front National, denied on TV that France or the French state were responsible for the infamous Vel d’Hiv round-up of Jews in Paris on 16-17 July 1942. Corralled by French police into the eponymous cycling stadium, most of these 13,000 Jews ended up in Nazi death camps. But for Le Pen, widely expected to top the first round of the presidential elections on 23 April, “if there are people responsible, it’s those who were in power at the time. It’s not France.” ... In a follow-up statement, she invoked the authority of former presidents de Gaulle and Mitterrand to insist that France and the Republic were in London during the German occupation, and that the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime “was not France”. Drawing on their respective inferences that Vichy was merely an aberration of the French Republic and imposter as representative of France, she holds that while individuals shared responsibility for the atrocities of the period on a personal basis; none could be imputed to France as such.

This is just one example, obviously. I didn't need to go back to Jean-Marie. 40% at the last election, wouldn't be surprised if she becomes the next French president.

Not singling out France. Not trying to dilute Austria's responsibility, given I was the one who brought it up in this thread. Just saying that much of Europe had a collaboration problem and that a lot of Europe is still in denial about their role in the war.

Similar thing for the US too. German-American Bund, Father McCoughlin, Charles Lindbergh, "America First Committe", etc. Once again with a perhaps predictable impact on the current political situation in their country.

Vienna's a lovely city, a lot of Austrians are great people, yadayada.

I get the impression that, unlike Germany, it's a country that hasn't fully come to terms with its Nazi past. A lot of Austrians seem to be in denial about the Anschluss or how popular it was. Many will even argue that Austrians were victims, while ignoring that there was overwhelming popular support for the Anschluss at the time.

Here's a relevant article:

Otto von Habsburg ... told a meeting of the ruling conservative People's Party: "No state in Europe has a greater right than Austria to call itself a victim." He went on to dismiss an Allied wartime declaration that Austria shared responsibility for the Nazis as "hypocrisy and lies". ... followed publication of an opinion poll on Tuesday which showed that almost two thirds of Austrians wanted an end to what was described as the "endless discussion" about the country's role during the Second World War. ... new evidence and a growing mass of research about Austria's role during the Third Reich suggests that the argument that the vast majority of its citizens were willing accomplices to Nazi rule has become incontrovertible. ... The poll conducted on 10 April 1938 showed that 99.75 per cent of Austrians were in favour of the annexation. ... the results were doctored by the Nazis ... But recent research suggests that the actual number in favour of Nazi rule was still about two thirds of the electorate. ... a historian at Vienna University who has researched the period closely, said yesterday: "Hitler was welcomed into the country as a successful Austrian who was returning home from abroad and suddenly letting his own people take part in his successes. He was a sort of ersatz monarch."

This isn't just Austria, obviously.

For example, my grandfather would often sarcastically remark that the Dutch resistance gained most of its members after 1944. To quote Adolf Eichmann on Dutch collaboration: "The transports run so smoothly that it is a pleasure to see."

In Belgium, you have a similar issue where some Flemish nationalists (sometimes disingeniously) minimize the extent of their relatives collaboration during the war, as it's politically incovenient and embarassing. Same thing in France with Vichy. Same thing in much of Europe, tbh.

Unless you're pro-Putin, this is yet another ill informed take. You'll notice that the person you're replying to has a blue and white flag avatar.

That's almost certainly the white-blue-white flag. Wikipedia:

The white-blue-white flag (Russian: бело-сине-белый флаг, romanized: belo-sine-belyj flag) is a symbol of opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has been used by Russian anti-war protesters. It has also been used as a symbol of opposition to the current government of Vladimir Putin by several personal Internet accounts, and the Freedom of Russia Legion.

Ie. you're telling someone who opposes Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to suck it.

Ill informed take.

Russian mothers and related groups have historically protested previous Soviet and Russian wars, and are a genuine worry for Putin. It's a relatively(!!!) safe way to protest in an authoritarian state and very macho culture, because they can play the motherhood card.

Relevant article:

Of all the ways that citizens interface with their state, there is no relationship so fraught as war service, particularly when the troops have been conscripted. Most observers say Russia’s record in past wars of treating conscripts humanely and keeping families informed, especially of the worst news, has been abysmal. The impenetrable military bureaucracy and official indifference during the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan prompted the rise of the Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers, which organized women like Ms. Chistyakova into a social force that the Kremlin couldn’t ignore. ... After their establishment during the war in Afghanistan, Russia’s various Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers became some of the most powerful civil society organizations Russia has ever seen. Their anti-war stance, and the strong political influence they generated, arguably played a big role in ending both that war and the first Chechnya conflict on terms unfavorable to Moscow.

Ie. you're making fun of Russian women and allied groups who are protesting the war and the regime in the only way they realistically can.

Oh, I know. As I said, partly due to the cold war. To be clear, not Jewish, but my grandmother spent time in Dachau. So she was arguably one of the victims who were partly ignored.

My point is that the extravagant anecdotes, like human skin lamp shades, or stories about the SS throwing sweets at children as they were buried alive, have become tropes. The kind of stuff does tend to grab your attention, so much so that people are likely to lose sight of the bigger picture, or worry about which proportion of a pile of emaciated corpses was or wasn't Jewish.

Anyway, if you haven't watched Come and See, I recommend it. Obviously, it's not a fun watch, but it gives you an idea of how gruesome the eastern front was and some of what they went through at the hand of the nazis.

Not your comment, obviously - you're right to point out that that Jews weren't the only or majority of victims of the holocaust - but to be clear for those reading and as the relative of a holocaust survivor, even though I'm not Jewish I'm obviously not going to go along with any narrative that suggest the Jews exagerated their treatment during the holocaust. That's a particularly deplorable but common narrative among the far right, especially in Russia, which they've partially been using to justify their war crimes in Ukraine. Hence why they see no irony in suggesting Zelenskyy is a Nazi, because they claim slavs were the true victims of the holocaust, with some even going so far as to suggest the Jews orchestrated the holocaust. Here's a relevant article on that:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify

Partly due to the cold war, I suspect. Also because if you're making a list of atrocities, the particularly gruesome stuff does tend to attract the audience's attention.

I 'recommend' Come and See for those wondering what the Eastern Front was like. Almost certainly the best war movie ever made. The only reason it doesn't rank higher in the best movies ever made, is because it's not great repeat viewing.

Here it is on the official Mosfilm youtube channel, with subtitles.

Oh hi! Mine was also in Dachau. Died years ago, though. You're right they're often forgotten.

She was also a 'partizan'. Although in her case, she was a teenaged girl who according to her was handed a pamphlet then arrested as she walked around the corner reading it. Given we're talking about the nazis and nazi collaborators, I doubt entrapment is the worst of the crimes, so seems plausible.

The thing with Dachau, and AFAIK other concentration camps, is that they weren't actually one concentration camp but an entire complex. Each Konzentrationslager comprised a Stammlager (the main camp), Aussenlager(outside camp), Nebenlager(subcamp), and Arbeitslager(work camp).

So it's likely that like my grandma, yours will have been sent to a subcamp, after being sorted in Dachau itself. That's one of the reasons there's less information about them. The 'main attraction' is so horrible, we forgot about all the subcamps where 'only' half of the prisoners died. She was probably the right age to do hard labour. Mine was almost certainly experimented on. Obviously she didn't talk about it much, there was that time grandma tried to jump out of the car when we tried to take her to the hospital, ah childhood memories.

Covid was a bit weird though. Everyone was stockpiling, and it reminded me of my grandma showing me her secret stash of sunlight soap in the upstairs cupboard. As a kid, it seemed innocent, but in retrospect it was pretty obvious she was always prepared for the worst to happen again.

It's interesting how trauma goes through the generations. Probably also explains some of the health issues we have as a family, given we now know that the children of holocaust survivors inherited epigenetic damage. Trauma's basically passed on through the children's genes.

Interesting how this has affected my view of the world, too.

Sorry, this was an overly long comment. I don't usually get to talk about this at dinner parties. It's a bit much and unrelateable for most people.

Cosplay communists.

No one who's an actual communist would support Yeltsin and the Oligarchs' friend Putin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma