I checked out the soap. It seems that this was not true although it was widely believed by the Holocaust survivors. The Nazis did, after all, use human hair for various purposes, extract dental gold, and make lampshades out of human skin. So when newsreels showed bars of soap next to the lampshades, soap stamped "RJF", immediately interpreted as "Reichs-Juden-Fett", State Jewish Soap, who would doubt it? (That's where I recalled it from) Hardly a big stretch considering the circumstances.
chgs.hispeed.com
Now as to Masada: Josephus says that Masada was held by the Sicarii and he calls them "bandits". But who were these Sicarii? Josephus describes their mode of operation as going around festivals with little daggers (Latin sicarii) killing their opponents.
Ordinary bandits don't have opponents; they just have people they steal from. It's clear from the description that the Sicarii were motivated by ideology, not gain. You have to rememember that Josephus was a client of Vespasian and Titus when he wrote the Jewish Wars. The Zealots were the chief war-party in Jerusalem; at one point, Josephus refers to the followers of Menachem as Zealots and at another he calls them Sicarii. The Sicarii thus seem to be a Zealot splinter group favoring guerilla and terrorist tactics. Certainly ordinary bandits don't kill themselves en masse with their wives and children to avoid capture as these Sicarii did at Masada. |
