RE: "Forgive me but I readily admit to not having spent too much time on studying Holocaust history."
One thing worth studying is how the USA govt reacted to the initial news that had to be repeated to them over a period of time. Or, more to the point, how the USA govt didn't react but tried to ignore it, denied it until one of the three branches (possibly judicial, if I recall correctly) sent a memo to the President demanding the USA address the murders and not ignore them.
I was always stunned by the USA's initial reaction to the Holocaust. Is there some type of scary cultural or human tendency to deny, not get involved, look the other way? I think it's really important people get familiar with the full story of the Holocaust, because it's about understanding the bad risks of human beings and cultures - the tendency to go along with something that's wrong, horribly wrong. The tendency to deny, look the other way, etc.
Another thing very much worth looking into is how there were many people in one South American country murdered, without acknowledgement of this. According to the SJ Museum, it said the # of murders was on the order of Holocaust, yet it said, today we as a society do not acknowledge the murders. (In fact, I don't even know what South America country it was in, which shows how unaware I am on this event.) It further said that people don't know about the murders because the people from this country don't have power that's sufficiently high enough to get their issues addressed. Unfortunately, this is how power works. When a country or group establishes enough power, only then do they have the power to get the past horrible issues properly on the table and demand changes. I wouldn't be surprised to see a renewed lawsuit against union carbide (sp?) as India gets more powerful. It was a horrible deed done onto India, without appropriately caring for the injured citizens. They will speak up about this, as India gets more powerful. It's human nature to do so. All countries are like this, I believe. But it's unfortunate it takes power before bad deeds done onto a country get addressed rather than ignored.
Regards,
Amy J |
