Holocaust: Who is Responsible?

I hope I'm not, like, offending anyone by talking about this subject, but we're studying the Holocaust and school, and my teacher was talking about who was responsible for the Holocaust. There was 10 choices, I think. It got me thinking, and I was wondering, what order would you put the 10 choices in, from least responsible to most responsible, and why? The choices were:

1. Residents of towns near concentration camps who knew about them but did nothing to stop them
2. Minor Nazi Soldiers
3. Hitler
4. People who voted for Hitler and the Nazi Party to revitalize their morally and economically depressed country
5. The Jews who did not try to escape
6. Top SS officers who designed and executed the 'Final Solution' for Hitler
7. Non-Jewish Europeans who turned against their Jewish friends and citizens, fearing they'd be imprisioned as Jewish sympathizers
8.Leaders of the Allied countries who had evidence of the Holocaust but refused to get involved or voice opposition
9. Churches of all denominations who remained silent and refused to intevene

aaaannnnddd

10. The Jewish God

So, what do you think?

4 and 3
the only ones to blame because the rest couldn't do anything (10 could but we needed to know that we couldn't trust the whole world to disarm and we couldn't put full trust in any political leader

Personally, I place responsibility on humanity as a whole. But it's a pretty senstive topic, and I'd have to go through some of my Holocaust materials, etc. You know what? I'll get back to this after I draft my human rights thesis for school.

spill_no_sick:

4 and 3
the only ones to blame because the rest couldn't do anything (10 could but we needed to know that we couldn't trust the whole world to disarm and we couldn't put full trust in any political leader

hmmm I would have to disagree with both your choices.

The Nazi party was voted in under extreme circumstances, where the voting public were given little choice Nazism was the only option at that time. Though Hitler made his anti-semtism feelings known the full extent of that tirade was not unleashed until 3 years after the voting booth had shut, by then it was a dictatorship. In fact a percentage of Nazi supporters were Jewish, believing Hitler semite remarks were personal rather than part of the regime. Though Jews were at the fore front of persucution a further 6 million people (3 million poles) were murdered. I don't believe tha apathy and ignorance of the voting public is to blame for the Holocaust.

Though Hitler was for policies that persacuted Jews, It was th accountant power of Joesph Goebbels and the brute strength and terror of Himmler that led to the destruction of Jews. Goebbels bled the jews dry of all resources, the initial plan was to deport all Jews to Madagascar however that became impossible after the war had started.

The Wansee conference decided that fate of the jews (please note Hitler was not present) the Buraeocrats of the SS (including Heydrich and Himmler) decided that extermination of the J race was the only 'natural' road to take. Hitler gave his consent to this but the 'Final Solution' was not his doing.

Hitler had very little to do with the policies of the Nazi party, he was merely a good speaker and a figurehead, towards the end when the deportation of the ghetto's had begun, because of the losing war Hitler was in no position to argue against his own generals.

So in fact, one could argue that Hitler had as much to do with the holocaust as the people in the villages who did nothing.

Well it wouldn't have happened if Hitler hadn't been born. IMO.

Nine_Inch_Nails:

Well it wouldn't have happened if Hitler hadn't been born. IMO.

There will always be extremists if it hadn't been Hitler, it would be someone else in a different part of the world. What the holocaust did was it woke up the western civilisations to the suffereing of the world, though many nations are still ignored and not recognised for their own genocides (Armenian)

I dunno. Anti-Semitism was still pretty strong back then, like in Vienna, where Hitler aquired his point of view, so someone else might've acted out on their beliefs like Hitler did, although maybe not so much

[ fallen angel ]:

I dunno. Anti-Semitism was still pretty strong back then, like in Vienna, where Hitler aquired his point of view, so someone else might've acted out on their beliefs like Hitler did, although maybe not so much

Anti-semitism is still strong to day, theres less than 10,000 jews in poland because of persucution they face.

during the plague, in the middle-ages, jews were burned at the stake for being the cause.

There will never be another holocaust, but i see plenty of genocides in this worlds future.


We can't help but hate.



(by the way your first post was a serious debate, awesome introduction to the board, welcome.)

NeoSteph:

[ fallen angel ]:

I dunno. Anti-Semitism was still pretty strong back then, like in Vienna, where Hitler aquired his point of view, so someone else might've acted out on their beliefs like Hitler did, although maybe not so much

Anti-semitism is still strong to day, theres less than 10,000 jews in poland because of persucution they face.

during the plague, in the middle-ages, jews were burned at the stake for being the cause.

There will never be another holocaust, but i see plenty of genocides in this worlds future.


We can't help but hate.



(by the way your first post was a serious debate, awesome introduction to the board, welcome.)

Heh. Thanks. And your right, Anti-Semitism still exists, and it probably will for years to come. It's almost like a fact of life. It's inevitable.

It's a controversial topic. Some think that Hitler was the mastermind behind everything, but he was really just an orator.

[ fallen angel ]:

NeoSteph:

[ fallen angel ]:

I dunno. Anti-Semitism was still pretty strong back then, like in Vienna, where Hitler aquired his point of view, so someone else might've acted out on their beliefs like Hitler did, although maybe not so much

Anti-semitism is still strong to day, theres less than 10,000 jews in poland because of persucution they face.

during the plague, in the middle-ages, jews were burned at the stake for being the cause.

There will never be another holocaust, but i see plenty of genocides in this worlds future.


We can't help but hate.



(by the way your first post was a serious debate, awesome introduction to the board, welcome.)

Heh. Thanks. And your right, Anti-Semitism still exists, and it probably will for years to come. It's almost like a fact of life. It's inevitable.

It's a controversial topic. Some think that Hitler was the mastermind behind everything, but he was really just an orator.

*see large post above*

I know, Just felt the need to reiterate

1-4

Why the hell is 5 even an option? The didn't escape because they were afraid.

September_has_Ended:

1-4

Why the hell is 5 even an option? The didn't escape because they were afraid.

I wasn't the one that made it up, it was my teacher who created the choices. He asked us to rank all the choices from most responsible to least responsible, or, in some cases, like 5), not responsible at all.

i blame the human race, because if we all got along and came to comprimises then it wouldnt of happened. I mostly blame the people who run the countries.

i dont know very much about the halocaust, i know that 6 million Jews died (killed or starvation or w/e). i dont think that a death toll like that should be blamed on any one. i think that things just got out of hand and one person's hate made everyone else fear him, which led to people not standing up for their religion or beliefs and creating a terrible disaster like the holocaust...but yes after learning a little about it in school i find Hitler to be partly at fault. though not placing the blame on him. it wasnt his fault that he had some issues...he probably grew up in a broken home and was raised to be prejudice... im not sure though

LovesBillieJoe:

i dont know very much about the halocaust, i know that 6 million Jews died (killed or starvation or w/e). i dont think that a death toll like that should be blamed on any one. i think that things just got out of hand and one person's hate made everyone else fear him, which led to people not standing up for their religion or beliefs and creating a terrible disaster like the holocaust...but yes after learning a little about it in school i find Hitler to be partly at fault. though not placing the blame on him. it wasnt his fault that he had some issues...he probably grew up in a broken home and was raised to be prejudice... im not sure though

hitler didnt grow up in a broken home in fact both his perants were loving and attentive.

would it not be all of the reasons, as each was probably a contributing factor to the extremity of it?

tre_cool_is_god:

LovesBillieJoe:

i dont know very much about the halocaust, i know that 6 million Jews died (killed or starvation or w/e). i dont think that a death toll like that should be blamed on any one. i think that things just got out of hand and one person's hate made everyone else fear him, which led to people not standing up for their religion or beliefs and creating a terrible disaster like the holocaust...but yes after learning a little about it in school i find Hitler to be partly at fault. though not placing the blame on him. it wasnt his fault that he had some issues...he probably grew up in a broken home and was raised to be prejudice... im not sure though

hitler didnt grow up in a broken home in fact both his perants were loving and attentive.

i heard that his parents beat him and his father had more than one wife at one time.... i also heard that his father was jewish/half-jewish and he wanted revenge against him becuase he was bad to him as a child.... i learn some pretty fucked up shitt!!! thats probably wrong...but hey thats what ive been told!

tre_cool_is_god:

LovesBillieJoe:

i dont know very much about the halocaust, i know that 6 million Jews died (killed or starvation or w/e). i dont think that a death toll like that should be blamed on any one. i think that things just got out of hand and one person's hate made everyone else fear him, which led to people not standing up for their religion or beliefs and creating a terrible disaster like the holocaust...but yes after learning a little about it in school i find Hitler to be partly at fault. though not placing the blame on him. it wasnt his fault that he had some issues...he probably grew up in a broken home and was raised to be prejudice... im not sure though

hitler didnt grow up in a broken home in fact both his perants were loving and attentive.

All the men in his trench in WWI were killed by a shell, except him, that could have had an influence on his hatred.

xAiffoXKorrx:

tre_cool_is_god:

LovesBillieJoe:

i dont know very much about the halocaust, i know that 6 million Jews died (killed or starvation or w/e). i dont think that a death toll like that should be blamed on any one. i think that things just got out of hand and one person's hate made everyone else fear him, which led to people not standing up for their religion or beliefs and creating a terrible disaster like the holocaust...but yes after learning a little about it in school i find Hitler to be partly at fault. though not placing the blame on him. it wasnt his fault that he had some issues...he probably grew up in a broken home and was raised to be prejudice... im not sure though

hitler didnt grow up in a broken home in fact both his perants were loving and attentive.

All the men in his trench in WWI were killed by a shell, except him, that could have had an influence on his hatred.

we dont know that for 100% certain they never found his body.

But regarding him being beat by his perants my history is a biot skectchy so yeah possibly.