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If you lived in 1938 Germany...[W:104]

How do you believe you would have reacted to Jewish persecution?

  • I would have supported it fully and openly.

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • I would have fallen in line and said nothing.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I would have said nothing openly, but not actively supported it.

    Votes: 2 4.3%
  • I would have passively resisted.

    Votes: 16 34.0%
  • I would have openly resisted and been outspoken against it.

    Votes: 5 10.6%
  • I would have been willing to put myself physically in harms way to protect them.

    Votes: 6 12.8%
  • I like to think I would have done #4 thru #6, but probably would have done #2 or #3.

    Votes: 17 36.2%

  • Total voters
    47

radcen

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If you lived in 1938 Germany... How do you believe you would have reacted to Jewish persecution?

1) I would have supported it fully and openly.
2) I would have fallen in line and said nothing.
3) I would have said nothing openly, but not actively supported it.
4) I would have passively resisted.
5) I would have openly resisted and been outspoken against it.
6) I would have been willing to put myself physically in harms way to protect them.
7) I like to think I would have done #4 thru #6, but probably would have done #2 or #3.

I purposely did not include "Other" as an option this time, as that is a cop-out for this question. If you cannot answer given the range of options above, you're participation is not really necessary.

ETA: Please note that the question is intended to be from a non-Jewish perspective.
 
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I'm Jewish. I would have left.
 
I'm Jewish I would have also Left as my Grandparents fled Russia's pogroms around the time of the Revolution .

And the OP is one of the main reasons I support the Second Amendment.
If Every Jewish arrest/round up had taken a Nazi or two, it would have cost them grievously.
 
I wouldn't have blamed you, but many didn't... for whatever reasons. They either couldn't, or held onto hope that it wouldn't get as bad as it did, or any other number of reasons.

The Jews I have known that stayed could not believe it would be as bad as it became. This seems somewhat odd. After all, there had been pogrom after pogrom for centuries and often the whole local Jewish community had been wiped out. And "Mein Kampf" was pretty explicit on what was to come. Here to it is astounding that people could have voted for the Führer. Having done so can only be interpreted as totally irresponsible or criminal. But that is the way it was.
 
Like many people today, I suspect many Germans heard stories, but did not
believe (in 1938) that their modern government was capable of the bad things said.
They may have even know someone who was removed from say a teaching post,
but justified it, somehow.
Hate, and the ability to isolated and blame a group for some real or perceived harm,
is a powerful political tool, we should all be cautious of any who would use these methods.
Any degradation of anyone's rights, is a degradation of all of our rights.
 
Passive resistance. I'm a coward, but I wouldn't really go along with it.
 
It's hard to know what my reaction would have been, my father was a bigot, he hated Jews, Black and Catholics. You can just imagine his reaction when I married a Jewish woman; he wasn't happy. To be perfectly honest, I probably would have been passive about it.

















to n
 
Like many people today, I suspect many Germans heard stories, but did not
believe (in 1938) that their modern government was capable of the bad things said.
They may have even know someone who was removed from say a teaching post,
but justified it, somehow.
Hate, and the ability to isolated and blame a group for some real or perceived harm,
is a powerful political tool, we should all be cautious of any who would use these methods.
Any degradation of anyone's rights, is a degradation of all of our rights.

oh the german people knew about what was going on. there were death camps set up right next to cities and people saw the jews being marched to the camps after they arrived on the trains.
 
That's a pretty tough question. It's easy to say that I would have acted differently, but the simple truth is that there's nothing unique about the German people.

First, you would have to confront a mob. Most people just want to fit in, so they'll do whatever the mob is doing. The majority of those who disagree with the mob will just stay out of its way. Actively confronting a mob is a pretty terrifying prospect.

Second, it was a lot like boiling a frog. The Germans didn't go straight to the Holocaust. They took a series of baby steps, with each "fixing" the "problems" the last step caused. Today is only a little bit worse than yesterday; maybe tomorrow will be a little bit better. Breaking the status quo is pretty difficult, particularly when it requires an unpleasant act.

Third, it's not like there was nothing else going on. Germany was in a war on two fronts. A German citizen didn't have to go out of their way to find something to distract them from the horrors being done in their name. How easy would it have been to shut your eyes and concentrate on the war effort? Wouldn't that have been the patriotic thing to do? Besides, it's not like you're responsible... What can you possibly do anyway?

In short, most Germans did nothing. Put into the same situation, most Americans would do the same. I'd like to think that I'm independent enough to mount an opposition; but I have to admit that the odds aren't exactly in my favor.
 
With my 21st Century mindset, probably #4 and maybe #6 if the situation presented itself (I'm not naturally outspoken). If I'd been brought up in early 20th Century Germany though, it's perfectly possible that my opinion would be different.
 
That's a very difficult question to which I don't know the answer. Most people hope they would do the right things but when actually in the circumstance its hard to say if personal fears, fears of retribution carried out on loved ones, etc. would have an effect especially without the hindsight of history of knowing the Nazis would be defeated and would go down in history are one of the most evil regimes in modern history. All I can say for sure is we as people are terribly flawed and I feel horrible just thinking about it.

One thing that does worry me is learning how group dynamics aka tribalism can taint how otherwise fair and rational people can misdefine right and wrong, give the wrong done by "our side" a convenient pass or offer complicity support. Its really easy IMHO for people to caught up in the "our side is right" mentality and defining "right" by group association. I've tried to help people how are blinded to their own vulnerabilities in that area and see how all of us can allow emotion and tribalism to corrupt our sense of right and wrong but in online forums doing so is often prohibited under violations of discussion board courtesy and risks being labeled "baiting."
 
Personally, knowing what I know about the time and place, most of us would have been glad to cart off the Jews, and almost all of us would have played a huge part in making it happen.

That's not to justify it...but, it makes the most sense. Why? Because that is how propaganda works. The Jews were painted as the worst thing since moldy bread. It would have been nearly impossible to resist the urge to hate them.
 
Personally, knowing what I know about the time and place, most of us would have been glad to cart off the Jews, and almost all of us would have played a huge part in making it happen.

That's not to justify it...but, it makes the most sense. Why? Because that is how propaganda works. The Jews were painted as the worst thing since moldy bread. It would have been nearly impossible to resist the urge to hate them.

Sorta like Muslims get painted in the current scenario, eh?
 
The bulk of that was later, in 1938 things were bad for the Jews, but it was just the beginning.
http://holocaustlearning.org/uploads/resources/timeline of persecution.pdf

i suggest you read the book hitlers death camps: the sanity of madness by Dr. Konnilyn Feig. she wrote that book based on her expierance of visiting all 19 death camps and meeting with witnesses. she was also my history teacher in at foothill college.

Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness: Konnilyn G. Feig: 9780841906761: Amazon.com: Books
 
Sorta like Muslims get painted in the current scenario, eh?
Not even close. The anger and hate directed at Muslims here is barely a taste of what I'm talking about.

Like I said in my post, if you really know the history, and if you really put yourself into Depression-Era Germany Post-WW1, it would be almost impossible not to get wrapped up in the scapegoating. Add to that a Charismatic leader telling you how great your country is, how great you, its "Volk", are and how all of it is being undermined by those Jews---the same Jews who are pushing Communism, that awful scourge which already toppled the Russian government--and it would be a given that 90-plus percent of us would get on board that train (no pun).
 
If you lived in 1938 Germany... How do you believe you would have reacted to Jewish persecution?

1) I would have supported it fully and openly.
2) I would have fallen in line and said nothing.
3) I would have said nothing openly, but not actively supported it.
4) I would have passively resisted.
5) I would have openly resisted and been outspoken against it.
6) I would have been willing to put myself physically in harms way to protect them.
7) I like to think I would have done #4 thru #6, but probably would have done #2 or #3.

I purposely did not include "Other" as an option this time, as that is a cop-out for this question. If you cannot answer given the range of options above, you're participation is not really necessary.

ETA: Please note that the question is intended to be from a non-Jewish perspective.

None of us can say for certain what we would have done, of course. There is the possibility any of us could have been marching lock-step, either figuratively or literally, with the Nazi regime.

But knowing myself, and knowing that despite growing up in the same culture as all of my peers, half of it doesn't even makes sense to me, and also knowing what I have given up for my ethics, which is a lot, I like to think I likely would have resisted. And I think I have good reason to believe that.

I am not only a woman, but a very small one, so open resistance would have simply been a suicide mission. Passive resistance probably wouldn't have soothed my conscience enough. I suspect I would have been involved with trying to smuggle Jews into safer places. That would have been a job where my physicality could have worked in my favor, in addition to being active.

So I put "willing to put myself in harm's way." I'm ok with risking dying, as long as I can actually make a difference until that point, as opposed to just getting mowed down on the spot, which I think is kind of a waste of a good activist.
 
I'm Jewish I would have also Left as my Grandparents fled Russia's pogroms around the time of the Revolution .

And the OP is one of the main reasons I support the Second Amendment.
If Every Jewish arrest/round up had taken a Nazi or two, it would have cost them grievously.

Yeah... the myth of the ragtag rebellion continues.
 
Most people naivly hope for the best in any scenario, even when faced with an overwhelming and obvious truth that tells them it will be the worst that will happen.

It happens over and over again, and is even happening these days.
 
This is tough, I would like to say I would be the humane voice in a turbulent world, and now-a-days I would, but I cannot speak for myself when referring to the possibility of me being there in the past. It's a societal thing. Everybody else is doing, why not me? I wish I could say with certainty that I would have been better, but unfortunately I cannot.
 
A tough one....sadly
Knowing myself, a little, I'd probably be shot to death for protesting...
We know so little about this black era of Germany...
The German Jews are our American Blacks
1938
But, at least our government was fairly decent and kind back then; much more so than the Germans and Nazis..
In all honesty, I am one of six at this point in time (option number 7)
Bottom line ........
I really do not know.....
I see that we do have one "brave" individual here....
Who ?
 
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