Until Hitler… self-hitlered…, most Germans had no idea they even had concentration camps or that genocide was being done in their name. They thought they were winning the war, and they saw the infrastructure/economic improvements and thought Hitler was doing a great job. One would hope everything being actively video recorded/ reported this time would make a difference but, if my experience with my MAGA family is indicative of what’s happening with the rest of the MAGAts, they’re just as ignorant. I forced my fiance’s newsmax-addicted grandma to watch a video of ICE beating a woman, in front of her small child, while they were kidnapping her husband, and Mema hasn’t said shit about politics since. She was genuinely shocked.
That’s not entirely true. Most Germans absolutely knew something was up with the Jews, and others, and pretended not to. Out in the country, where the Concentration Camps were, towns and villages knew what was happening, and could smell the crematoriums. Many of the workers at the camps lived in the villages, and businesses in the village did business with the camps. Many had to have seen, or at least heard about the conditions.
In the cities, it was pretty obvious that Jews were disappearing, usually in harsh and violent round-ups in which any resistance was met with instant lethal force. Neighbors, employers, local business people, etc. certainly noticed that the local Jews, gays, activists, religious figures, etc. were disappearing. Of course, EVERYBODY had been exposed to years of the most ferocious anti-Semitic rhetoric, far worse than what we hear today about undocumented people in America, which included permanently eliminating Jews from the entire planet, so they could pretty easily guess where those people had gone, never to be heard from again. As bad as MAGAs are, we haven’t heard them openly calling for an official policy of extermination…yet. I truly believe it is coming, though.
Of course, after the war, nobody was going to admit they knew something was going on, and did nothing about it. Better to just act ignorant. Better to be thought to be stupid, than to be thought to be evil.
Until Hitler… self-hitlered…, most Germans had no idea they even had concentration camps or that genocide was being done in their name. They thought they were winning the war, and they saw the infrastructure/economic improvements and thought Hitler was doing a great job. One would hope everything being actively video recorded/ reported this time would make a difference but, if my experience with my MAGA family is indicative of what’s happening with the rest of the MAGAts, they’re just as ignorant. I forced my fiance’s newsmax-addicted grandma to watch a video of ICE beating a woman, in front of her small child, while they were kidnapping her husband, and Mema hasn’t said shit about politics since. She was genuinely shocked.
That’s not entirely true. Most Germans absolutely knew something was up with the Jews, and others, and pretended not to. Out in the country, where the Concentration Camps were, towns and villages knew what was happening, and could smell the crematoriums. Many of the workers at the camps lived in the villages, and businesses in the village did business with the camps. Many had to have seen, or at least heard about the conditions.
In the cities, it was pretty obvious that Jews were disappearing, usually in harsh and violent round-ups in which any resistance was met with instant lethal force. Neighbors, employers, local business people, etc. certainly noticed that the local Jews, gays, activists, religious figures, etc. were disappearing. Of course, EVERYBODY had been exposed to years of the most ferocious anti-Semitic rhetoric, far worse than what we hear today about undocumented people in America, which included permanently eliminating Jews from the entire planet, so they could pretty easily guess where those people had gone, never to be heard from again. As bad as MAGAs are, we haven’t heard them openly calling for an official policy of extermination…yet. I truly believe it is coming, though.
Of course, after the war, nobody was going to admit they knew something was going on, and did nothing about it. Better to just act ignorant. Better to be thought to be stupid, than to be thought to be evil.