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I hate articles that assume I'm stupid. Who says this is something I haven't heard of? The problem of displaced persons was a big issue after the war. The article also ignores that many were DPs by choice, preferring not to live under Soviet rule.
These both strike me as shallow critiques. Who cares what he titled his article? And the article wasn't about the people who left by choice, but those who were forced out against their will. Could he have mentioned it? Sure, but it wasn't the focus of the article so the omission isn't all that serious.
The aftermath of a war in which 50 million people were killed was bound to be unpleasant. Especially for the people of the nation that started the war. How many of the Germans would have survived staying where they were?
I find it hard to drum up moral outrage for the people that completely ignored the horrors that their fellow countrymen were committing. Yes, there was injustice committed against these people, but it pales in comparison with the injustices they allowed in their names.
What's the point? To blame the Allies for the suffering of European refugees after the Nazi regime was defeated? It's an insane argument.
There's nothing insane about it. The Allies came up with these policies and implemented them, and are therefore responsible for the consequences of those policies. That they showed absolutely no remorse and that some even had the nerve to suggest that the Germans might deserve the hardship they went through is appalling.
"Between 12 million and 14 million German-speaking civiliansthe overwhelming majority of whom were women, old people, and children under 16were forcibly ejected from their places of birth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and what are today the western districts of Poland"
Those were areas controlled by FDR's fuck buddy "Uncle Joe", right?
The screams that rang throughout the darkened cattle car crammed with deportees, as it jolted across the icy Polish countryside five nights before Christmas, were Dr. Loch's only means of locating his patient. The doctor, formerly chief medical officer of a large urban hospital, now found himself clambering over piles of baggage, fellow passengers, and buckets used as toilets, only to find his path blocked by an old woman who ignored his request to move aside. On closer examination, he discovered that she had frozen to death.
Finally he located the source of the screams, a pregnant woman who had gone into premature labor and was hemorrhaging profusely. When he attempted to move her from where she lay into a more comfortable position, he found that "she was frozen to the floor with her own blood." Other than temporarily stanching the bleeding, Loch was unable to do anything to help her, and he never learned whether she had lived or died. When the train made its first stop, after more than four days in transit, 16 frost-covered corpses were pulled from the wagons before the remaining deportees were put back on board to continue their journey. A further 42 passengers would later succumb to the effects of their ordeal, among them Loch's wife.
The European Atrocity You Never Heard About - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Fortunately, not everyone of the era was blind to the blatant hypocrisy of these policies.
Even at the time, not everyone agreed. George Orwell, an outspoken opponent of the expulsions, pointed out in his essay "Politics and the English Language" that the expression "transfer of population" was one of a number of euphemisms whose purpose was "largely the defense of the indefensible." The philosopher Bertrand Russell acidly inquired: "Are mass deportations crimes when committed by our enemies during war and justifiable measures of social adjustment when carried out by our allies in time of peace?" A still more uncomfortable observation was made by the left-wing publisher Victor Gollancz, who reasoned that "if every German was indeed responsible for what happened at Belsen, then we, as members of a democratic country and not a fascist one with no free press or parliament, were responsible individually as well as collectively" for what was being done to noncombatants in the Allies' name.
I think this event goes to show that the so-called "good war" was not a battle of good vs. evil, but merely a showdown between rival governments as all wars are, and that the Allies had no more regard for human suffering than did Adolf Hitler.
The Nazi regime systematically attempted to eradicate Jews and Gypsies and homosexuals and people who did not live up to the eugenic standards that Hitler and his maniacs set and you think the Allies should show "remorse" for the outcome of the conflagration of WW2?
The actions of the Nazis don't justify the actions of the Allies towards these Germans after the war.
The screams that rang throughout the darkened cattle car crammed with deportees, as it jolted across the icy Polish countryside five nights before Christmas, were Dr. Loch's only means of locating his patient. The doctor, formerly chief medical officer of a large urban hospital, now found himself clambering over piles of baggage, fellow passengers, and buckets used as toilets, only to find his path blocked by an old woman who ignored his request to move aside. On closer examination, he discovered that she had frozen to death.
Finally he located the source of the screams, a pregnant woman who had gone into premature labor and was hemorrhaging profusely. When he attempted to move her from where she lay into a more comfortable position, he found that "she was frozen to the floor with her own blood." Other than temporarily stanching the bleeding, Loch was unable to do anything to help her, and he never learned whether she had lived or died. When the train made its first stop, after more than four days in transit, 16 frost-covered corpses were pulled from the wagons before the remaining deportees were put back on board to continue their journey. A further 42 passengers would later succumb to the effects of their ordeal, among them Loch's wife.
The European Atrocity You Never Heard About - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Fortunately, not everyone of the era was blind to the blatant hypocrisy of these policies.
Even at the time, not everyone agreed. George Orwell, an outspoken opponent of the expulsions, pointed out in his essay "Politics and the English Language" that the expression "transfer of population" was one of a number of euphemisms whose purpose was "largely the defense of the indefensible." The philosopher Bertrand Russell acidly inquired: "Are mass deportations crimes when committed by our enemies during war and justifiable measures of social adjustment when carried out by our allies in time of peace?" A still more uncomfortable observation was made by the left-wing publisher Victor Gollancz, who reasoned that "if every German was indeed responsible for what happened at Belsen, then we, as members of a democratic country and not a fascist one with no free press or parliament, were responsible individually as well as collectively" for what was being done to noncombatants in the Allies' name.
I think this event goes to show that the so-called "good war" was not a battle of good vs. evil, but merely a showdown between rival governments as all wars are, and that the Allies had no more regard for human suffering than did Adolf Hitler.
Your post is the height of cynicism. Americans and the allies didn't do much to stop human suffering, that is a fact. Wars are inhumane. Yes? But they DID liberate Belsen, and they DID stop the fascist. Something to ponder. So, I beg to ask, would you prefer the fascists had triumphed? Doesn't that matter to you? IF the Nazis had won, would you feel so free to share your opinions? Would there even be an internet? Boggles the mind.
Americans sacrificed about a Half of Million Soldiers to end programs that led to the deaths of European civilians. Russians were allies but the US had no control over the USSR's savage retribution after the war. The US was strapped for cash after WW2 but still authorized funding for the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. How much more does today's left expect?
The Nazi regime systematically attempted to eradicate Jews and Gypsies and homosexuals and people who did not live up to the eugenic standards that Hitler and his maniacs set and you think the Allies should show "remorse" for the outcome of the conflagration of WW2?
The actions of the Nazis don't justify the actions of the Allies towards these Germans after the war.
And you don't think the Allies were slightly pissed off at the time?
What's the point? Are you acting as a vocal advocate for Jews?There's nothing insane about it. The Allies came up with these policies and implemented them, and are therefore responsible for the consequences of those policies. That they showed absolutely no remorse and that some even had the nerve to suggest that the Germans might deserve the hardship they went through is appalling.
"Between 12 million and 14 million German-speaking civiliansthe overwhelming majority of whom were women, old people, and children under 16were forcibly ejected from their places of birth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and what are today the western districts of Poland"
Those were areas controlled by FDR's fuck buddy "Uncle Joe", right?
Y
You don't get away with bland denials like "yes, but it wasn't just the Soviet Union acting unilaterally here".
What's the point? Are you acting as a vocal advocate for Jews?"Between 12 million and 14 million German-speaking civiliansthe overwhelming majority of whom were women, old people, and children under 16were forcibly ejected from their places of birth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and what are today the western districts of Poland"
Those were areas controlled by FDR's fuck buddy "Uncle Joe", right?
Y
You don't get away with bland denials like "yes, but it wasn't just the Soviet Union acting unilaterally here".
