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Now is not the time
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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If I remember my history correctly, a major point of the gas chambers was that the prisoners were convinced that they had been sent to a labour camp, and were sent into the chambers to shower. By convincing people that they weren't in immediate life threatening danger, it was much easier to control them.
Of course, nobody could even imagine the absolute horror of the Holocaust. If you told me that someone would take hundreds of thousands (millions) of fit, working age people and simply wipe them out, I would have a much easier time believing the other guy that said "no, you're being sent to take a shower before being placed in a labour camp. Life will be hard, but obviously we wouldn't waste resources just killing everyone on the spot."
The Armenians could. As could the Nambians. As could the residents of Nanjing, China and Gando, Korea.
But these mass murders were so chronically under-reported - even deliberately suppressed - in media controlled by the political opposition and its allies, that it was possible to never know they'd happened much less consider they could happen locally.
I would also note how the Israel assassination of journalists across Gaza and the West Bank has gone a long way towards suppressing the size and scale of their genocide, particularly at the upper reaches of western media. You absolutely can talk to people in DC or London or Berlin who will (either deliberately or out of their own cloistered media consumption habits) not recognize the scale of atrocity.
But even if you could have convinced someone staring into a cattle car in Poland or Austria that this was the beginning of the end, what would you expect this person to do? Surrounded by armed men who were, in turn, surrounded by tanks and supported by bombers, how were they expected to respond?
The countries had already been defeated. Their people had already been broken on the wheel of war. They were civilians without the training, much less the materials, to mount any kind of guerrilla campaign. They had no Che Guevara or Ho Chi Mein or even a Huey P. Newton to rally them. There certainly wasn't a Mao on hand to lead them in a Long March for their survival and eventual return.
They'd put their trust in the established state lords. Those lords had failed. And now there was nothing standing between them and the gas chambers. Feels trite to say they all should have rushed the guards in a mob, when the Charge of the Light Brigade was the last famous incident of such epic folly.
Of course, historically people "could have imagined". I'm talking about seeing this through the eyes of a civilian that is brought off a train wagon and told they are being put in a labour camp. In that situation, I think very few people have it in them to imagine that their captors are organising the largest and most industrialised mass murder in history, and that they won't even make it out of the "showers" alive.
I don't expect them to launch a revolt, but with prisoners outnumbering guards 100:1, I don't think so many would have walked to their execution in orderly files. I think there would have been a lot more kicking and screaming involved if they knew what was coming. Remember that these weren't strangers either: We're talking about whole families and all their friends sitting calmly together on the train and walking willingly into the gas chambers. That only happens if people are lured into thinking this is something other than it is.
Apart from a broken spirit, there's also a lot of denial. "This can't be happening. It can't be that bad. It all will be over soon. We'll make it through."
100 unarmed, malnourished civilians, many of them old, young or female and almost all of them never having killed or even seriously hurt anyone in their lives vs 1 murderous soldier who has already murdered dozens of people today alone, armed with training, guns and fortified positions... It's not a winnable fight. Maybe if you put exactly these 101 people in one room the 100 could stand somewhat of a chance, but that's not what happened here.
Look for example at the referenced Sonderkommando revolt. From what I can find, the Sonderkommando consisted of able-bodied men in somewhat ok condition. They were pretty much the best-suited for a revolt. And still at the end of the revolt, 452 Sonderkommando members were dead and only 3 Nazi soldiers died. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Also, compared to the regular prisoners, the Sonderkommando members actually knew what was going on and that nobody was supposed to make it out of the camp alive. They managed to keep the extermination a secret even inside the camps.
I never said the kicking and screaming would have been successful. I'm just trying to explain why I think so many people went quietly, and pointing out that most people, when faced with the prospect that their entire family, all their friends, and they themselves face imminent death if they do nothing will tend to do something, regardless of whether it's likely to succeed.
Also, keep in mind that there are fates worse than a quick painless death in the gas chambers. And the Nazis very much used those as well.
The time for retreat and insurrection was the day Kraków fell, not the day you stepped out of a prison train.
Go read about the Colditz Castle Prison Break. That involved full units of British POWs collaborating in the waning days of Nazi occupation. And it still failed, getting virtually everyone killed.
I'm not saying they "should have" done anything specific. I'm pointing out that pretty much the only explanation for why they went as quietly as they did was that they didn't know what was coming. People that are knowingly faced with the imminent murder of their family will not typically stand idly and watch.
That's a good point