Holocaust contrition 'too much for new generation'

[Climber]

I consider myself a patriotic American and I'm a student of history, but I don't feel responsible for the enslavement of Africans or guilt over the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945.

Are you Argentinian? If so, do you feel guilty about Juan Peron? The Falklands war in 1982?

you dont see yourself responsible yet your country does and your culture does. isn't what I said? do you need examples? individuals aren't responsible, countries and cultures, yes, they are.
yes, I am also Argentine, and as an Individual, i dont bear any guilt, also as an Israeli...I said that 3 times........then...... why would I feel guilty of Juan Peron? what he did that needs to be feel guilty about? and the 1982 war? are you comparing the shoa with the doings of the CIA backed military junta that send cia trained goons into my family house when i was a kid looking for a aunt that happened to be in the telephone list of a communist militant? (BTW, my dad saved her, and He is a very conservative political person, also Israeli and Argentinean, he hates Peron, I dont.)

mhm, so please take a deep breath yourself and learn about the history before 1933 ... then you can educate mankind about history since 10.000 years ago

I know pre 1933 history, just ask......................and I dont want to educate anyone, you was the one wanting to teach us something about holocaust and stuff.

[DasVivo]

People is so well feed and bored that becomes frustrated because other are walking the same road their fathers have gone? I mean they just have to take a look and read a history book......their "superiority" exasperate me.

The thing is the same as above.......they are lucky, they have the luxury of having morality, not all have the same luxury. Now, I dont really believe that no one have the right to criticize us, I dont actually believe in that, But the fact that they criticize us more than anyone is not a double standard, is a double racism, to the poor Arabs because they are rustic, and us? what The same old bull?



Nothing. They have not to make anything special. But before criticizing others, you should take a big breath, then go to the books, learn why things happen, then think a long time about what and why things happened.

To make it clear I try not to fall into those views, but they are all too common and all too easy to fall into... Sooner or later aswell fatigue sets in as does cynicism, where by people just expect certain things and give up expecting otherwise... When I said though about others condemning Israel can be a double standard, I mean in that unless they have entirely clean hands they open themselves up to criticism aswell for the cery same charges they level at israel...

[Climber]

To make it clear I try not to fall into those views, but they are all too common and all too easy to fall into... Sooner or later aswell fatigue sets in as does cynicism, where by people just expect certain things and give up expecting otherwise... When I said though about others condemning Israel can be a double standard, I mean in that unless they have entirely clean hands they open themselves up to criticism aswell for the cery same charges they level at israel...

I understood and I agree.

[muck]

I consider myself a patriotic American and I'm a student of history, but I don't feel responsible for the enslavement of Africans or guilt over the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945.

Are you Argentinian? If so, do you feel guilty about Juan Peron? The Falklands war in 1982?

I don't think this was the point he tried to make.

Of course you don't have to feel responsible for slavery and Hiroshima, as they naturally weren't of your making, however you can't simply shrug off the fact that your country produced these events. Like I said - it's my firm belief that a patriot can't "claim" the good aspects of his nation's past and simply ignore the bad ones. I refer to a kind of responsibility that reaches out beyond the conventional perception and definition of guilt. It's not the funereal kind of guilt with lots of sorries involved but rather the conclusion that the past compells you to ensure the future is going to take a very certain path.
Wouldn't you agree it should be a reason of state of the United States of America not to tolerate slavery anywhere?

[Climber]

to make some point clear, germans are also victims of the third rich, in many ways, there are those who where persecuted and exterminated, socialists, liberals, communists, anarchist, disabled, Gypsies and jewishs.........and there are those who had no choice. and then you have yourselves who have to carry the burden.

[Flagg]

[/I][/I]Goodreason to never find a solution.

Why can't we pay them to STAY at peace, instead of paying them UNTIL there's peace which we coincidentally never seem to find?

If there's peace, you get money.

If there's no peace, you get no money.

This is simple sh!t....

If my kids are nice, they get a cookie.

If my kids are naughty, they don't get a cookie.

It's not rocket surgery......it's parenting 101.....with a couple extra weapon systems.

[Climber]

Why can't we pay them to STAY at peace, instead of paying them UNTIL there's peace which we coincidentally never seem to find?

If there's peace, you get money.

If there's no peace, you get no money.

This is simple sh!t....

If my kids are nice, they get a cookie.

If my kids are naughty, they don't get a cookie.

It's not rocket surgery......it's parenting 101.....with a couple extra weapon systems.

I totally agree, would worth the try. I actually think that Clinton offered that to Uncle Yasser, but didnt work.

[Sideline]

Why can't we pay them to STAY at peace, instead of paying them UNTIL there's peace which we coincidentally never seem to find?

If there's peace, you get money.

If there's no peace, you get no money.

This is simple sh!t....

If my kids are nice, they get a cookie.

If my kids are naughty, they don't get a cookie.

It's not rocket surgery......it's parenting 101.....with a couple extra weapon systems.

Oh, I think it's because they are fighting "le resistance", and they have too many enablers.

[Bidoul33t]

Germany you're lucky to have only the holocaust on your list.

If you were french you had to apologize for:

-Slavery, triangle-trade, code noir.
-Revolutionary wars (and the first attempt at mass murders).
-Colonialism, the juicy part being Indochina and Algeria wars.
-Holocaust, nearly all the French Jews that were killed by Nazis where in the hand of the french state at one point or another.
-I'm probably forgetting some.

It's a national sport, I'm seriously surprised we don't do it for Hiroshima.


Ah but we do it for pacific nuke test, I forgot that one!

[muck]

To judge from all what I know no other nation practices a "guilt cult" akin to Germany.
Maybe that's what President Gauck meant: the statements and actions of some members of the society - politicians, journalists, thinkers, clergymen - are difficult to put across to the younger generations. I hope he meant to encourage a different take on the responsibility, and not to mitigate it.

[Telmar]

I agree with Muck on the personal guilt issue. In one way, in maybe twenty years or less, survivors of death camps will have passed away and we will be left with a world in which noone was a murderer nor a victim.

However, cultures and states need to engrave in their memories the bad events of their past just as much as the good ones. Yet one of the most important reasons for doing so is not to apologize for ever, but to never forget what can happen when man lets murderous instincts take over, to resist against the resurgence of evil ideologies and better understand the world around us.

As for Israel, its determination to fight for survival is of course enormously marked by the past and noone can nor should overlook it. That goes for Germans evidently, but many others as well. It's sometimes easy to shift all the blame on the German nation, and Germans have done their share of apology, we can't say that for some nations.

[[64]Lynx]

However, every human being has the sacred responsibility to guarantee a crime such as the Holocaust must never happen again, and the German people has it more than any other.

It happened, happens and will happen many times again until human beings live at this planet. You may like it or not but it's a part of our nature - killing each other because of something.

[muck]

True enough, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can to prevent another Holocaust from happening. And we're set on the right path. Our kind was overcome by the realization that murdering and pillaging isn't so much fun after all. There are still many wrongs in the world, but not as many as there used to be 100 or 1000 years ago.

[tea drinker]

- it's my firm belief that a patriot can't "claim" the good aspects of his nation's past and simply ignore the bad ones.

Why would any patriot claim anything he didn't have a hand act or part in. Great to be proud of your country, but it's achievements? Unless you took part you are benefitting from someone elses hard work.
Shoe on the other foot, allocating blame to all is crap, though I often felt ashamed when IRA did something stupid. I came to realize unless you have a part - it's not your issue or glory.
Same as this crap with the Irish banks, 64 billion of Irish citizens cash poured into them, though I feel no responsibility, I haven't been in debt since '97 , credit card cleared every month, no mortgage etc.
I suppose people should thank us for stopping the contagion to their banks, instead it's the usual abuse.

[[64]Lynx]

True enough, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can to prevent another Holocaust from happening. And we're set on the right path. Our kind was overcome by the realization that murdering and pillaging isn't so much fun after all. There are still many wrongs in the world, but not as many as there used to be 100 or 1000 years ago.

What had been done to prevent those massacres in Kongo and other neighboring countries in 1998-2003? According to Wikipedia articles about Congo wars, at least 3 millions died (3,8 - 7 mil). I hadn't noticed much pity and sorrow about those people. Yes, many say it way terrible, horrible etc. But then they moved along, just because all it happened far away in some African country.