Andrea Junker Apr 14, 2025
Seems like a good day to remind everyone that Auschwitz โ€” a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps โ€” was not located in Nazi Germany either.
Show threadTom AndraszekApr 14, 2025

@Strandjunker - this is a bad take.

First, ICE is capable of running camps in the US, for example on military bases.

Second, Auschwitz and hundreds of other concentration camps and two death camps were located in Germany proper, the other in Greater Germany - see the map below. Auschwitz was part of Germany proper from 1939 to 1945.

Third, unlike El Salvador that has full control of the prison/camp on their territory, Polish government was in London and had no control over the camps.

Show threadel Celio ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆApr 15, 2025

@tom_andraszek @Strandjunker

I suppose, a good or bad take in a social media is measured by the amount of boosts rather than historical accuracy.

Show threadTom AndraszekApr 15, 2025
@elCelio @Strandjunker - I've seen this take used to shift blame for the Holocaust from Germany to Poland: "Germans would not allow it", "Poles wanted it", etc. Some recent surveys I think indicated that about half of Germans and half of Israelis believe that Poland was responsible for the Holocaust on par with Germany. This is not innocuous.
Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 15, 2025

@tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker ok sorry I'm an Israeli and that's inaccurate. People put the blame on Nazi Poland, not poles. Everyone knows poles were under occupation. Besides Nazis and cooperators, no one thinks it's the poles' fault, exactly as much as no one thinks it's *all* the germans' fault.

People blame the Nazis, dot. Polish Nazis, German Nazis. Poland was responsible for the Holocaust, yes, when it was Nazi Poland, not the government-in-exile, obviously.

Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐Ÿด

@tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker

But the point here is true, the worst prison, the worst human rights violation, is almost always outside of your territory.

"It could be a military base" that's literally what concentration and extermination camps *were*. People still realize at some point that you have trains entering, entering, entering, but not exiting, and at some point they'll forget their hate and only remember the humanity of the killed.

Apr 15, 2025 at 5:27amWeb
Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 15, 2025

@tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker

Hiding the extermination camps isn't the point. People knew they existed to some extent. But placing them outside of your territory allows your core population to live in denial, and keep supporting you, or at least, hating you less than the alternative your propaganda portrays.

The extermination camps were deliberately built outside of Germany. In concentration camps, there were trains exitingโ€”so it wasn't as big of a problem for the Nazis.

Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 15, 2025

@tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker iirc the Nazis also set up fake, empty trains to make it look like some Jews *are* leaving the extermination camps.

But I don't have sources, and I don't remember where I got this last bit of information from, so take it with a grain of salt.

(Edited to replace Germans with Nazis, in Hebrew we have a short word that means "of then", but it doesn't have an equivalent in English)

Show threadTom AndraszekApr 15, 2025
@lax - sorry mate, but there was no such thing as Nazi Poland. Do you mean General Government? It was an area administered by Hans Frank - a German. The official language was German. Polish Jews wore a star of David with the German word Jude. The public announcements were in German and Polish and the low level administration was Polish, like Judenrat - Jews were governing the ghettos, but it was the German SS that was giving orders. As to what Nazi Germany planned there, see Generalplan Ost.
Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 15, 2025

@tom_andraszek the Polish state government under Nazi rule. Poland is a nation-state, and thus, "Poland" is a country, a nation, a people, *and* a state. ืืจืฅ, ืื•ืžื”, ืขื, ื•ืžื“ื™ื ื”.

The fact that Nazi Poland's government was headed by a German does not change that it was Poland nor that it was Nazi.

I have no idea why you care so much about this: there were Polish Nazis, and they cooperated with the Nazi government. Just like there were German Nazis who cooperated with their Nazi government.

Show threadTom AndraszekApr 15, 2025

@lax - oh my gosh, no. Would a Polish government, Nazi or not, kill 10 Poles for every German killed by partisans? Kill over two million of non-Jewish Poles, including 90 thousand in Auschwitz? Hungary had a Nazi, or Nazi-aligned government, Slovakia, Norway, Vichy France, Bulgaria, Romania, not Poland, not Czechia - these were incorporated into Germany. Polish government escaped in Sept 1939. The pre-war territory of Poland was ruled by Germany and the Soviet Union.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Zamo%C5%9B%C4%87

Operation Zamoล›ฤ‡ - Wikipedia

Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 15, 2025

@tom_andraszek you're arguing about terms and ignoring what I say, again: "Poland" can also mean a country. Nazi Poland, Poland, the country, the *land*, during Nazi rule.

"Victorian England" wasn't a historical state. It's a time period + a country. Same for "Nazi Poland". God.

Show threadTom AndraszekApr 15, 2025

@lax - how can one blame the land for anything? The land as a geographical feature is just there. One cannot blame the Baltic Sea for the Holocaust. I'm not ignoring what you are saying. I don't understand you.

Poles were not in charge of running occupied Poland. It was not just Hans Frank, it was the whole German government. When the occupation started Germans killed thousands of Polish intelligentsia. They ruled through terror. "Nazi Poland" is an oxymoron for me.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion

Intelligenzaktion - Wikipedia

Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 16, 2025

@tom_andraszek this seriously does not feel like a constructive discussion.

I said no one blames the poles. You're just trying to find minor mistakes. In my argument. Even if my usage of the term "Nazi Poland" is wrong (which it is not), my point stands.

So please, let's end this.

Show threadel Celio ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆApr 15, 2025
@lax @tom_andraszek @Strandjunker
Dachau, Bergen Belsen, Buchenwald, Floessenburg, Mathausen, where in Germany, not in territories occupied in WW2.
Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 16, 2025
@elCelio @tom_andraszek @Strandjunker it's not an all or nothing situation. It's a the least the better one.
Show threadBilliglarperApr 15, 2025

@lax @tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker

I think part of the point was to hide the scale of the killings.

As you say, it was easier if people could just tell themselves that folks just "got deported to another country" or were "put to hard labour".

But another part of the truth is that even after WWII, most Germans didn't want to face reality or act on it. The first German Auschwitz trial was in 1963, and the prosecutor who pushed it faced A LOT of hate.

Show threadBilliglarperApr 15, 2025

@lax @tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker

I'm also not sure there's much point to debating the distinction.

- Yes, most of the larger extermination camps were moved to annexed countries.
- Yes, there were still large and numerous slave labor camps in Germany proper where people were worked to death
- A lot of smaller local places like Gestapo prisons had such a terrible rep with Germans that they were also known as concentration camps.

So yes, people did know. And not care enough.

Show threadBilliglarperApr 15, 2025

@lax @tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker

Personally, I'm glad that people are seeing the workings of a fascist state that starts designating part of the populations as "others" who can be mistreated at will. Including deportation to concentration camps.

Imho pointing out the parallels to KZs (and Gulags) is a very visual and therefore powerful tool to get peoply to actually worry about what is going on.

Show threadTom AndraszekApr 15, 2025
@billiglarper - there is a point debating the distinction if you are Polish. It's one of those, "shopping while black", or "walking at night as a woman" things. You don't notice the different behaviour of others if you are not part of the target group. There are many people who think the camps were Polish and run by Poles, and Poland (the country) is responsible for the Holocaust, and unlike Germans who acknowledged their guilt, Poles didn't, so we like modern Germans, but we still hate Poles.
Show threadBilliglarperApr 15, 2025

@tom_andraszek

I'm sorry that it's your experience that some people take the term "Polish death camps" literal and blame Poles for the holocaust. (Not my experience in Germany and so far on Mastodon, though. Not surprised either.)

I also think your interjection that camps don't have to be "away from home" was a good point well illustrated by the map.

But no, I don't see Poles and Poland being the target group or topic in this thread. Nor did anybody in this thread shift blame onto Poles.

Show threadTom AndraszekApr 16, 2025

@billiglarper - "But no, I don't see Poles and Poland being the target group or topic in this thread. Nor did anybody in this thread shift blame onto Poles." - see the two screenshots, from this thread.

From the Auschwitz wiki:
The first mass transport of 728 Polish male political prisoners, including Catholic priests and Jewsโ€”arrived on 14 June 1940 [...] By the end of 1940, the SS had confiscated land around the camp to create a 40-square-kilometer zone patrolled by the SS...

Show threadืœึธืงืก (ืœื ืœื•ืชื•ืจ) ู„ุงูƒุณ๐ŸดApr 16, 2025
@billiglarper @tom_andraszek @elCelio @Strandjunker I don't see how these two contradict?
Show threadBilliglarperApr 16, 2025

@lax

I don't think they contradict.

It was intended more as a warning. While totalitarian states might try to hide the scale and make it easier for people to lie to themselves, they might not have needed to bother. There are lots of examples of uncontested in-country concentration camps in history.

But even this is no certainty. History in the making is a very dynamic process. There's examples where totalitarian states got away with something, and other where they didn't.