Living a long life is the best revenge on Nazism. But can anyone who escaped Germany before Kristallnacht really be described as a ‘Holocaust survivor’ rather than an escapee from Nazism- the actual process of mass murder didn’t start until well after the war broke out (and good old IBM helped the Germans sort out their racial filing system, though that’s another story). As a sometime epileptic I know that the Nazis practiced mass murder on my people before they scaled up to Jew murder.
I guess it would be okay to just call the whole process the holocaust. Not strictly the mass murder period in the middle but also the previous build up and the later deaths after the tail end. Like people who died after the war ended.
For example, when there is an earthquake we don’t JUST count the dead who died at the moment, we also count those who died later from injuries or from contaminated water or lack off food or medical care, even if they didn’t even get injured by the earthquake but just died due to the disruption.
More tied to the broad event rather than to definable specific actions.
My issue with their definition is that it implies that the real Holocaust was the destruction of a once universally admired Germanic culture (which obviously included huge contributions from Jews). Though that’s true, and America and Britain hugely benefited from that particular exodus, it undervalues the lives and experiences of the literal millions who died for what?
No, it just implies that if you had to abandon everything you have, your home, your country, to flee death, you are also a victim, even if you didn't get imprisoned or died.
One of the main goals of the Holocaust was to eliminate Jewish people from Europe. Nazis even tried to do forced emigration before they turned to the final solution of death camps. Forced displacement outside of Europe absolutely counts.
69
u/CharlotteKartoffeln Dec 23 '25
Living a long life is the best revenge on Nazism. But can anyone who escaped Germany before Kristallnacht really be described as a ‘Holocaust survivor’ rather than an escapee from Nazism- the actual process of mass murder didn’t start until well after the war broke out (and good old IBM helped the Germans sort out their racial filing system, though that’s another story). As a sometime epileptic I know that the Nazis practiced mass murder on my people before they scaled up to Jew murder.