Thursday, January 13, 2005

Prince Harry and the Holocaust

There is no doubt that Prince Harry's wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party was in bad taste, but it was also not the end of the world. What I find offensive is that mainly the Jews are objecting to it because of the Holocaust. Granted, six million Jews died in the Holocaust, but what about World War II? Almost 400,000 Brits died in World War II; what are they, chopped liver? Eleven million Soviets died in World War II, but I haven't seen anything reporting that Putin called Blair to object to Prince Harry's costume.

There were many decent German soldiers who wore the swastika, ranging from Army privates who had no choice, to decent generals like Rommel, some of whom plotted to kill Hitler. I find it offensive that the Jews who were victims of race hatred in Germany 6o years ago, have raised race hatred to a new level today.

I was never very interested in the Holocaust until I was assigned to Warsaw, Poland, during the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was all Holocaust, all the time. The Jews weren't the only ones who suffered during World War II, even in Auschwitz. Many Christian Poles died in Auschwitz, too.

You can even see the change in attitude here in America. I think one reason that we belatedly built a World War II memorial on the national mall in Washington, is that WW II veterans felt until recently that their work in winning the war would be all the memorial they would ever need. But I got a hint of the problem when I visited the Holocaust Memorial before I went to Poland, before it was even open to the public. Going through, I noticed several criticisms of President Roosevelt for being to slow or reluctant to act against the Holocaust. Roosevelt properly, was more concerned about the American troops fighting against the Nazis than about foreigners who were imprisoned in a foreign land. An earlier assault on the European continent might have cost many more thousands of American lives. But Jews make Roosevelt's concerns about American lives a bad thing. Sacrifices by American Christians in World War II count for nothing to Jews, who are only concerned about Jewish lives. So, Americans had to build a monument to help offset the Jewish attacks on WW II veterans. It's hard to find statistics, but I doubt that a very high percentage of Jews fought in World War II, compared the number of eligible Christians.

It's about the same today, with the war in Iraq. It turns out that Iraq had no WMD and was not a threat to the US, but it was a threat to Israel. So, who is the main beneficiary of the war in Iraq? Israel. Who is doing most of the fighting there? Anglo Christians. This is partly because some fundamentalist Christians believe that Israel is crucial to the Rapture or endtime, and therefore, they are willing to die for Israel. But I think this is a minority of those who have actually given their lives in Iraq.

The most offensive way to put this is: Bush and company are sending Christian soldiers to die in Iraq for Jew money. Just as in World War II, when many Jews managed to stay behind, or at least out of the front lines, and get rich from the War.

It also irks me that most surviving Jews who were in the Holocaust will get some kind of payment from Germany, from insurance companies, or from some other source. So, all this Jewish consciousness raising publicity about the Holocaust does have a financial payoff for Jews. Meanwhile, the Americans, mostly Christians, who were in the Bataan death march and who worked in Japanese labor camps, under conditions similar to the German labor camps, get nothing.

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