----- Original Message ----- From: "Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLWPD/RZO/BOZO" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 5:37 AM Subject: RE: Scouted: Commentary: Why Europe Sides Against the Jews / time.com > > No, of course we did not give a damn. I guess that is why ordinary people > risked their lives fighting in the resistance -- because they did not give a > damn.
The point is that those people are the rare exception. >I guess that is why ordinary people risked their lives by hiding Jews > in their homes -- because they did not give a damn (ever heard of Anne > Frank?). That is one celebrated story. There were 150,000 Jews in the Netherlands before WWII. How many of these were protected? >I guess that is why so many farmers suddenly had so many "relatives > from the city" in their homes -- because we did not give a damn. How many? > I guess that is why so many ordinary people were tortured and murdered for fighting > in the resistance or for hiding Jews -- because they did not give a damn. The point is not that no one helped. Its that few helped. Denmark can be seen as the exception that proved the rule. They were able to protect about 90% of their Jewish population. What fraction were protected in France, Italy, the Neatherlands, etc.? What histories of the period have you read? Do you have sources besides common knowledge and high school history? High school history is not known to be all that reliable...and common knowledge is even less reliable. A _very_ good example of this is the common knowledge of the Civil War in the South. Even my wife's family, who fought for Civil Rights, still has a hard time accepting the real reasons for the Civil War, almost 150 years later. There are ways to get at the truth. Find documentation of the protection of Jews in the Netherlands. Show what steps were taken to protect them. Share them with the list. Original historical studies are a fascinating area of research. Obviously, we cannot expect you to do the actual field work. But, you can pick up books that quotes things at the level that Gautam shared with the list (i.e. letters home from common soldiers mentioning the Holocaust as evidence that it wasn't super secret.) That type of historical reading can be very enjoyable as well as educational. Dan M. > > Unlike the US, European countries did (and still do) not have the huge > amounts of money to spend on their military. When Germany invaded my > country, the Dutch military did fight back for several days. Do you know why > we surrendered? Because our forces were no match for the German forces. It > also did not help us that the Germans had the element of surprise on their > side. The comparison was not with the US, but with Poland.
