"machines as instruments for good or evil"

[Doug Millison]

"Machines have no national allegiances and no moral code. They become
powerful instruments for good or evil in the hands of human beings controlling
them."

That's the very Pynchonian lead sentence of the article, "Counted for 
Persecution;
IBM's Role in the Holocaust" by Merry Madway Eisenstadt, published in
Washington Jewish Week (hardly an organ of "yellow journalism"; the 
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is likewise a reputable institution ) 
on September 17, 1998, on the Web at 
http://hometown.aol.com/merryeee/ibmstory.htm

Here's the rest of the intro to an article that's worth reading:

"During the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation 
of European
Jewry between 1933 and 1945 in the Holocaust, statistics and technology were
key tools used by Nazi Germany in its industrialized mass murder of six million
Jews.  The forerunner to the modern computer, the Hollerith machine - 
manufactured by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and 
its foreign subsidiaries,
including IBM in Germany - was used by German government statistical offices to
track Jewish population centers and geographic locations of others deemed
undesirable. Within at least four concentration camps, Hollerith 
departments registered the arrival of inmates, the transfer of 
laborers between camps, and the deaths of prisoners. In the 53 years 
since the end of World War II, IBM Corporation, headquartered in New 
York state, has never fully clarified confusion surrounding its 
relationship with its German subsidiary, or the nature of technical 
advice and service provided by the German firm to the Nazi state. "

of the Holocaust Museum exhibit that apparently inspired the author 
of the recent book, this article says (in Part 2 at 
http://hometown.aol.com/merryeee/ibmstory2.htm ):

"Observes former museum historian Luebke, now at the University of Oregon, "The
point of that exhibit has been predictably misunderstood as an 
accusation thrown
at IBM, as if to say, 'Bad, bad IBM, you were complicit in the 
Holocaust.' But what
the exhibit is about is the degree to which the Nazi state availed itself of
up-to-date technology to classify its citizenry according to the 
racial categories of
the state. "Were they complicit? Sure," Luebke says. "What does it 
mean? That is harder to say." Noting that at least a half- dozen 
other American multinational companies maintained operations in enemy 
countries, although profits remained blocked during the war, he says, 
"It is harder to point the finger at IBM as compared to companies 
producing armaments for warfare and profiting from slave labor."

...which is where GR can be seen to name names and hold multinational 
corporations accountable for enabling the War (with all its careful 
tracing out of links between companies on this side of the conflict 
and companies that were part of the Nazi war machine),  and the 
Holocaust with its explicit depiction of the slave laborers who were 
victims of the German rocket program at the Dora camp.

also from http://hometown.aol.com/merryeee/ibmstory2.htm :

"And before the war, in 1937, when Jews and dissidents were already being
oppressed (concentration camps existed as early as 1933), IBM Corp. President
Thomas J. Watson Sr., then president of the International Chamber of Commerce,
accepted the Merit-Cross With Star from Chancellor Adolf Hitler, 
"honoring foreign
nationals who have made themselves deserving of the German Reich." To protect
overseas investments, Watson had been actively campaigning for World Peace
Through World Trade.  While in Berlin for the occasion, Watson met 
with Hitler and reported to the press afterward that Hitler 
personally assured him that "there will be no war. No country wants 
war; no country can afford it. Certainly that is true of Germany." 
Watson also said he was "impressed with the simplicity and sincerity 
of [Hitler's] expression."  "It indicates a sentiment that was 
noncritical of what was going on in Nazi Germany," Milton says of 
Watson's award from Hitler. "It indicates a willingness to overlook 
certain problems. Your willingness to accept this [award] already 
tells you something very compromising about the thought process in 
corporate ideology."

[...]
"IBM didn't merely drop off a few card punches, sorters and printers to a
customer and let him figure out how to use them effectively," 
maintains IBM critic
Richard Thomas DeLamarter, describing general IBM corporate practices
throughout its history in his book, Big Blue: IBM's Abuse of Power. "Rather, it
became intimately involved in the customer's business a virtual partner in that
business."

[...]
"Viewed in the context of the horrific suffering of the Holocaust, it 
might seem that
statistics and tabulation technology are mere footnotes in the anguished saga.
But the story of tabulation technology's uses in the Holocaust, and 
its suspected
use in the rounding up and detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II,
is important, argues Milton.

"Unless we begin to understand how technology influences society, 
we're going to
be in a lot of trouble in the future," she says, noting the potential 
for misuse of
personal data on health history, genetically determined health risks, and other
confidential information.

"You can have a census, but you have to guarantee the sanctity and secrecy of
the material, that the data cannot be used irresponsibly or for 
commercial profit
or for the invasion of personal privacy," she said. Her views are echoed by
Fordham University's Seltzer, whose research shows an increased risk 
of genocide
in countries with advanced population registration systems.

"Do we, as statisticians and demographers, have a special responsibility to
encourage the development of technological, as well as legal, 
safeguards against
abuse?" he writes. "I would answer this question in the affirmative."

"But we must first overcome the half century of near silence on the 
role played by
population statistics, statistical and related data systems, and 
statisticians and
demographers during the Holocaust. Current protective policies and official
statistics have both been ill-served by this silence, whatever its source or
motivation."

-- 
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