BtZ42 this section

[Monte Davis]

There certainly was some "post-war communist suppression of Jewish deaths"
in the USSR, although I'd call it "downplaying" rather than suppression.
And that certainly did have roots in (1) homegrown anti-Jewish prejudice in
Russia and much of Eastern Europe -- the "pale" and recurring pogroms back
to medieval times -- and (2) the USSR's ideological discomfort with any
ethnic/cultural identity that might compete with the nominal
internationalist "workers of the world," or the de facto dominance of the
Russian majority.

But to give the devil his due, you know from Snyder that the Nazis'
Generalplan Ost coolly envisioned for *after* their victory the systematic
death of >30 million in the USSR, and the deportation farther east of as
many or more -- not to mention the ~25 million civilians and soldiers they
actually killed in the course of the war.

I have to say that if, as a citizen of the USSR -- or just a Slav -- I'd
been part of that target population, the specifically Jewish aspect of the
Holocaust would not loom as large or seem as central to Nazi murderousness
as it does from the West.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost


On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 10:37 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Part of the reason for that, as Timothy Snyder mentions in Bloodlands and
> Black Earth was that much of that perception was made by the West. Those in
> Ukraine and Belorussia saw a different holocaust but that was mostly
> forgotten (until now), partly due to Stalin and past-war communist
> suppression of jewish deaths by Nazi Germany.
>
> Has anyone mentioned Wiesel's support for Netanyahu?
>
> rich
>
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 10:19 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>> I think Elie Wiesel’s writing gives a powerful sense of why the ovens
>> became the dominant language. Jews were killed in several ways: frequently
>> shot, machine gunned into mass graves, bayoneted,  starved, worked to
>> death, cold exposure, ‘scientific’ experiments , and after the mass killing
>> was already underway Jewish people were murdered via the inexpensive
>> unbloody efficiency of gas chambers. But the numbers killed required mass
>> disposal of bodies and cremation was the industrial solution. The fires are
>> what survivors remember most vividly.  It stank; It turned people into ash,
>> made them disappear without trace, or place.  It was the final step in a
>> methodical attempt at global genocide, the erasure of a people.
>> Another similarity in this chapter in GR to the events of the Holocaust
>> is the difference between Gottfried and Katje. Many Jewish people saw or
>> were warned about what was coming, many fled but many were in denial,
>> refusing to see what was happening and even cooperating with the
>> deportation of other Jews.
>>
>> At any rate, and by whatever mechanism or reason, the language of ovens
>> is so common that some who have not looked at the details of the  holocaust
>> think most  victims were burned alive. This did happen occasionally but was
>> uncommon.
>>
>> For Pynchon it also carries forward into the threat of  Nuclear fire
>> enabled by burning rocket fuel ( or bomber fuel), which is where the arc of
>> the story is going.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Jun 19, 2016, at 1:16 PM, Richard Romeo <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Why ovens became a metaphor for the Holocaust perplexes me since most
>> were already dead before they were placed in them (at least in the death
>> camps)
>> > Misappropriation of the word that became conventional wisdom over time
>> most likely
>> >
>> > rich
>> >
>> >
>> >> On Jun 19, 2016, at 7:07 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The Oven chapter. And GR is NOT about the Holocaust AT ALL? Don't
>> think that holds up.
>> >> How does the Hansel & Gretel Story work as depth metaphor and there
>> are other (is another)
>> >> Great Northern Myth at work.
>> >>
>> >> Why a threesome?
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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