[WW] More atrocities

[Arne Reuter <reuter@tse-online.de>]

Hey there,

just to add some kindling to the flames ;-)...

As Alan pointed out, there were atrocities going on on all sides, with
perhaps the Russians being worst (and continuing to do so for 40+
years). That is apart from the Nazis, they set the heigth of the bar to jump
;-).

> When you analyze WWII enough - everybody has something better left behind.
> Germans - Holocaust
> Japanese - Bataan, Thailand-Burma Railroad
> English - Coventry, failure to keep promises post WW-II
> American - Incarceration of American citizens based on ethnicity
> France - Vichy
> China - bombing of own civilians to create sympathy
> And Russia - Well, to paraphrase my friend who is a scholar of Russia and 
> Stalin "The only difference between Hitler and Stalin was that Stalin spent 
> 20 more years to do the same thing."

But the idea of eugenics - i.e. eliminating elements of a society or
race who are deemed unfit for life is nothing news. Historically it
was practiced by the Spartans in ancient Greece. Babies with
deformities (too small?) were killed...

Back then democracy was a totally different animal I guess. It seems
only in modern times that we develop something like a social
conscience. Or - now it looks like we can afford it: In earlier times,
when survival was a daily chore, somebody who could not contribute to
the tribe, clan or state would possibly endanger the whole group.
Hence...

Another note on the experiments. Some demented medical doctors
(Mengele and others) conducted series of experiments on live
concentration camp prisoners. These were horrid and even more horrid
was the cool, rational and scientific manner, in which those were
documented.

Nonetheless the Allies were very eager to pick them up and I am told,
many facts are a basis of modern day-to-day medicine now. One example
of those is hypothermia. Focus of the study was to put people into
icebaths and find out at what body temperature what happened and what
would have to be done to revive them. Of course it did not work all
the time ...

Just as a precaution: I am not trying to defend anything here or give
my personal opinion, I am just hoping to stimulate some thought.

Regards,

Arne Reuter

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