Re: [WW] More atrocities

[mock@springmail.com]

I think Arne has brought up an interesting point, that extends beyond the experiments conducted in concentration camps.  A lot of what we know about traumatic injuries comes from fairly brutal experiments on animals and, in many cases, people.  Also, America is far from blameless in the whole eugenics argument:  consider some of the forced sterilization of "feeble-minded" individuals that went on at the various asylums for the mentally impaired.  It's enough to make you ill.

Anyway, to tie this back into the game, when you talk about atrocities, you present some extremely tough choices for your players, and they can either make the campaign or adventure unforgettable (like capturing the human monster that ordered his troops to massacre prisoners), or they can be extremely upsetting (describing the aftermath of said massacre might leave your group with nightmares - and our imaginations often conjure up only feeble echoes of how bad it _really_ was).  That kind of stuff is very heavy, and many gamers may not want to take the game to that level.  

That's my two cents.  

-Mock

On Mon, 2 Jul 2001 08:15:17 +0200 Arne Reuter <reuter@tse-online.de> wrote:

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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