"and did not announce it in the *secret* Wannsee Conference " should have
read "and did not announce it until the secret Wannsee Conference."

Sorry for my mistake.

Best wishes,

Ian Kluge
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Kluge" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: YIDDERY


> Jonathon Gill writes:
> >
> >but evidence of the possibility of the
> > systematic destruction of the European Jews was there for him to
> > disbelieve or ignore--it's right there in his own rhetoric!
> >
>
> From a strict historical point of view, there is no point prior to the
fall
> of 1941 where *anyone* could have produced evidence pointing to the
> systematic [physical] destruction of the Jewish population in Europe.
>
> As Christopher Browning among others has documented, Hitler himself did
not
> make that decision until the fall of 1941. (See Browning, "The Fateful
> Months") and did not announce it in the *secret* Wannsee Conference on
> January 20, 1942. It is unlikely that Pound knew of it.
>
> The severe, often brutal, restrictions on Jewish life in the Reich show
> callousness, hatred and utterly immoral disregard, but that is still not
the
> same as actively and systematically engaging in the slaughter of an entire
> population down to infants.
>
> The Nuremburg Laws (1935) and even the Wannsee Protocols (1942) show a
> certain ambivalence insofar as they make a surprising number of exceptions
> in regards, for example, to Jews married to Germans (my father was German)
> to first and second degree Mischlinge and the variety of circumstances in
> which these might or might not be arrested and deported.
>
> Why do people find it so difficult to understand that at the time, and
> despite horrible circumstances, the Holocaust was unimaginable to
virtually
> everyone.
>
> I have known dozens of survivors both in Europe and in Canada, and I have
> never heard even one claim that such a thing could have been foreseen, at
> least in civilized Europe. When I brought up the matter of the Armenians
and
> Turks, repsonses tended to be along the line of "Well, yes, one could
> believe such things about Turks, easterners out there ... Muslims ...
> barbarians ... but not Germans."
>
> We simply can't read our knowledge back into writings from that time; we
can
> only legitimize doing so with clear and unequivocal evidence.
>
> So far, I have seen no evidence presented here that would last more than a
> minute or two in a court. It's all so vague, and has to be filled up with
> retro-active knowledge to mean anything.
>
> If someone has some real, hard evidence, let him or her please present it.
>
> Otherwise, we must either settle on a verdict of "not guilty" for lack of
> substantial evidence, or, at most, the Scottish verdict of " Not proven".
>
> None of this makes Pound's anti-Semitism palatable.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Ian Kluge
>