The Pianist - Were people really this spineless?

[QKRTHNU]

Just watched "The Pianist".

Pretty good movie. Scary movie.

I'm not sure how closely it holds to what really happened, but if it's at all close I can't believe what the Jews put up with.

I can't imagine something of that scale being pulled off in this country. Telling 300,000+ people that they have to relocate to one part of the city and them actually going along with that idea.

I think the part of the movie that disturbed me the most was after the small ghetto had been destroyed and the Pianist was working in a small labor group. They were lined up and several men picked out of line to be shot. They were told to lay on the ground while one by one they were shot in the back of the head. The last guy had to wait for the German soldier to reload.

Obviously that scene was Hollywood, but I'll bet similar situations happened.

I just can't comprehend how someone could just lay there knowing that you were going to be killed and not do anything.

I mean, if you're going to die for sure by doing nothing, than you have absolutely nothing to loose. I would much rather be shot in the face putting up a fight than in the back of the head.

That and the fact that anyone in their right mind would have left the country years before they actually started killing people, forced relocation would be enough to make me leave. I'll live in the woods eating bugs before someone forces me to live somewhere I don't want to.

I guess it was a really good movie, because it pissed me off on so many different levels. I was pissed at the Nazis for doing the things they did and I was pissed at the Jews for letting them.

 

[Joe Demko]

Until you have been there, you don't know what you would do. None of us do. Maybe you'd go down fighting. Maybe you wouldn't. History shows, with its long litany of massacres, that people going numb and losing the will to resist is far from uncommon. Happened in the past, happening today...all over the world.

 

[Pendragon]

I guess they just didn't have a strong enough desire to be free.

Hindsight = 20/20


Unlike you, they did not have the luxury of history and the internet to mull everything over from the very safe place behind the keyboard.

The Nazis took great pains to not let the Jews know exactly what was going to happen to them until it was too late.

Certainly if they started out saying "ok, everyone on the train, time to go to the death camp!" there would have been a revolt.

They were told they would be relocated and lied to. People clung to the hope that it was only temporary and things would get better.

As for people being executed - some probably did not resist because they were afraid that more people - maybe friends and family would be killed if they resisted.


I hope you are very young, because thats one of the few good excuses I can think of for insulting about 6 million people who were murdered.


There is more than enough crap going on in this country to justify some kind of uprising - at least people taking to the streets and demanding liberty "or else".

Yet what do we do? We write letters and wring our hands and hope for the best. Good people are loath to commit violence when a peaceful solution may be found - even to the point of significant suffering.

This is the worst thing about good people - our optimism and longsuffering enables tyrants.

I hope you will rethink your position.

 

[blades67]

You talk tough over the Internet. I doubt you'd sing the same song with a machinegun pointed at you by some one that hates you because of your religious beliefs. You weren't there, so get over yourself.

 

[Ladybug]

I guess they just didn't have a strong enough desire to be free.

You can't make that kind of judgement... as Golgo said, you were not there. Not only were you not there, you have no idea what it is like to live under a regime like that, to be in constant fear, and to be so completely oppressed. We would all like to think that if we lived in Nazi Germany, we would rise up and defeat the Nazis, that we would be the brave ones who fought back. Well, those statements coming from the freest bunch of people who ever walked the earth, who live in luxury and a completely different society, 75 years after the fact, are really nothing more than fantasies. It is good to say "I will never let this happen again." it is NOT okay to look back and make judgements about how people handled it back then.

 

[Don Gwinn]

They were. People still are.

 

[2nd Amendment]

Regardless of whether he was there or not he still has a point. Could you lay there knowing you will, absolutely, die and do nothing at all? I don't see that there's even a question of will or heroism there. I'd think simple terror would motivate a person to at least run, scream, curse, do anything. One last chance, the result being the same regardless. At least in trying there's always that possibility that something might happen, no matter how remote the chance.

Was I there? No. Would I have just given up? No. If nothing else I'd have been too damn scared to just lay there.

 

[QKRTHNU]

The Nazis took great pains to not let the Jews know exactly what was going to happen to them until it was too late.

I don't recall the exact timeframe the movie portrayed, but it was something like 2 years between them being rounded up and forced into the ghetto and when they started killing folks.

2 years!

Like I said at the end of my post. Anyone who values their freedom would have left the damn country or at least the urban area long before they were in mortal danger.

I hope you are very young, because thats one of the few good excuses I can think of for insulting about 6 million people who were murdered.

I am fairly young. But I don't see what that has to do with anything. I realize that many during that time were killed and couldn't have done anything about it. I feel very sorry for them. But the movie at least made it look like there were many people who played right into the Nazis hands and therefore contributed to their own demise.

They wouldn't had to have been valant warriors to survive.

 

[jmbg29]

Were people really this spineless?

[SIGH]Yes. Change the question to "Are people..." the answer is still yes.

Even in an ideal setting, little more than 25% of any population will be willing to fight.[/SIGH]

 

[Ol' Badger]

All that hatred for people with less skin on their dingy's. Sad.
But it would seem that the Jews have learned to stick up for themselfs at last. Looking back, they did it to everyone who hated them in the Bible. I wounder what made them belive the krauts? I just don't trust anyone who wants to wear all black and march around.

 

[Art Eatman]

Look around on a smaller scale: The number of people here in the U.S. who say, "Oh, THEY wouldn't do that!" when they read of some potential for abuse of police power--by the EPA or the USF&WS. Or similarly, when a robber says that if everybody cooperates there will be no harm--and then shoots everybody in the room.

Same on the passage of laws against drugs, and then some Nice Person discovers that somebody else's bit of drug or paraphernalia leads to confiscation of that innocent's property.

Heck, even the belief that passage of the Civil Rights laws wouldn't lead to reverse discrimination or quotas! "They wouldn't do that!"

People generally WANT to believe that cooperation averts harm. Or that "discussion" or "negotiation" will avert danger...

Art

 

[QKRTHNU]

As for people being executed - some probably did not resist because they were afraid that more people - maybe friends and family would be killed if they resisted.

This I can understand.

Hopefully if anything like this ever happens here I'll do my best and not to be in that situation to begin with.

 

[Ol' Badger]

jmbg29 is Right

Look at the <gag> French? Out of what 50 million people during WWII on 2,000 were Freedom Fighters! Hell, when the Dog Faces landed on the beach, then every French man was in the Resistance!

 

[Ladybug]

Anyone who values their freedom would have left the damn country or at least the urban area long before they were in mortal danger.

And go where? Imagine that you have no homeland other than where you currently are. You have no money, and you live in a society where you can't do anything unless you have political connections. Several of your relatives have vanished and you live in hope every day that you will see them again, or at least find out what happened to them. You are taking care of your elderly mother, who would not be able to survive if you tried to live in ditches and caves. You are told that you will be reunited with your missing family and given a new job that will allow you to work for your freedom so you can go wherever you want again. Your mother will be given a place to live where she will be taken care of. You are told this by a group of 10 men in uniform who are holding guns to your head. You are not armed. You have heard the stories - about your neighbor's husband who made some off-hand comment about Hitler and was shot in the head in front of his children. Do you go with the men on the off-chance that you may live another day, perhaps eventually gain your freedom? Or do you go into Matrix-mode and levitate into the air, knock the guns out of the ten men's hands, kung-fu them to death, grab your family and teleport to that magical country somewhere were people love Jews?

 

[cratz2]

I'm not sure how closely it holds to what really happened, but if it's at all close I can't believe what the Jews put up with. I guess they just didn't have a strong enough desire to be free.

You have no idea what they were putting up with... struggling to get by. Many tried to leave but how easy do you think it was? No doubt many stuck together thinking it was nobler to help your family, friends etc stay safe than to leave by yourself.

Imagine if right now in Arkansas they decide to 'contain' all Asians... all the borders are closed, any Asians are detained and rounded up on sight and if you resist... oh well... kill 'em.

It's easy to put up a poorly thought-out tough guy act in this post but then, from the wording of your post, you would have no doubt, found a way to sneak out yourself leaving your wife, three small children and your parents behind to fend for themselves. Way to go.

 

[QKRTHNU]

You are told that you will be reunited with your missing family and given a new job that will allow you to work for your freedom so you can go wherever you want again.

Working a job to earn freedom is not an option. I would tell them no thanks. Like I said, they should have left by then. It's best to avoid a bad situation to begin with.

And they wouldn't have to go to a magical county where people love Jews as you say. They would just have to go somewhere that they're not being told what they can and can't do because their Jews. Switzerland would have been a good choice, but certainly not the only one.

Fighting is never a good option.

I only mentioned fighting when faced with certain death.

 

[9mmepiphany]

you also have to remember a couple of other things:

1. where would they go? it is hard for many americans to understand the restrictions in travel that exist today thoughout europe...can they even comprehend what it was like in the 30's and 40's. remember that back then few people travel even 100 miles from their birthplace...and they had no homeland to return to.

2. the jews had a history of being treated as second class citizens...having been condemed by the church (13th century?), and resented by the nobles, for usury.

 

[chadintex]

My understanding of the situation was that communal pressure to go along and not endanger the rest of the population was pretty intense amongst the Jews. Religous elders believed that since Jews had been persecuted against since the beginning of time and survived, that this too would be survivable. A good book on this subject is Mila 18 by Leon Uris, I recommend it highly.

I don't know what I or other Americans would do in such a situation and pray we never have to find out.

 

[QKRTHNU]

1. where would they go? it is hard for many americans to understand the restrictions in travel that exist today thoughout europe...can they even comprehend what it was like in the 30's and 40's. remember that back then few people travel even 100 miles from their birthplace...and they had no homeland to return to.

Many Blacks made the journey on the underground-railroad to escape the south. Many with children & elderly.

Seeing as they traveled much further distances and stood out even more so than a white Jew would in Europe it's not implausible.

 

[moa]

You cannot fight without weapons. When the Warsaw ghetto went for several hundreds of thousands to about 60,000 is when the Jewish citizens determined they really had nothing left to lose. They got some weapons and some of them fought back.

The Polish citizens of Warsaw did the same thing the following year. In both cases the citizens lost because they were fighting a very tough and ruthless modern foreign military that had most of the advantages.

All in all, partisan forces in the East tied up a significant amount of German and their allies' military resouces for years.

 

[Sleeping Dog]

At about the same time, didn't we round up anyone who was Japanese or descended from Japanese and send them to concentration camps?

The treatment was much better here, obviously, but the death part may have surprised the folks moved to Dachau or some other camp.

Here, the Japanese-ish people could possibly have escaped to another country, but where would they go? Japan? Probably not, they were Americans.

It's possible that a lot of Jews thought that they were German, so their country wouldn't do any real harm to them.

Maybe they should have thought more "tactical".

Regards.

 

[9mmepiphany]

the blacks had a place to go..the north...where would the jews go? remember that the swiss were neutural, not friendly

 

[Correia]

I have to jump in on one thing here. We keep beating the horse about Not Knowing What You Would Do Because You Weren't There. Heck, I've brought it up before myself when I've heard how corageous some people are over the anonymous internet. (recent 44 minute LAPD thread).

However if you want to really know how you are going to react when you face a decision like that, don't wait until that moment. Make your decision now.

Are you willing to fight? Decide now, not when the Nazi is smashing your face in with a rifle butt.

Are you willing to shoot somebody? Decide now before the home invader is kicking your bedroom door in.

We teach the same things to our kids. Are you going to avoid drugs? Decide now, not when your buddy is offering you a hit at a party.

So I don't totally buy into the don't know what you are going to do because you weren't there argument. By that logic, are you going to be faithful to your wife, or are you going to cheat on her? If you answer, "don't know, ain't had the chance." then you are an idiot.

Odds are if you wait to decide how you are going to react until the moment is upon you, then you are screwed.

So tell yourself that you are going to fight. If you have a choice between dying and fighting. Take fighting.

 

[Ladybug]

Many Jews did try to flee, some successfully, most not. Even if they had the resources to flee (which most did not), and managed to escape the authorities, they still had problems finding a place to go. Even the United States turned away a boat of Jews, who then tried to go to Cuba, where they were also turned away. Eventually, they returned to Europe, where many of them died in death camps and detention centers. Telling the Nazis "no thank you" to the concentration camps probably would have meant your life would end that day as opposed to some later point. Switzerland closed its border to Jews and other refuges in 1942, when things were most desperate for the Jews. Please stop pretending that you are smarter and more "freedom-loving" than millions of people, and you somehow know what you would have done in their shoes.

 

[QKRTHNU]

Many Jews did try to flee, some successfully, most not.

At least they tried though.

I'm talking about those that didn't.