Slavery! Holocaust! What do you think are the horrible things we are doing right now that would shock our future generations?
Slavery is the biggest stain on the history of humankind. It is really hard to believe that humans would treat other humans like animals. Similarly, Holocaust should have never happened, it is if not the most then one of the evilest things humans have ever done to other humans. At that time, these were totally legal practices and it took humans hundreds of years to realize how horrible these practices were. What do you think are the horrible things we are doing right now that would shock our future generations?
Let’s try to understand how normal Slavery would have felt in that time
Slavery would look absolutely crazy and evil in today’s times but remember, it was legal to own slaves for over 600 years anywhere on Earth from India to the USA to England even Africa. Slavery was one of the biggest money-making industries for the majority of the world’s empire.
Now imagine the USA in the 1800s and imagine yourself as a normal white citizen of this newly formed and ironically called “free” country. Everyone is talking about the founding father, George Washington. Washington is a very good man, he is always in newspapers and is fighting selflessly, without any pay for his work and working really hard for his country. He is fighting for your freedom, for your rights. He is a true patriot for his citizens and one of the principal factors in making America a free country.
Everyone in the US at that time knew that George Washington owns over “300” slaves. But how many citizens would even remotely realize that slavery is actually wrong when it’s legal and supported by the government? Citizens would pay taxes on the sale of slaves and slaves can be exchanged, auctioned, rented etc. If you don’t pay taxes then you can be prosecuted by law and might even lose your slaves. In that case, the government can auction the slaves to cover losses.
Even the president owns slaves. It was absolutely fine to show-off how many slaves you had.
Hating Jews Was A Patriotic Thing
In the Holocaust, over 6 million Jews were murdered. The gas chambers worked on an industry level scale, where every part of the process was optimized over and over again. Concentration camps were run by thousands of soldiers from the Third Reich. It comprises engineers, doctors, mechanics, scientists, and soldiers can request to serve at one of these camps instead of fighting on the front lines.
These officials lived here with their families. There is one insane picture that I can never take out of my mind. Have a close look at the below picture, this looks like any other normal picnic day.
These are the wives of SS officers enjoying their blueberries. The below picture was taken on July 22, 1944, at the exact same time a train just arrived at the Auschwitz camp not too far from where this picture was taken. Over half of the 1000 people who arrived in that train were immediately gassed and burned. The camp was liberated the next day by Soviet Armies.
Holocaust was part of the “Final Solution”, the brainchild of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler never did anything illegal to become the supreme leader of his country. He was elected by popular vote. He spoke at events, he campaigned, he ran for election and he won. He didn’t overthrow some government or use force. And Hitler was insanely loved and famous in his country.
His party passed bills in parliament which sanctioned the creations of Ghettos for Jews. This was happening in front of everybody.
Now imagine being a Christian German and you voted for Hitler as he promised that he will bring glory back to Germany. Hitler is delivering on his promise and has started a war with various neighboring countries. He is extremely successful in his war campaigns. Germany’s border now has expanded to France and soon will occupy Spain as well.
Hitler now appeals to the people of Germany that all Jews want to destroy his dream of making Germany the greatest country in the world. What would you think as a patriotic German?
We must add that not all Germans were Nazi or hated Jews. Also, not every American was racist in the 1800s.
There are countless such examples in the history of mankind where people just didn’t realize what they were doing was insanely horrible. I wonder what horrible things we are doing right now that would shock our future generations.
Originally published at dailyjag.com on March 11, 2019.