
Auschwitz Is Not a Metaphor - bryanrasmussen
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/auschwitz-not-long-ago-not-far-away/591082/
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nimrod3434
As a Polish person, the reason kids draw swastikas is precisely because of the
taboo and rustling jimmies. They are not anti-semitic and likely don't really
know anything about it.

These writers whose families weren't even directly affected by the war should
get over themselves.

~~~
foldr
>My husband’s grandfather once owned a bus company in Poland. Like my husband
and some of our children, he was a person who was good at fixing broken
things. He would watch professional mechanics repairing his buses, and then
never rehired them: He only needed to observe them once, and then he forever
knew what to do.

> Years after his death, my mother-in-law came across a photograph of her
> father with people she didn’t recognize: a woman and two little girls, about
> 7 and 9 years old. Her mother, also a survivor, reluctantly told her that
> these were her father’s original wife and children. When the Nazis came to
> her father’s town, they seized his bus company and executed his wife and
> daughters in front of him. Then they kept him alive to repair the buses.
> They had heard that he was good at fixing broken things.

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nimrod3434
Right, apologies for not catching that. The point still stands though, you
have to understand the context behind the usage before you attribute its
meaning.

Trolls/kids will always go for the taboo, regardless of their actual
beliefs... simply because they're taboos. Maybe if we stopped recoiling in
fear everytime some idiot draws a swastika they'd stop doing it.

Actually, that's exactly what will happen in something like 20 years. Ancient
history stops being taboo.

~~~
foldr
I can't really agree with that. Kids drawing swastikas in schools need to be
clearly told that they can't do that, and the reason why. Ignoring such
behavior is just going to normalize it and create an environment where anti-
Semitism can thrive. (And please don't act like there is no anti-Semitism in
Poland.)

~~~
nimrod3434
Maybe I'm giving people too much credit, and I'm sick of arguing about this
because, in my mind, seeing a bunch of swastikas isn't going to make me anti-
semitic.

I even sometimes find it funny (especially when people draw the arms wrong);
but maybe for others it really is just a way to spread their ugly hatred, and
that's not at all what I'm trying to defend.

I think the problem with this argument is that we're both actually right, but
only in certain situations.

~~~
foldr
I think you are missing the point. If you ignore people vandalizing things
with swastikas, then you enable anti-Semites. It doesn't make much difference
how anti-Semitic the people drawing the swastikas are. It's still creating a
hostile environment for Jewish people and emboldening people with extreme
views. And, yes, I think you are indeed giving people too much credit.

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Sojuwa
We need to step up the swastika false flags, even when outed no one believes
they're flase flags. It's beautiful, and super helpful to the cause of making
people realize just how real soft attacks on vulnerable peoples are.

