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butteryflame t1_j5rfwa6 wrote

Reply to comment by Mjbishop327 in A firefighter's 1943 photos of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising have been found by Geek-Haven888

They held out longer than some German invaded countries. Really impressive

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HoneyInBlackCoffee t1_j5tf1i3 wrote

In 1943 Germany had other issues. Easier to wait them out anyway.

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KamtzaBarKamtza t1_j5thvfd wrote

Throughout the entire war they had "other issues" yet still saw fit to divert resources to annihilate Jews. Because one of the central aims of the German war was the extermination of the Jews

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HoneyInBlackCoffee t1_j5tsiyz wrote

Res to invade the soviet Union are different to Res used to quell uprisings. The guys in Warsaw would have been there anyway

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throwaway97909790 t1_j5u3dyi wrote

300 German soldiers were killed. Not exactly 'waiting them out.'

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raktoe t1_j5u6tiy wrote

That’s the number of resistance fighters that were killed. The German casualty number is 110, with 17 killed, 93 wounded officially, although there is a decent chance it is higher.

I don’t know how to check, but if the majority of their casualties came in the initial ambush, it’s still plausible they waited them out after that.

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CopprRegendt t1_j5vsrlr wrote

No, at the end of the war Germany started to "liquidize" their Jewish prisoners. Meaning kill everyone. At some camps and ghettos, they were killing 10-15,000 people a day.

They weren't even using gas anymore, they'd >!march them to massive graves in the woods and just shoot them with a single bullet. If they weren't dead, they'd still fall into the pit and die by suffocation as the next rounds of prisoners fell on top of them.!<

The parts I put behind a spoiler are nsfl

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throwaway97909790 t1_j5u36jk wrote

Mila 18 by Herman Wouk is great historical fiction about the uprising.

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ThisMustBeFakeMine t1_j5uof8x wrote

I went to look it up, as it sounds like something I'd like to read. Could it be by Leon Uris? I didn't see a Herman Wouk version...

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ActEnvironmental3538 t1_j5vgx60 wrote

It is Leon Uris, I have it on the shelf and it is as good as mentioned.

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Cerebral-Parsley t1_j5vwxf3 wrote

I just read From the Ashes of Sobibor by Thomas Blatt about the Sobibor death camp revolt. A good read as well.

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Cerebral-Parsley t1_j5vwzzs wrote

I just read From the Ashes of Sobibor by Thomas Blatt about the Sobibor death camp revolt. A good read as well.

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ThisMustBeFakeMine t1_j5vyf60 wrote

I'm a total history junkie, and I'm fascinated by any and everything about WWII.
Thank you so much for the recommendation!

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Cerebral-Parsley t1_j5w0z73 wrote

Yeah Sobibor and the other extermination camps (Belzec and Treblinka) aren't really talked about in main stream Holocaust history. It's where they just straight up unloaded them off the trains and straight into the gas chambers. Then the camps were torn up and hidden before the war ended. They were fairly unknown for many years. At the end the prisoner laborers revolted at Sobibor and Treblinka and some escaped. The wikis on them are a fascinating read.

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Cerebral-Parsley t1_j5w1gmb wrote

If you love WW2 you have to read Catch 22 as well it's my all time favorite book.

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throwaway97909790 t1_j5za0mg wrote

It is Leon Uris. My bad. I tend to get them mixed up. I listened to it on audible and it was great.

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[deleted] t1_j5saapj wrote

[removed]

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justyourbarber t1_j5sf9dm wrote

Hey France held out for a month and a half, thank you very much

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YakuzaMachine t1_j5sgldu wrote

History shows they did the right thing. Saved a ton of lives and put up strategic resistance that was essential. I also don't care for France but not because of ww2.

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lenin1991 t1_j5si9f5 wrote

> History shows they did the right thing.

Active mass collaboration with genocide is not the right thing.

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[deleted] t1_j5sihtf wrote

[deleted]

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Picticious t1_j5sn1fe wrote

Well, they may not have wanted to, but they sure participated.

Around 80% of the Jews arrested and sent to their deaths in France weren’t arrested by Germans, they were arrested by the French.

But ask any French person and they were all la resistance.

Pfft.

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frenchchevalierblanc t1_j5src8d wrote

75% of jews in France survived though, including 70,000 hidden children.

It's true that France before 1943 was still struggling to act as if the French Police (essentially in the northern part of France officially "occupied" area where Vichy didn't have much control) was still in control, so they were responsible to arrest jews (they literally asked for it to the germans). There was no really way to know what would become of them though, jews didn't really know either. Quota asked by the germans were never fulfilled though. Lots of french policemen could help some families still pretending to arrest, some policemen just did as asked. Even in places like the Vel d'Hiv were jews where regrouped some people just "walk away" while policemen were looking the other way.

Things like "also arresting the children" was seen as they would go to work camps with families, people thought that if you keep families together with children it would mean they wouldn't kill everyone, why bother? That's all those subtle decisions and the dilution of responsibilities that makes things like shoah possible in the end.

Some people though understood exactly what the horror mean and did everything they can to hide / go out of camps.

1 million french soldiers were emprisonned in Germany and the germans used them as bargaining chips.

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Picticious t1_j5srqeb wrote

That’s 72,000 Jews still murdered.

72,000 people, were rounded up and slaughtered like pigs.

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frenchchevalierblanc t1_j5ssqyc wrote

yes no one is denying that but the dilution of responsibilies make things happen it's not that french policemen went and killed everyone, they were sent to camps in Germany as far as they knew (after 1943 Germans were in charge for everything )

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scolfin t1_j5t4sew wrote

75% escaped, and it's interesting that you present the non-Jewish Frenchmen as more French and important.

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grixit t1_j5sknnc wrote

According to one source i read, Vichy actually saved a lot of jews by losing them in the bureaucracy. "Honest, Herr Kommisar, we put them on a train to Berlin, i just can't seem to find the paperwork at the moment".

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ATNinja t1_j5snfan wrote

Without any data on either side; that sounds like revisionist history to make France seem less complicit.

If there's a prevailing sentiment for many years and then you start seeing "maybe surrendering so quickly was smart" "maybe the Vichy were undermining the nazis from within" just seems like changing the narrative. Like what we started seeing with the confederates 60 years after the Civil War.

Even if some Vichy officials helped some jews escape, i bet they still harmed many more jews than they helped.

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frenchchevalierblanc t1_j5sr7yb wrote

70,000 children from jewish families were hidden by french people, you can imagine how many people needs to be kept in secret and not tell anything to the authorities.

There were 350,000 jewish people on French territory in 1940, 100,000 of them were "foreign" jews that were not born French. France deported 75,000 of them (2,000 survived), mostly "foreign jews".

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Picticious t1_j5srytu wrote

Sweden, Denmark and Albania managed to save their Jews.

Your numbers sound good like this but they don’t account for the 72,000 rounded up and slaughtered.

Shall we talk about the political prisoners now? Resistance fighters that were murdered?

I wouldn’t care as much if France didn’t try and whitewash what they were involved with.

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frenchchevalierblanc t1_j5ssoxk wrote

French didn't slaughtered those jews though nor asked to.

Vichy France was a racist dictatorial regime, that became a fascist one after 1943, people were bad.

France doesn't try to whitewash anything, French student learn everything about the collaboration, what Vichy France did, etc.. the horror in colonies, the racist state there, the racist state of Vichy.

No problem talking about resistance fighters murdered or political prisoners.

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LogicalConstant t1_j5z2z0d wrote

It seems like you're lumping all the French people together as a big collective. Some individuals were good and hid jews while some helped murder them. Politicians, police, and citizens each played different parts. Hard to discuss it intelligently without specifying who you're talking about.

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scolfin t1_j5t46vm wrote

Intentionally? I've similarly heard that Austrian incompetence saved a lot of Jews.

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frenchchevalierblanc t1_j5sqwvf wrote

It was not Vichy as a whole but more people working in the administration etc..

Pétain didn't care about jews, he just not want to be seen deporting french people. So foreign jews were given without a blink from Pétain.

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IdesOfMarchCometh t1_j5sqo3i wrote

Poles didn't surrender. It was a lost cause and many died but the next invader will know it won't be easy.

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Picticious t1_j5srfcf wrote

Numerous witness accounts of the poles hunting down Jews for the Germans though, even polish people who hid Jews never revealed it because they didn’t want the wrath from their own countrymen.

No one could go against the Germans!

Albania and Denmark and Sweden showed it could be done.

Interestingly Albania was the only European country to have more jews at the end of the war than when it began, how amazing is that!

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Breadloafs t1_j5sq18f wrote

>did the right thing

some French people did the right thing. France turned over more Jews per capita than Germany ever did. The overwhelming majority of the French police, military, and government took to the Vichy regime without much complaint.

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frenchchevalierblanc t1_j5ss0ty wrote

75% of jews on french territory survived

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scolfin t1_j5t4j9f wrote

Which conveniently takes credit for Algerian resistance.

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frenchchevalierblanc t1_j5t4v05 wrote

I'm not sure what you mean.

75% of jews in French territory (metropolitan france occupied by Germany), excluding the one in north african territory or colonies

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Zingzing_Jr t1_j5thr0b wrote

But Algeria was considered to be part of the Metropolitan at the time.

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Morbusgametheory t1_j5svnz6 wrote

And many French Generals thought Germany couldn't get past the Minot Line and didn't anticipate Big Bertha.

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xcomcmdr t1_j5vvur2 wrote

Actually that's not true at all. The Maginot line was designed to slow down the Germans long enough for mass conscription to take place.

It was a very formidable defense line, and the reason why the Germans opted for the Ardennes route instead. It did serve its purpose, and brave souls sacrified themselves in there. Their sacrifice was not in vain. What they did was not stupid.

They had a job to do. They held the line.

Germany had an overwhelming population advantage compared to France, and the French Republic reacted accordingly.

The Maginot line never was about stopping anything. The generals were not idiots.

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Morbusgametheory t1_j5w83cn wrote

You're right they didn't build fortifications in the North because they didn't think the Reich couldn't get through as quick as they did, they also weren't expecting a big rail gun to be made and used against them.

Also the Minot Line wasn't staffed appropriately at the time, and I never called them idiots, over confident is the preferred inference.

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Pepsi-Min t1_j5syd8v wrote

>I also don't care for France but not because of ww2.

British people be like

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