Sorry but I just can't let this one go. To recap, you denied my characterization of
Fred Schiefler--who told a classroom full of students that six months after the war ended "they were selling Jew soap, made of Jew's fat from the concentration camps; so tell me, who were the Germans?"--as a fraudulent bigot. You say that "From what I can see his sin is to have fallen for the folk myth that the Nazis turned Jews into soap. This story is a "genuine myth" in the sense that the rumour mill worked overtime in the war, to the point where many survivors of the camps believed quite genuinely that the Nazis had done just that. Unless Fred Schliefer is claiming to have seen the Nazis make soap out of Jews, which I don't believe he does, then he is simply repeating hearsay and myth."
Since this 'benign folk myth' explanation could apply to just about any form of bigotry, I make a comparison to the blood libel implying that if if the soap libel can be dismissed as nothing more than a folk myth then the blood libel can be dismissed as well. This was a bad move on my part for it offered Dr. Terry the opportunity to label the comparison a "false equivalency" and avoid telling us why the soap libel isn't bigotry.
TBH I object far more to your use of the term fraud, but actually I also object to bigotry, since Nazis != an ethnicity or religion.
Instead, Dr. Terry provides us with some of the characteristics of the soap libel: It was a legend in the ghetto. It was a folk myth from the get-go. It was a product of the wartime rumour mill. OK, but after the bogus Kadaververwertungsanstalt rumours from WWI had been exposed as a hoax, wouldn't people be more cautious about believing a suspiciously similar rumour this time around?
But anyway, Jews genuinely believed this "folk myth" and they took the myth with them when they emigrated from Europe following the war. OK, it's a false belief that is accepted as true by many members of the community. Aren't alot of stereotypes and prejudices false beliefs that are accepted as true by many members of the community?
The Jews who believed the soap libel didn't always bother to learn about what really happened. Their beliefs were "unmediated and unmediatable." OK, so these Jews remained ignorant and rigid in their thinking. So how is that different than any bigot?
But you called him a
fraudulent bigot. Someone who passes on myth as fact because they believe it might well be bigoted, but they cannot be a fraud if they are sincere, until they have been demonstrably corrected on the matter. As it stands there is simply no information on whether Fred Schliefer repeated this story in bad faith or whether he sincerely believed it. But the latter seems much more probable because there are many other cases of survivors repeating the story in all apparent sincerity.
These Jews were like old timers who sit around telling each other "fish stories." OK, so these Jews have a tendency toward exaggerating the truth about everything, including what happened to them during the war. That might be understandable if these Jews were actually old timers but you told us earlier that most survivors were actually quite young at liberation. They were in their twenties when they started telling these "fish stories" and they didn't reach old age until the 1990s. Doesn't this make them something more akin to liars?
No, it doesn't. It makes them no different to war veterans and other old folk who reminisce about their youths.
So we have a rumour that has no basis in fact.
But it has a definite origin, the RIF brand of soap, and a massive amplification
not only from within the ghettos,
but also from among the Polish population and even the Germans. There are reports of Poles jeering at Jews being deported and telling them they're off to be turned into soap.
It's spread around a community by people who believe it to be true. A similar rumour had circulated earlier and been proven to be false. It's believed to be true by alot of ignorant people who are too set in their ways to learn the truth. So far, you haven't told us anything that makes this rumour any different than any other negative stereotype believed by people we usually call bigots.
Indeedy, we
could call them bigots, but not because they believe in the soap myth. One would expect a certain proportion of Jewish survivors to come away so traumatised by their experiences that they would be ready to believe anything bad about the Germans, no matter whether they saw it themselves or not, precisely because of what they did see.
There's no shortage of evidence to indicate that many survivors and their descendants are deeply prejudiced against Germans, to the point of boycotting the country, boycotting German products, boycotting Wagner and other German culture, and hating Germans.
But there is no evidence suggesting all survivors are like that, just as there's no evidence suggesting that all survivors believe in the soap myth.
Nor is it really very honest to generalise from someone saying
the Nazis turned people into soap into proof of
anti-German bigotry.
I'm sure you can find a few examples where some survivors spoke about 'the Germans' and displayed anti-German bigotry while also believing in the soap myth. But they would be a subset of a subset, or an overlapping subset, and not necessarily representative of the whole.
This rumour involves the use of parts of dead bodies in the manufacture of a consumer product. This makes it a particularly depraved rumour. It makes it an unusually unbelievable rumour. It also makes it more similar to the blood libel than any other negative belief about a group of people.
But you tell us comparing soap to blood is a "false equivalency" and then launch into an attack on me for being so stupid as to try and make this "false equivalency." But you neglect to tell us WHY it is a false equivalency.
No, I told you why it's a false equivalency. You just refuse to understand that you offered up another trademark apples and oranges comparison.
Instead, you give us an analogy. I would have a point, you say, if we were talking about the blood libel being spread by word of mouth among midieval peasants because........Jews living in shtetls in the mid twentieth century were as sophisticated and as enlightened as medieval peasants? Or is it not bigotry when prejudices are spread word of mouth among a group of similar folks--like the soap libel was spread--as opposed to the blood libel which was spread via, what? Facebook and Twitter? What are you getting at here?
It's patently obvious what I was getting at, but evidently you're so uncomfortable giving up your analogy you want to cling on to it by misunderstanding the very obvious point.
Your explanation gets even more surreal and irrelevant when you introduce the qualifier: the blood libel would be understandable with medieval peasants if they spread it by word of mouth amongst themselves ONLY if it didn't result in any violence.
Since there's never been an instance of which you are aware where a German has been physically assaulted by a Jew or a Pole because of the soap story, the soap story is OK. So this is the litmus test of whether or not a particular form of bigotry is acceptable? Bigotry is OK as long as nobody gets hurt?!? Uh...OK. But since you cannot prove that a single Jew has ever been physically injured directly and exclusively by the blood libel, what's the problem with the blood libel?
You really think I cannot prove that Jews have not been physically injured because of the blood libel? Bwahahaha.
medieval pogroms in England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel#Middle_Ages
Renaissence witch-hunts against Jews on account of the blood libel (45 executions mentioned in just the Wiki entry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel#Renaissance
deaths under torture during the 1840 Damascus affair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_affair
49 killed in 1903 Kishinev pogrom, ignited by a blood libel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom
10 killed in 1910 blood libel prompted riot in Iran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiraz_blood_libel
40 killed in 1946 Kielce pogrom because of the blood libel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielce_pogrom
Yeah, I think apples and oranges about sums it up, really.
You end by telling us that the blood libel was resurrected in the late 19th century by deliberately calculating antisemites, without providing any proof that this is true.
Because this is well known. All you're doing here is exposing yourself to insta-rebuttal because the information is readily to hand, and widely discussed. I taught a third of a seminar this year on the blood libel. You really think I cannot point to evidence showing how it reemerged in central and eastern Europe at the end of the 19th Century when modern political antisemitism emerged?
Try reading up on the
Tiszaeszlar blood libel affair in 1880s Hungary, stirred up by antisemitic agitators who had just attended the first international antisemitic congress in Germany. Or the
Beilis case in Kiev in 1913, at which a notorious antisemite,
Pranaitis, testified as an "expert witness" on the Talmud and was shown up to be an ignoramus.
Himmler thought so much of the whole thing he ordered that a 1943 book by a toadying Nazi hack on the subject be distributed for free around the SS.
You say that it's resilience is rooted in the Bible without providing any proof that this is true.
It's rooted in the Bible because Christianity has portrayed the Jews as Christ killers from a very early stage. Religiously motivated anti-Judaism has been a powerful wellspring for antisemitism well into the modern age. The same can of course be said for interpretations of the Koran's position on Judaism, however much one might also find verses preaching otherwise.
You tell us the soap libel will eventually die out and by 2411, nobody will be talking about how the Nazis made soap out of Jews. (which is true but that's because long before 2411, mankind will see the holocaust the way we see the witch trials today).
Well here's the rub. Neither of us will be around in 2411, but we'll both probably be around in the near future, after the last Holocaust survivors have died. At which point future Dogzilla or his spawn will not be able to crow about how a Holocaust survivor spoke nonsense about soap, because they'll all be dead. And once they're all dead, the greater part of the Jewish soap myth will die with them.
So it's actually fairly certain that the soap myth will disappear over time, subsiding into a 'is this true? no' quiz question type of myth much like catching VD off toilet seats eventually disappeared as a myth, whereas Dogzilla's hated Holocaust will still be there in all the history books. Because neither Dogzilla nor his gurus have the wit or ability to revise history properly, as the facts are entirely against them.
You have named characteristics of the blood libel and the soap libel but you didn't say why one is bigotry and the other isn't.
I don't need to in order to demonstrate that you made a false equivalency. The blood libel has lasted for many centuries and has inspired numerous acts of direct violence. The soap myth is already expiring and hasn't inspired any violence. They are apples and oranges - both may be fruit in the sense that both are wrong, but one is not like the other.
The first time somebody hears any particular story that is prejudicial against another group of people is the first time they heard it. They don't have any historical perspective. What does it matter how long that particular story has been told for it to be acceptable or unacceptable to believe? What does it matter if the libel is believed by the entire community? What does it matter if the libel emerged from the exigencies of war? What does it matter if the lie was told by someone who didn't really believe it? Why is it a 'folk myth' that doesn't require any preconceived negative stereotypes if Jews believe it about Germans but it's unadulterated anti-semitism and hate if Germans believe it about Jews?
Again: the blood libel from its inception led directly to physical attacks, pogroms, riots, murders, arrests and trumped up charges confirmed under torture, and lasted centuries. The soap myth has inspired none of that. Even the man fingered as responsible for a quite genuine case of 'soap making', Professor Spanner of the Danzig Anatomy Institute, wasn't prosecuted after the war. Not one Nazi ever went to jail for 'soap', much less was executed. Not one German was ever attacked by a Jew because of 'soap', to anyone's knowledge.
And face it, whereas medieval and modern Jews have not murdered small gentile children to suck their blood, the Nazis most certainly did desecrate countless corpses by cremating them, in flagrant violation of the religious principles of Judaism and Catholicism. So it's little wonder that some Jews and some Poles have been prepared to believe that the Nazis might have also turned corpses into soap.
If you can't explain why one is hate and one isn't, try this instead. Give me an example of another common racial or ethnic stereotype that a person could believe without being labeled a bigot because the stereotype is a merely "folk myth."
I don't need to because you've rather missed the point, and don't seem to have understood why your analogy is a blatant false equivalency. You are so keen to rant on about the Jews that you naturally display zero comprehension for why certain myths might persist among some Jewish survivors. Frankly, you're not in a position to assess anyone's bigotry because you're so blind to your own.
I don't have a problem acknowledging that there is genuine anti-German bigotry among a number of Jews and among a number of other European nationalities. But I do have a problem with your constant attempts to conflate Nazis with all Germans and try to claim that attacks on the Nazis constitute "bigotry".
Or one that is OK because it was spread by word of mouth amongst one group of people. Or another one that is OK because people who believe it and repeat it as truth honestly believe it in their heart of hearts and are so rigid in their thinking that nothing can change their minds.
Neither. Try not to conflate the Nazis with all Germans, and try to come up with better comparisons next time. You are really lousy at argument by analogy.
