Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

MODS: Delete this if you find it to be inappropriate, but I was interested in seeing what some viewpoints of this were:

"While on a tour of the museum at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland on Sunday, a group of around 50 Jewish university students from Israel, the U.S. and Poland were verbally attacked by a three-member gang of French male tourists. " Read More

That is perhaps one of the most disgusting, despicable things to do to ANY persecuted race. I'm just thinking as to how any sensible person could've done this.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

That is pretty terrible, but strangely enough, some other things caught my eye in your post.

Why should this thread be deleted and not any other aribtrary chit-chat thread? Can we not discuss anything unpleasant here?

And, as a Jew, I think it is probably a bad idea to refer to Jews as a "persecuted race". Most (all?) races have been persecuted at one time or another, and even if Jews have had it particularly worse (I'd say so), there is no need to make it sound like this statement is specific to a certain set of people. It applies to any group that has had some tragedy befall it.

Anyway, the recent surge in anti-semitism in France is really apalling. Europe tends to take a position of morale higher ground in many arguments with the US (Kyoto Protocol, Iraq, Israel, etc) and this really makes them look like a bunch of hypocrites...

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

The article says that one of the Jewish students could understand and speak French. The student said that the man said things that were "brutish and vulgar," but that also "made absolutely no sense."

Why would someone talk in their native language and make absolutely no sense? Either these French men were mentally unstable or perhaps they had a little too much alcohol to drink. Either one, they probably didn't undertand the impact they were going to make when they did it and probably just did it because they thought it was amusing at the time.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

I don't want to turn this into an essay, but let's not get ahead of ourselves; European policy tends to hold a religiously detached stance in many areas. This "hypocritical" behaviour is the result of a few people and for the most part, not of the governments. We should also note that moral high ground is a relative thing. Take Bush's stance on stem cell research (a very conservative allowance) for example. While most nonreligious people would agree that research is a neccessary step, it's certainly not a moral stance. Of course, the Kyoto Protocol is only partially helpful, and isn't an environmental policy that directly helps urbanites, and also France's position on Iraq probably has a lot to do with TotalFinalElf.

In other words, the Europe generalizations you're making are pretty unwarranted, I would say.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

i hope no one takes this as all french people think this way. i am a jew, and im not nessesaraly mad at those people, just i feel they need to be educated.(Maybe thats why they were there) they obviously didnt get much from it. But we shouldn't look at france now in disgust, rather look at those two guys as ignorant. and other countries shouldnt look at america as a land of hate just because of some people that makes fun of other countries, not every one is like that here.

So now that i have made no sense, thats what i think.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

No, I honestly think you make perfect sense. Just because two people from one country have a certain belief does not mean the whole country acts in that manner and thinks like that. I completely agree with you.
As for my opinion on this article, I think it's disgusting how these men behaved. I've studied the Holocaust for a couple of years now, and I'm partly Jewish (only on my father's side..long story), so I find this completely offensive and inappropriate. Either those men came to find Jews to verbally, possibly physically, attack, or they decided to have some fun with random people that came by, as Mike said.
All in all, I am purely disgusted.
--Dori

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

i normally don't talk in the chit chat but this tread caught my attention as it hits me close to home. in 2000 i was fortunate to go on a trip called the march of the living which is a 2 week trip through Poland visiting concentration camps. i am Jewish and this experience was like none other in my whole life. now to the point. when we were at Majdanek my group experienced a similar act of hatred, we had a group of neo-nazi skin heads march on our group harassing us calling us pigs and dirty jews , screaming white power. it was one of the most intense moments in my entire life. I say moments because we has armed security with us and it was all over in less then a min. but the thing that came out of the experience to me was probably more exposure to the fact that there is still a large portion of the world who still feels that Hitler was right and still strives to compete his work. The whole purpose of this trip was education so that we would be able to share what we saw and become new survivors, making sure that people know the truth about what happened. I guess what i am trying to say is that even as terrible as this situation sounds it will probably one of the most important moments of their trip in the long run.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

I dont even know where to start for my reply to this thread. Honestly all i can say is that reading this news story makes me sad and at the same time makes me all the more convicted to several causes that I've been active in.
Racism is something that lives in all of us weither or not we want to admit it or not. Its something that everyone must work within themselves to end. Its a horrible plauge that man kind has been dealing with ever since the beginning of time. Education is the only cure for it, ignorance is the main cause of it. Not that i am saying that all racists are ignorant, infact the truth is that most are far from it.
I disagree with what Greg said however about a large portion of the world still thinking that Hitler was right. I feel that only a small portion of the world agrees with Hitler, the majority of the people in the world see he was a fanatical madman, who really only cared about himself.
I could go on and on about this subject...but instead i'll post some links for you guys.
http://www.positiveyouthfoundation.org - Positive Youth Foundation, Great Group.
http://aralaf.mahost.org/ - The Anti-Racist Action Chapter in my Town
http://www.adl.org/ - Anti Defimation League
http://www.splcenter.org/ - Souther Poverty Law Center
http://www.aranet.org/ - Anti-Racist Action Website
Like i said education is the only way to battle back against racism, so check some of those links out and educate yourself:)

"Be Young, Have Fun, Fight Racism" - One of the ARA slogans.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

Yeah, I kind of realized that I was half trolling in that last comment in my post. Not to say I don't believe what I said, but it's kind of stupid of me to make such a far-reaching statement and only touch on so little evidence.

I don't really understand the distinction between a country's actions and an individual's actions that people often bring up. I think we can relatively safely say that the French government's actions are the result of the people's wishes. So, when does something start to reflect on a country? When its voted into law? When a majority of the population believes it? Regardless, here is some data on anti-semitism in France: http://haganah.us/hmedia/euasr-12.html (it's on a Jewish website, but most of the data is gathered from neutral sources. Why woud Jews want to pick out some country, anyway?)

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

Fair enough.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

Wasn't it France that asked Muslim girls to remove their headscraves during school? I have to say that this is pretty extreme and would never happen in the United States.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

It is, but note it's just a different kind of secularism. Whereas in North America we tend to try to be inclusive of religious ritual, garb, etc., in France and Germany, the idea is to make everyone equal and show no sign of religion. A large cross medallion is also prohibited, supposedly.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

One would think so based off of our constitution. But...
A quick google search for "Tinker Vs. Des Moines School District" or "Freedom of Speech in school" will show you that its not true. I know that I was harassed by teachers/administrators for wearing things that although weren't neccasarily of religious nature but rather of a political nature in school.
Often times it is sighted that anything they dont like 'disturbs' the class and they ban it.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

Just as an experiment, someone might want to try taking a normal black T-shirt, and painting on it (in red) some sort of non-mainstream slogan...say (for argument's sake) "GO SATAN GO"*. Then walking into a typical American school, and counting with a stopwatch the number of seconds it takes for someone to accost you, and haul you to the office for summary punishment.

Other than the moral implications (which are obviously subjective, and religiously motivated), why is this different from wearing a "WWJD" shirt, or a turban, or a hijab?

*If easily offended, consider that Satan is a member of the Buffalo Sabres.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

To respond to a few things, first, I made a note if this should be deleted because I know it's a touchy subject and I really don't want anyone to be offended in any way. Second, I agree with RudimentaryPeni, don't think that all French people are this way, just in this case, that's where the anti-semetic comments came from. What's really alarming to me is to think that in such a modern world that we live in now, where cultures and races mix so constantly, that there would be such people willing to put down others and try to raise themselves above other races, indeed, even using one of the darker moments in history to do so.

I also do not want to single out Jews, throughout history, as Max L said, virtually every race has been persecuted, the Chinese in Nanking, Cambodians under Pol Pot, Armenians under Turkey, the list goes on.

Edit: I had included Japanese Internment Camps in my list of persecutions, but, as one CD member brought up to me, it pales in comparison to the horrendous acts of the others listed, so I've removed it.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

Im almost a hundred percent postitive that someone did that in my school. I've seen it all though the one thing that scared me was that I was getting the odd suspicion that there was a pink t-shirt gang. Yeah suspendor pants and boots are a no no. So are gang colors. Besides that I have never heard of anyone getting into trouble. I'd have to disagree with you there. Do you actually think that a person living in Iowa or even in upstate New York actually see's the same diversity as a person living in a city. You got to know something still isn't right when a college survey asks you if you are going to it for it's diversity.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

That's a shame. I see all kinds of inter-ethnic violence. Recently in England there was a race riot where a group of Asians decided to physically attack native English Whites out of hatred. Here in the states there are young Black males doing the same to Whites often as well, a lot more often than vice versa. Even some radical Jewish men often take up weapons such as baseball bats and wooden boards with nails in them and go after various Whites out of racial hatred. It's a shame that many feel they need to oppress Whites, and I say this as a non-White person. Such is life, I guess, you can't get rid of hate.

Regards.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

The oppressed cannot act to oppress those that oppress them. It's a contradiction. They can get pissed off at them for that oppression -- and rightly so -- but, for almost all purposes there is no oppression of white people on the basis on skin color. Anywhere.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

Well, I don't want to make a big deal about it, but I see all races engaging in ethnocentrism and using their group power and influence to subvert the interest of other races. No one race is guilty, but all races are. Whites are just as much a victim of racism as they are the perpetrators of racism. All races are racist.

Regards.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

Racism and oppression are different. Do not use one word if you mean another.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

M. is referring to things which are systemic or administrated by a body of authority or power, and not violent clashes. That's what oppression means. In the United States, this simply never has and never will exist. Mind you...

This is flat out inaccurate. In Africa there are numerous instances of oppression of whites, based upon race. To name the two most prevalent, Zimbabwe (under Robert Mugabe's leadership), and certain parts of South Africa, farmland in particular.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

I knew someone would mention Africa, somehow. I don't have a lot of time to write now and I'd like to read more about what you've mentioned, but my immediate response when thinking about Africa is to remember that the continent was previously colonized by pretty much all of the European nations EVER. It's not exactly a continent free from existing precedent of white oppression.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

First off I'd like to go on the record as saying that i think that the idea that a oppressed minority cannot oppress, is crap. Everyone has the power to oppress. Maybe not on the grand level of oppression that we have witnessed throughout history, like the holocaust or african slavery. But at the same time we can be oppressive on a personal level. If i walk upto someone on the street and punch them in the face for wearing nike shoes, and every time i see that person wearing nike shoes, i am attempting to oppress their right to wear nike shoes. Now if there is a person who starts attacking someone else for the color of their skin or their ethnic background, then that too is oppression. Its basicly the same idea as the argument that has been around for awhile that a minority group cannot be racist, because racism implies some sort of greater power. But thats not true either. Everyone can commit acts of racism, its most likely just not as systematic and grandious as many of the famous acts of racism (jim crowe laws, Hutu/Tutusi Genocide in africa, armenian genocide in turkey....). Saying something like this is like saying "ohh well since you've been picked on its cool now if you pick on this other person". Thats not right, its still oppression and its still racist, and its still wrong. Now i am not saying that i cant see how these people who struck back would see as their actions were justified, i'm sure they had their reasons but its never allright when someone resorts to violence. Because when someone resorts to violence then they are always becoming the oppressors, if not of more then they are atleast oppressing someones right to not feel pain.

Re: Jewish students attacked at Auschwitz
 

I find this thread fascinating. Having just returned from a large Jewish convention in Indianapolis, I actaully heard some about this issue. I want to support the idea of oppression being totally grand. Slavery in its own (the NorthAmerican Federation of Temple Youth study theme for the year) is a major form of oppression. When you consider oppression, do you only think of it as one person's clothes or race? What about people who can't afford to pay off debts so they send their chidlren to work in sweatshops to work it off?

An example: Slavery is defined by UN as forced labor without compensation (something similar to that). 27,000,000 people are enslaved in the world today, and that does NOT include sweatshop workers because they recieve minimal compensation. While many like to speak about oppression and slavery as a historical way of life, I can vouch that right now there is a huge amount of it occurring in America and the entire world.

This is just something to keep in mind, that while some may see oppression as some hideous lifestyle, it is still a lifestyle that many families and their children have never lived outside of. Instead of argueing about who oppresses who, please take the time to act on this and take part in Social Action so as to actaully make a difference in it.