They were not segregated by race actually. The Nazis determined that it was impossible to reliably detect Jews by racial criteria. They were selected for religious background. But in that case there was also Pale of Settlement in Russia before the 1917 revolution, which prohibited Jews from living in most of Russian territory. You can call this crime as well but it was normal those days.

Modern Baltic states have legislation against those whose ancestors migrated into those states after 1940 when the states were incorporated in the USSR. Such people (mostly Russians) constituted at peak in 1990s up to 40% of the population and have an official status of “non-citizens” (actually, second-class citizens with special “non-citizen” passports issued to them), are prohibited to occupy a number of professions, including say, policemen, fire-fighters, jurists, pharmacists, medics, banned from politics etc.

You should call it crime also, but the Human Rights Watch rates the Baltic States highly on human rights.

2. I’m of British descent living in Canada. While in government, I’ve had to work directly with elected separatists and officials from their government. I don’t secession is, was, or should be illegal. I’m not a “yankee.”

But there’s a big problem with the revisionist history on this that you’ve just repeated. First: many rebels took armed action to seize US arsenals or attack federal bases or ships before their states had even held secession conventions, or before those conventions had even voted. In other cases, where those attacks came after the vote, those launching them had openly conspired to do so before the state seceded. By the definition of treason applied – with southern applause – to John Brown in 1859, that’s treason, no ifs, ands or buts, no room for gray (forgive the pun).

Second, many American soldiers broke their oath and either aided or joined the rebel army – again, in some cases, before their state had seceded. That’s also treason.

I don’t consider a southern man conscripted against his will in 1863 (for example) to be a traitor, but there were certainly thousands of traitors in the rebel army by the definition of the day.

Finally, let’s remember who made war on whom. There were at least a dozen incidents of organized violence against the United States perpetrated by the rebels before Sumter was surrendered. Not to mention the fact that Sumter was fired on 3,000 times 150 years ago tomorrow; that bombardment was not exactly the act of a helpless victim of aggression. Finally, the rebels first act was to mobilize tens of thousands of men into an army that was many times the size of the US army at the time. Again, who waged brutal war on whom?

Across the south, countless thousands of Americans who wanted to stay loyal and be neutral – generally because they didn’t own slaves, or simply wanted to lead peaceful lives – they were systematically conscripted, marginalized, attacked or outright slaughtered by the rebel government and its armies. Where’s the Jeffersonian democracy, here? I don’t see much of it on either side, I’m afraid.

As I already said there was serfdom in Russia. It differed from the American slavery only in name, I think the slaves in the US lived even in better conditions. Abolishment of slavery in the U.S. came about at the same time when came abolishment of serfdom in Russia. And many land-owners in Russia were also strongly agains the abolishment. It was the will of the Tsar Alexander the Liberator what decided the outcome.

> If they had “free soup for the poor” – a laughable claim, since the soup was conditional on war work

No. In Lodz ghetto it was fo all. Jews simply self-governed themselves inside the ghetto.

> Tens of thousands of jews died of starvation or other basic, preventable illnesses in the ghettos.

Maybe, but the average norm of calories, say in Warsaw ghetto was the same as that in Germany for Germans. This was mainly due to contraband though. Yes, maybe some starved (this varied between ghettos) but this is natural for any capitalist society, is not it? Some starve whicle some visit restaurants. Officially the ghetto administration took care of orphans and those unable to work.

Incidently, the people and soldiers of the seceded states did not commit treason. The definition of treason only applies to those who, owing allegiance to the United States, make war on it. There was nothing in the Constitution at the time forbidding secession, so the people of the seceded states no longer owed allegiance to the U.S.

Thomas Jefferson declared that governments are instituted to secure the rights of the people. One of the rights he specifically identified is the right of the people to alter or abolish their government and create one that suits them better. How ironic, then, that the only time Americans have attempted to exercise this right, the government that was supposed to secure it made brutal war on them instead.

“The Jews who lived in ghettos were not in that bad situation by the war standards.”

Sorry, but that’s an absurd and disgusting claim on two counts – first, for minimizing the crimes of the pogroms, the pre-extermination concentration camps, and the forced deportation and/or segregation of millions from societies they had once been productive part of.

Secondly, for minimizing the reality of conditions in the ghettos, which only met the standards you’ve just described in one case – a ghetto created and run exclusively for propaganda purposes. If they had “free soup for the poor” – a laughable claim, since the soup was conditional on war work which represented slave labor under international law – it was only because the Nazis systematically stole from Jews regardless of their income until they were all universally poor, by law. Tens of thousands of jews died of starvation or other basic, preventable illnesses in the ghettos. They were essentially urban prisons. So what if they had their own phones?

And how does “my position” suggest “it was not a crime to kill those people?” I think it was a crime to even segregate them by race, let alone dispossess, ghettoize, enslave, lynch or otherwise attack them. All of it’s a crime. That’s the point of this whole debate and the whole thread: if it’s a crime, it’s a crime, whether it’s relatively horrible or merely somewhat horrible.

There is another factor – the time. For instance, Peter the Great of Russia killed up to several tens of thousands of serf peasants when he was building his new capitol, St.Petersburg on a wild swamp. But if one would demand Russians to apologize he will meet incomprehension: people will say that there were such times, epoch, all states did the same, look at American slavery etc.

There is also another argument: Peter actually did not want all those people killed. He wanted to build his new city, not to kill peasants. If people died in the swamps as a result… well that was God’s will, they could also die as well if they were sitting in their home villages.

> to me, one of the things that’s most important about the Holocaust is recognizing how horrible Nazi treatment of the Jews was BEFORE extermination became the Nazi goal.

The Jews who lived in ghettos were not in that bad situation by the war standards. They had food (including free soup for poor), were payed for work, could visit cinemas, theatres, cafes, they were not conscripted to the front. They had Jewish police, hospitals, emergency service, orphanages, geriatric homes, newspapers, public transportation, telephone and post service, could write letters to their relatives abroad etc.
Many people who were marched to the gas chambers did not know what awaits them, they were told they were resettled, some even thought they went to an excursion. Following your position, it was not a crime to kill those people.

— Well, yes, provided you’re not an American who still supports or apologizes for the losing, pro-slaveholder side in that civil war. And many still do both.

“It should be also noted that (Anglo-Saxon) Americans did not invent slavery. It was there from the Spanish conquests and was becoming milder over time.”

Agreed. In fact, my ancestors – I’m British-Canadian – are as responsible as anyone for promoting the slave trade. But the reason the issue is so controversial in the US isn’t because of a debate over who started it; it’s because of the debate over who chose to end it. The British freed slaves with compensated emancipation – helped by the fact that they did it in years when sugar prices were low, so slave prices were also low. In the northern US states, slaves were freed over time by state law. In the end, men in the southern states rebelled out of fear that the Lincoln Administration would somehow force them to do the same – a motive made clear by those rebels at the time, but hidden years later by the same sort of whitewash that minimizes the pain of slavery in American history.

I’m glad you’ve left some room on the death v. suffering aspect; to me, one of the things that’s most important about the Holocaust is recognizing how horrible Nazi treatment of the Jews was BEFORE extermination became the Nazi goal.

And the other important measure is the intent of perpetrators.

Yes. For me it is the main measure. Although I admit others can have other views.

> Huh? Please elaborate. This makes no sense.

I meant that those people (Russians and Americans) put end to serfdom and slavery respectively, themselves, without external forcing. This means they can not share the that amount of guilt. It should be also noted that (Anglo-Saxon) Americans did not invent slavery. It was there from the Spanish conquests and was becoming milder over time.

But I would like to know what this means…

“It was also mentioned that slavery was abolished as a result of the civil war. This is like if you claimed that the USSR (or modern Russia) should share responsibility for Tsarist serfdom which was abolished in 1860s.”

Huh? Please elaborate. This makes no sense.

And to your comment that “the state has no means of coercion to make them feel shame,” what does coercion have to with it? Why can’t people recognize their past freely? And why talk as though the state the only means to doing so?

As it was already mentioned the both events are incomparable in death toll. Possibly Auschwitz gas chamber in just one day of operation claimed as many lives as American slavery for all its time.

It was also mentioned that slavery was abolished as a result of the civil war. This is like if you claimed that the USSR (or modern Russia) should share responsibility for Tsarist serfdom which was abolished in 1860s.

As to responsibility of individuals who descends from racist guerrilla participants I think the state has no means of coercion to make them feel shame. Both in the USA and Germany.

The same question could be asked of, say, “The US and Canada” and Canada’s memory of residential schools (look it up), or “The US and Japan” and Japan’s own failure to recognize its war crimes in 1931-1945, and so on. But the comparison of the US to Germany is useful for the simple reason that Germany has taken pains to be honest about the horror of what was done and why so the horrors of race-based oppression won’t be repeated. And so the question: why can’t descendants of the rebels of 1861-1865 and descendants of the Klansmen who continued the war by guerrilla means do the same? Why not be honest?

(PS: Connie, slaves “were allowed to have their own gardens” in some instances for the obvious reason that anything they grew and ate reduced the operating cost of owning the slave to the owner. The statement “his time was his own” shows an absurd disregard for the realities of being a slave; one’s time is never “one’s own” if that time is granted conditionally by someone who owns you. Was his time his own if he was sold to an owner in a different state the next the next week to recoup capital appreciation? Was his time his own if he wanted to read a book, learn engineering, or travel freely to see his child in a distant plantation? Stop hiding what slavery was, and start calling it what it was: pure crime, even by western civilization’s own standards of the day. All of our ancestors share in the shame of the slave power in some way, but only some decided to commit mass treason to protect that shame industry from even the smallest of limits.

You won’t cheapen your history by acknowledging that. On the contrary. Only by acknowledging the crime can you properly celebrate the scale of the redemption for it.)