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The world finds out... again (Patreon)
Content
We often get the question about how much people knew about what was going on in the extermination factories and concentration camps. It's a bit hard to answer... you have to define 'know' first, and then you have to try to get into the heads of people who are long gone, or for the few that are still alive, they would have to try to dig through the fog and distortions of memory that we are all inevitably prone to over seven decades. The only answer one can give is that the it was common knowledge, as in that the information was widespread and available pretty much as it happened. But how many chose to inform themselves? How many actively chose to not inform themselves? How many just simply weren't paying attention, perhaps not even able to pay attention? The world was after all at war. We will never be fully certain of the answers, but we do have some indications. The Western press of the time did record reactions as they published the news. In Germany the SS concluded that in their taste, far too many (by their reckoning most Germans) were aware of what was happening. But does knowledge, or willful ignorance confer complicity, especially when you can't do anything personally to stop it anyway? It's a difficult question that ethicists and philosophers struggle with especially since this war. In both Germany itself, and the rest of the world it's been at the center of the academic 'guilt' debate about Germans of the time. We don't pretend to have the answer to any of these questions, but as Sparty points out the end of this video; no matter what the answers are, they are terrifying. What do you think?
