Talk:After the Holocaust

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[edit] Title

Would it be more appropriate to title this article "Holocaust aftermath"? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 02:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The continued killing of Jews after the German surrender

I am not at all happy with the current aftermath section of the Holocaust article, nor of the this article, both should be greatly expanded, or a new article should be created, for example "Flight and Expulsion of Jews from Poland after World War II".

Some source material:

I would also urge editors to look at History of Jews in Poland, and in particular keep an eye on the article on Jan T. Gross, which seems to have received many edits lately.-

Also, that the Polish continued to use the concentration camps after the German surrender[1] should be mentioned. I think some of the ones run by the Poles mentioned in the article and elsewhere were satellite camps to Auschwitz.--Stor stark7 Talk 22:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A bit on collective guilt should be added

Efforts to instill a sense of "collective guilt"

"In 1945 there was an Allied consensus—which no longer exists—on the doctrine of collective guilt, that all Germans shared the blame not only for the war but for Nazi atrocities as well."[2]

The British and The Americans considered the Germans to be guilty, using the terms "collective guilt", and "collective responsibility"[3]

The British instructed their officers in control of German media to instill a sense of collective guilt in the population[4]

In the early months of the occupation the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) undertook a psychological propaganda campaign for the purpose of developing a German sense of collective responsibility.[5] Using the German press (which were all under Allied control) and posters and pamphlets a program acquainting ordinary Germans with what had take place in the concentration camps was conducted.

"During the summer of 1945 pictures of Bergen-Belsen were hung as posters all over Germany with 'You Are Guilty' on them."[6]

Later the U.S. army came to draw a distinction between those legally guilty and the rest of the population which was then merely considered morally guilty.[7]

A number of films showing the concentration camps were made and screened to the German public. For example "Die Todesmuhlen", released in the U.S. zone in January 1946, "Welt im Film" No. 5 (June, 1945). A film that was never finished due partly to delays and the existence of the other films was "Memory of the Camps". "...the object [of the film] was to shake and humiliate the Germans and prove to them beyond any possible challenge that these German crimes against humanity were committed and that the German people -- and not just the Nazis and SS -- bore responsibility."[8]

Immediately upon the liberation of the concentration-camps many German civilians were forced to see the conditions in the camps, bury rotting corpses and exhume mass-graves.[9] On threat of death or withdrawal of food civilians were forced to provide their belongings to former concentration camp inmates[10]

--Stor stark7 Talk 23:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)