Ireland's "shame" for its neutral status in the Second World War

BlitzKrieg

this is gonna go into another revisionist topic isnt it? (or has it already?)

true

It was never 9 million. It is six million. Practically every historian in the world accepts that.

It is sad that Teneka thinks the figures are 1 million or a bit above that. What research have you based this on , Teneka?

Zero marks for Teneka.

Zombrex

Teneka wrote:

Sorry, but that 6 million figure is never questioned. Every news station has it as 6 million. It used to be 9 million. Will it go down again? Who knows. The figure is more likely 1 million or a bit above that. If so, that accounts for 1/50 - 1/60 of the total number killed during the war.

Hmmm.

Actually it is questioned all the time by Holocaust deniers. They claim that 5-6 million jews were relocated to eastern europe (backed up by offical german reports) but their is no evidence that they were actually killed by the Nazi's. Reports such as the Korherr Report, they claim, do not use key words for murder as historians have claimed and therefore do not provide a record of the number of Jews killed, only a record of the number of jews moved to work camps.

What the holocaust deniers fail to mention is that this theory completely ignore the testmoney of survives, people who worked at the camps and high ranking Nazi officals. For example Goebbels wrote in his diary for 1942 -

"The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 per cent can be used for forced labor."

60 per cent of the estimated 11 million Jews in eastern europe and german is amazingly enough close to 6 million. Of course Holocaust deniers simply claim that this diary is a fake, even though no one has been able to prove that it is, and that all the survivers and the people who worked at the camps are simply lying. How convenent :rolleyes:

Zombrex

true wrote:

It was never 9 million. It is six million. Practically every historian in the world accepts that.

It is sad that Teneka thinks the figures are 1 million or a bit above that. What research have you based this on , Teneka?

Zero marks for Teneka.

Teneka has obviously been listening to the holocaust deniers on Stormfront.

The Corinthian

Deleted User wrote:

Hardly, since we were talking about a Europe if Germany had won, and if it would be better than the Allied Victory. I said that Germany losing was a good thing.

I never said that was histrionic, I said that claming that the “Nazi Third Reich ruling Europe” would have been the inevitable result of the Axis winning is histrionic, especially if you consider that most evidence presented has pointed to the Third Reich probably having done much the same thing the Allies actually did in Western Europe after the war with respect to the political landscape of Western Europe.

i could mention that this opinion falls in with your pointing out of histrionics, BUT I agree with you totally :rolleyes:

Except that it’s easily demonstrable.

What I always wonder about is when you mention the millions of non-jewish people that died due to concentration and death camps, many people think you're belittling the deaths of the Jews.

Regrettably the Holocaust has cynically become an industry and as a result in the West we are now brought up to accept an official version of events unquestionably. Such is the demonisation of Hitler that to portray him as human is often objected to - which is insane when you think about it, because if you really do want to stop another Hitler from ever rising to power again, you have to accept that the original was not some form of supernatural being, but a man, and as such another man could end up becoming another Hitler in the future.

true wrote:

Re. the British in South Africa, there is absolutely no comparison between their camps in South Africa and the concentration camps in Germany, Poland etc. in the next century.

Actually there is no comparison between the British concentration camps in South Africa and the German extermination camps, but the German concentration camps would have certainly been comparable.

It is sad that Teneka thinks the figures are 1 million or a bit above that. What research have you based this on , Teneka?

Of course, you don’t really have much to back up the six million figure either, other than your faith in what “practically every historian in the world accepts”.

Contrary to another popular belief, Nazi records were not all that good. The numbering system they used to record prisoners (originally developed by IBM for the purpose) pretty much fell apart, and many of the estimates have come as a result of incomplete documentation and unverified testimony. As a result, estimates have varied over the years, but have long since settled on the six million figure for the sake of practicality.

Wicknight wrote:

Actually it is questioned all the time by Holocaust deniers. They claim that 5-6 million jews were relocated to eastern europe (backed up by offical german reports) but their is no evidence that they were actually killed by the Nazi's.

The majority of revisionist theories that question the existence of the ‘Final Solution’ tend not to stand up to even the most cursory of examination. The most scholarly of these would probably be that of David Irving, but even his theories are highly questionable under scrutiny.

However, in some cases, valid evidence has been uncovered that would put into question many of the details of the orthodox history of the Holocaust, but most historians will tell you that to pursue such a line of investigation is essentially professional suicide.

Also, as an observation, I’ve noticed that the term Holocaust denier is used in a not dissimilar fashion to the word heretic.

60 per cent of the estimated 11 million Jews in eastern europe and german is amazingly enough close to 6 million.

So what? An estimated 60 per cent of an estimated 11 million is amazingly enough close to another estimated 6 million. I’m sure you’ll find other correlations if you read tea leaves or Nostradamus for long enough.

Of course Holocaust deniers simply claim that this diary is a fake, even though no one has been able to prove that it is, and that all the survivers and the people who worked at the camps are simply lying. How convenent :rolleyes:

It is highly unlikely that all the survivors and the people who worked at the camps are simply lying, however it is also highly unlikely that all the survivors and the people who worked at the camps are telling the truth either. You’ll always get some who’ll tell a few porkpies either to save their own skins or make a quick buck, but if you accept their testimony at face value (something that is often done), where does that leave your estimates?

Teneka has obviously been listening to the holocaust deniers on Stormfront.

Shall we report him or just string him up?

Raskolnikov

true wrote:

The bombing of Germany came years after Germany had bombed London, Coventry and many other places in the UK.

That's a lie.

Wikipedia Link.

Wikipedia wrote:

The Blitz (the bombing of London and civilian targets) was partially in revenge for a bombing raid the RAF carried out on Berlin, which was itself ordered because a German bomber had accidentally bombed on London.

can we at least agree that posters to this thread have proven that Ireland's neutrality was not cause for shame, considering the number of countries that have not been called to account for their own actions during WW2?

Zombrex

The Corinthian wrote:

However, in some cases, valid evidence has been uncovered that would put into question many of the details of the orthodox history of the Holocaust, but most historians will tell you that to pursue such a line of investigation is essentially professional suicide.

I am not denying that, I am not sure why you think I was. I think it was Irving himself who pointed out that there was no actual written evidence that Hitler ordered or agreed to the final solution. Up until that point it had been assumed that Hitler must have directly ordered such a massive event.

The Corinthian wrote:

Also, as an observation, I’ve noticed that the term Holocaust denier is used in a not dissimilar fashion to the word heretic.

Again I am not denying that. AFAIK It is illegal in a number of european countries to publish a claim stating that the Holocaust did not happen. I believe that this attempt to force conventional thinking using legal methods is wrong in democratic society.


The flip side of that is I have never read any holocaust denial reports or papers that were not either a) seriously flawed or debunked pieces of work or b) connected to anti-jewish organisations. So while I feel people should be free to say anything they want about the holocaust, I have yet to see any evidence that the general idea that the Nazi government attempted and succeeded in systematically killing approx. 6 million Jews is false.

The Corinthian wrote:

So what? An estimated 60 per cent of an estimated 11 million is amazingly enough close to another estimated 6 million. I’m sure you’ll find other correlations if you read tea leaves or Nostradamus for long enough.

Excuse me? Estimated as in approx 11 million Jews, not estimated as in "well we think there were 11000000 Jews but there might have also been 5" :rolleyes:

The diary shows that in 1942 Goebbels knew that the Nazi government were carrying out plans and actions that he believed would "liquidate" 60 per cent of the Jewish population. The Jewish population at the time has been estimated to have been 11 million. That means, according to Goebbels, the Nazi government had a plan that would kill 6 million Jews in eastern european camps. 6 million Jews is the number believed to have been killed. Therefore the Goebbels diary backs up the 6 million figure. What part of that is tea leave reading??

The Corinthian wrote:

It is highly unlikely that all the survivors and the people who worked at the camps are simply lying, however it is also highly unlikely that all the survivors and the people who worked at the camps are telling the truth either. You’ll always get some who’ll tell a few porkpies either to save their own skins or make a quick buck, but if you accept their testimony at face value (something that is often done), where does that leave your estimates?

Firstly they are not my estimates. Secondly the 6 million figure did not come just one persons account. It would be madness to accept one or two stories of mass death camps. It would be madness to accept a handful of stories of mass death camps. But when you have hundreds of stories, from survivors, from army personal, from high ranking Nazi officals, from business men and finally from the Nazi documentation itself, it would be madness to ignore them all. People seem to vastly underestimate the actual ammount of evidence for that holocaust. Holocaust denier reports attempt to prick holes in individual reports, ignoring the fact that historical reports only take on true meaning and weight when combined and cross checked with other report. If one person tells you they gassed Jews then you take that with a grain of salt. If 50 people, some Jewish some old Nazis tell you they gassed Jews then that argument has more weight, even if 10 per cent don't actually know what they are talking about.

The Corinthian wrote:

Shall we report him or just string him up?

No I say we just ignore him

true

Raskolinikov said it is a lie that "The bombing of Germany came years after Germany had bombed London, Coventry and many other places in the UK."

It is not a lie. The mass bombing of Germany did not come until years after the mass bombing of London, Coventry etc - the Blitz in other words. During the Blitz, the top brass at the RAF decided to one day get Germany back. I would guess that well over 99% , if not well over 99.9% of the bombs that were dropped on Germany were dropped after the Blitz.

true

The Corinthian wrote "Actually there is no comparison between the British concentration camps in South Africa and the German extermination camps, but the German concentration camps would have certainly been comparable."

Rubbish. Take Dachau for example. Over 30,000 people died in this concentration camp, from dozen upon dozens of different countries. Even though this is classified as a concentration camp, and not an extermination camp, people were killed here as well as died of natural causes / disease/ hunger. And yes, there were ovens / crematorium. I saw them.

Contrast this with the British camps in South Africa, which were only glorified prisons by comparison. The mention of it is only a distraction and insult to the victims of Nazism.

po0k

Dub13 wrote:

**

However, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris, the world’s largest Jewish human rights organisation, called for it to be left unrestored as a symbol of Ireland’s “shame” for its neutral status in the Second World War as thousands of Jews were put to death.


**

So what do you think....Should modern Ireland feel any “shame” .

Fúck them.

What about the millions of Poles, Croats, Gypsies, Celts etc. that were also killed in the camps? What makes the Jews so special in that situation?
Is there ever a mention of the 20million or so political prisoners who died building Stalin's Rod of Bones?

They have some bloody cheek.
I don't see them speaking out about the atrocities being committed by the current Israeli leadership today.
Bloody hypocrites.

The Corinthian

true wrote:

It is not a lie. The mass bombing of Germany did not come until years after the mass bombing of London, Coventry etc - the Blitz in other words. During the Blitz, the top brass at the RAF decided to one day get Germany back. I would guess that well over 99% , if not well over 99.9% of the bombs that were dropped on Germany were dropped after the Blitz.

You would guess? You make more than just a few sweeping statements for someone with such immutable views. The fact remains that Britain had indeed bombed Germany prior to the Blitz and, for the most part, further bombing was hampered until after the Normandy invasion by distance. Qualifying your position after the fact is a tad disingenuous.

Of course, unlike Raskolnikov, I would not have accused you of lying; just of not having a clue.

Rubbish. Take Dachau for example. Over 30,000 people died in this concentration camp, from dozen upon dozens of different countries. Even though this is classified as a concentration camp, and not an extermination camp, people were killed here as well as died of natural causes / disease/ hunger. And yes, there were ovens / crematorium. I saw them.

Contrast this with the British camps in South Africa, which were only glorified prisons by comparison. The mention of it is only a distraction and insult to the victims of Nazism.

So the death of 28,000 women and children in the 31 camps scattered about South Africa during the Boer War were what exactly? A detail? Do you have any idea how offensive such ignorance is?

No one has said that the British concentration camps of the Boer War were as severe or on the same scale as the German ones, but if conditions in the British camps were such that tens of thousands perished they were certainly comparable.

Oh, and FYI, most if not all large prisons have crematoriums. Mountjoy has one, AFAIK.

The Corinthian

Wicknight wrote:

The flip side of that is I have never read any holocaust denial reports or papers that were not either a) seriously flawed or debunked pieces of work or b) connected to anti-jewish organisations. So while I feel people should be free to say anything they want about the holocaust, I have yet to see any evidence that the general idea that the Nazi government attempted and succeeded in systematically killing approx. 6 million Jews is false.

My own objection is that these theories are essentially censored from any circulation or debate. Most are laughably easy to debunk and, as you said, connected to anti-Jewish organisations. Unfortunately, the hysterical need to censor them results only in fostering suspicion in the minds of people that there may be validity to them (otherwise why are they so dangerous as to be censored) and that their supporters are never challenged to question their own orthodox views.

The diary shows that in 1942 Goebbels knew that the Nazi government were carrying out plans and actions that he believed would "liquidate" 60 per cent of the Jewish population. The Jewish population at the time has been estimated to have been 11 million. That means, according to Goebbels, the Nazi government had a plan that would kill 6 million Jews in eastern european camps. 6 million Jews is the number believed to have been killed. Therefore the Goebbels diary backs up the 6 million figure. What part of that is tea leave reading??

Strikes me as far too coincidental, TBH. Bare in mind, that you’re assuming also that his estimate was accurate and also that the Final Solution had been completed by the time that the allies liberated the camps. Add to this the figure of 11 million is yet another estimate.

I’m not saying that it’s not an interesting correlation or that the figure was not six million, only that the connections you’re ascribing are a tad tenuous.

Firstly they are not my estimates. Secondly the 6 million figure did not come just one persons account. It would be madness to accept one or two stories of mass death camps. It would be madness to accept a handful of stories of mass death camps. But when you have hundreds of stories, from survivors, from army personal, from high ranking Nazi officals, from business men and finally from the Nazi documentation itself, it would be madness to ignore them all. People seem to vastly underestimate the actual ammount of evidence for that holocaust. Holocaust denier reports attempt to prick holes in individual reports, ignoring the fact that historical reports only take on true meaning and weight when combined and cross checked with other report. If one person tells you they gassed Jews then you take that with a grain of salt. If 50 people, some Jewish some old Nazis tell you they gassed Jews then that argument has more weight, even if 10 per cent don't actually know what they are talking about.

I completely agree, the body of evidence that points to the Final Solution having taken place is too significant to ignore, however if ten percent don't actually know what they are talking about, then ten percent of your data will be inaccurate and your six million could suddenly become five and a half (or even six and a half).

No I say we just ignore him

Then why did you (and others) have to underline that he’s a Stormfront fan boy then if ignoring him is really the best policy?

Teneka

What about the millions of Poles, Croats, Gypsies, Celts etc. that were also killed in the camps? What makes the Jews so special in that situation?
Is there ever a mention of the 20million or so political prisoners who died building Stalin's Rod of Bones?

Here here.

Zombrex

The Corinthian wrote:

My own objection is that these theories are essentially censored from any circulation or debate. Most are laughably easy to debunk and, as you said, connected to anti-Jewish organisations. Unfortunately, the hysterical need to censor them results only in fostering suspicion in the minds of people that there may be validity to them (otherwise why are they so dangerous as to be censored) and that their supporters are never challenged to question their own orthodox views.

I would agree with that, especially considering the over blow extreme measure of making it illegal to publish Holocaust denial reports in some european countries. It is more important to refute these reports than to simply censor or ignore them, especially now we are in the internet age. The way a lot of denial reports and programs seem to be to be structure is to pick holes at one sepcific asspect of general holocaust theory such as the gas chambers. But then if a question is raised about whether there was gas chambers or not (and it seems there were) the publishers of these reports stand back and go "well if this is in question then the whole thing is in question so it is most likely that it didn't happen". They believe they don't need to prove that the whole thing didn't happen, just poke enough holes in little aspects here and there until they can raise enough questions as to justify doubt in the entire holocaust. This is not history, and it is not searching for the truth.

The Corinthian wrote:

Strikes me as far too coincidental, TBH. Bare in mind, that you’re assuming also that his estimate was accurate and also that the Final Solution had been completed by the time that the allies liberated the camps. Add to this the figure of 11 million is yet another estimate.

2 Things. Firstly this is not alone where the 6 million figure comes from. It is simply one in a long list of documents that seems to back up the 6 million figure. It would be madness to go on this document alone for the actual figure, but when confirmed by a load of other sources the diary takes on more athenticity. And as I have said I have no reason not to believe that the 11 million estimate is not acurate, it seems to have been compiled independently by a number of different sources. But it still should be called an estimate because there might have been 11.05 million or 10.015 million. But everything in history is an estimate.

Secondly, the Nazi government organisted all this in a very systematic fashion. While they seem to have been very careful about not publishing what they were actually doing, I doubt that meant they didn't know what was going on. It is highly probably that Gobbels knew or had access to the information, for exactly what the organisted Nazi government were in the process of doing.

The Corinthian wrote:

I’m not saying that it’s not an interesting correlation or that the figure was not six million, only that the connections you’re ascribing are a tad tenuous.

I don't think it is tenuous that a high ranking Nazi offical with access to the information, would write in his dairy that at the rate the Nazi's were going approx 60 per cent would be killed. This is his figure (the 60%) per cent.

The Corinthian wrote:

I completely agree, the body of evidence that points to the Final Solution having taken place is too significant to ignore, however if ten percent don't actually know what they are talking about, then ten percent of your data will be inaccurate and your six million could suddenly become five and a half (or even six and a half).

But only if the data comes only from the ten percent. If 100 sources say that 6 million jews were killed but you think 10 of the sources are false, you can still safely say 6 million jews were killed because 90 sources say it

The Corinthian wrote:

Then why did you (and others) have to underline that he’s a Stormfront fan boy then if ignoring him is really the best policy?

To give a reason for ignoring him. It would be rather rude otherwise don't you think

Zombrex

SyxPak wrote:

What about the millions of Poles, Croats, Gypsies, Celts etc. that were also killed in the camps?

What about them? You do know he is from a Jewish organisation right. And how many Celts were put to dead in the Nazi work camps?

true

QUOTE The Corinthian : You make more than just a few sweeping statements for someone with such immutable views. The fact remains that Britain had indeed bombed Germany prior to the Blitz and, for the most part, further bombing was hampered until after the Normandy invasion by distance. Qualifying your position after the fact is a tad disingenuous
The distance was just as far after Normandy as before Normandy. Yes, Britain was at war with Germany before the Blitz, but any bombing before the Blitz was nothing compared to the scale and duration of the Blitz and subsequent bombing of Germany.


Of course, unlike Raskolnikov, I would not have accused you of lying; jusf of not having a clue.

You know I do not tell lies. Because you do not agree with what I write you accuse me of not having a clue.


Quote [B]"So the death of RL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camps]28,000 women and children[/URL] in the 31 camps scattered about South Africa during the Boer War were what exactly? A detail? Do you have any idea how offensive such ignorance is?"[/B]

The issue to the people who died of disease and malnutrition in South Africa is a distraction to the debate about Nazi Germany. The website you use to illustrate the your point can be edited by anyone without qualifications, and contains many other innacurcies eg it says the IRA justified the Enniskillen bombing by saying it meant to target a unit of the British army : this is not true. It says the sole basis for Bertie Aherns condemnation of the IRA for the Northern Bank robbery is PSNI intelligence : it is not, Bertie himself has said it is based on Garda intelligence. Your website even puts the number killed during the holocaust at 10 million. I would certainly not believe your 28,000 figure as gospel truth, that is on the site about the Boer war.



Quote [B[I]]:"Oh, and FYI, most if not all large prisons have crematoriums. Mountjoy has one, AFAIK."[/B][/I]

LOL. Next you will be saying Long Kesh had one, just beside the gas ovens there. It would be funny except for your underlying attitude to the topic in question, the morality of WW2 / our neutrality / holocast etc.

hill16

How could we fight with Britain that has caused 800 years of war and famine in Ireland. :mad:

The Corinthian

true wrote:

The distance was just as far after Normandy as before Normandy

The distance that British bombers would have had to make to attack Germany prior to the Normandy invasions was far greater and would have involved flying over hundreds of miles of occupied territory. Do the math.

You know I do not tell lies. Because you do not agree with what I write you accuse me of not having a clue.

I do not know that you do not tell lies, I simply cannot assume that you are simply because what you say is factually incorrect. Your cluelessness comes from a combination of ignorance of historical facts as well as an inability to rationally interpret them rather than my disagreement with you (I disagree with a lot of people, but generally they’ve done their homework first).

The issue to the people who died of disease and malnutrition in South Africa is a distraction to the debate about Nazi Germany.

The death of tens of thousands is a distraction? Are you for real? I suppose the genocide in Rwanda is another distraction then? The camps in Bosnia were a minor detail? TBH, your rather blinkered vision is as offensive and fanatical as any Holocaust denier’s could be.

The website you use to illustrate the your point can be edited by anyone without qualifications, and contains many other innacurcies eg it says the IRA justified the Enniskillen bombing by saying it meant to target a unit of the British army : this is not true. It says the sole basis for Bertie Aherns condemnation of the IRA for the Northern Bank robbery is PSNI intelligence : it is not, Bertie himself has said it is based on Garda intelligence. Your website even puts the number killed during the holocaust at 10 million. I would certainly not believe your 28,000 figure as gospel truth, that is on the site about the Boer war.

The website is certainly not mine and while anyone may contribute to it, it is peer reviewed (oddly enough like all academia) and open to correction. You’re welcome to challenge the IRA-related related entries you mentioned; although I would suggest that you prepare your evidence and arguments with a little more care than you have here.

The 38,000 figure is most likely an taken from official monthly reports, however even if it were only an estimate it does not detract that the death toll was in the tens of thousands and that such a mortality rate was comparable to the (much larger population) German concentration camps. There are numerous sources for all this if you take the time to search the Web.

LOL. Next you will be saying Long Kesh had one, just beside the gas ovens there. It would be funny except for your underlying attitude to the topic in question, the morality of WW2 / our neutrality / holocast etc.

No one here is denying the existence of the extermination camps and the Final Solution. However, saying a prison or camp has a crematorium is in itself meaningless as any large prison or camp would have one for practical reasons. As such, all you’re doing is feeding the hysteria that surrounds this subject with further obfuscation based upon ignorance.

true

hill16 wrote:

How could we fight with Britain that has caused 800 years of war and famine in Ireland. :mad:

Over 120, 000 Irishmen did fight with Britain. Most , if not all of them, would disagree with your assertion that "Britain caused 800 years of war and famine in Ireland". The famine and potato blight era occured in other areas of Europe as well. I know in the area of the Republic in which I live, Britain done a lot to ease the hunger and feed people during the famine. Live was not a bed of roses anywhere in the world in the 1840's. What about the infrastructure Britain put here, which was as advanced as anywhere in the developed world in their time : railways, harbours, universities, institutions.
You could only say Britain "caused" 800 years of war and famine if you have a very one sided view of history.

The fight against Nazism , and its victims, was not comparable with your "war" in Ireland. Perhaps in Nazism had won, you would know what it is really like to live under a repressive regime.

bonkey

Deleted User wrote:

can we at least agree that posters to this thread have proven that Ireland's neutrality was not cause for shame, considering the number of countries that have not been called to account for their own actions during WW2?

I wouldn't agree with that no matter which side of the current discussion I was on.

Being in shameful company does not mitigate the shame of your own actions.

If every nation comitted atrocities, would that make all of them acceptable? I don't think so. So just because there is shame to be laid at the doorstep of every nation involved in (or on the periphary of) WW2 doesn't mean that we should say that any one of them shouldn't feel ashamed.

You could argue that we should feel no more ashamed, but thats as far as I'd go.

jc

clearz

true wrote:

Over 120, 000 Irishmen did fight with Britain. Most , if not all of them, would disagree with your assertion that "Britain caused 800 years of war and famine in Ireland". The famine and potato blight era occured in other areas of Europe as well. I know in the area of the Republic in which I live, Britain done a lot to ease the hunger and feed people during the famine. Live was not a bed of roses anywhere in the world in the 1840's. What about the infrastructure Britain put here, which was as advanced as anywhere in the developed world in their time : railways, harbours, universities, institutions.
You could only say Britain "caused" 800 years of war and famine if you have a very one sided view of history.

The fight against Nazism , and its victims, was not comparable with your "war" in Ireland. Perhaps in Nazism had won, you would know what it is really like to live under a repressive regime.

STFU with that BS 120,000 Irish soilders what are you on. And everyone knows that britain did cause hundreds of years of sufferring for this country and indirectly played a major part in the suffering during the famine. So take your sh1t elsewere.

billy the squid

clearz wrote:

STFU with that BS 120,000 Irish soilders what are you on. And everyone knows that britain did cause hundreds of years of sufferring for this country and indirectly played a major part in the suffering during the famine. So take your sh1t elsewere.

actually 70,000 would be more acurate yet its still alot of irish

another 50 thousand from northern ireland would bring the number to 120,000

The particular theme of this article is the impact on that process of identity formation of the large number of Irish citizens who volunteered for service in the British armed forces between 1939-1945. During the war an estimated 70,000 citizens of neutral Ireland served in the British armed forces, together with 50,000 or so from Northern Ireland. Virtually all who served were volunteers and, unlike the First World War, Irish volunteering during the Second World War was not primarily a process of collective mobilisation. In southern Ireland, at least, decisions to volunteer and serve were mainly individual. No doubt individual decisions were influenced by family and friends and sometimes the process of enlistment was aided and abetted by various organisations, but there is no sign of the "logic of collective sacrifice" evident in Irish recruitment to the British armed forces during World War I. Nor was there any general political mobilisation for war even remotely comparable to what happened in Ireland in 1914-1918. In that light the figure of 120,000 recruits North and South, if at all accurate, compares well with the estimated 210,000 Irish volunteers during the First World War.

http://www.reform.org/TheReformMovement_files/article_files/articles/war.htm

think you owe someone an apology for that vitriolic attack.

bonkey

clearz wrote:

STFU with that BS 120,000 Irish soilders what are you on. And everyone knows that britain did cause hundreds of years of sufferring for this country and indirectly played a major part in the suffering during the famine. So take your sh1t elsewere.

Another outburst like that and you'll have a week's ban.

Everyone is entitled to have and present their opinion on this forum. You can object to it, but don't tell them or imply that they shouldn't be posting it here.....and especially not in an abusive tone.

As with the thread I locked yesterday, a little less emotion and a little more rationale wouldn't go astray here.

jc

hill16

While millions of people were starving to death thousands of tons of food was exported out of Ireland by the British and thousands of people were sent to Australia for trying to feed their family ,if that is not a repressive regime what is. :mad:

billy the squid

compare the 120,000 in britain to the number in germany

http://www.csn.ul.ie/~dan/war/ssvols.htm

jbkenn

Best to put it in context

hill16 wrote:

While millions of people were starving to death thousands of tons of food was exported out of Ireland by the British and thousands of people were sent to Australia for trying to feed their family ,if that was not a repressive regime what was. :mad:

Past tense

jbkenn
p.s. for those of you stuck in a time warp, the millenium came and went, the world did'nt end, so it is safe to join the rest of us in the 21st Century

bonkey

bonkey wrote:

You could argue that we should feel no more ashamed, but thats as far as I'd go.

Fair enough. A better way to describe it. Cheers.

true wrote:

I know in the area of the Republic in which I live, Britain done a lot to ease the hunger and feed people during the famine.

I'd love to know where exactly you're living in Ireland, that Britain did alot to ease the hunger during the Famine. You sure you're not mixing your knowledge, with private institutions that helped out, separate completely from the British government? If you're still sure, pm me, cause this thread doesn't need a Famine issue mixed in aswell as everything else.

true wrote:

What about the infrastructure Britain put here, which was as advanced as anywhere in the developed world in their time : railways, harbours, universities, institutions.

LoL. You're funny. Britain did this in most of the countries that they occupied. It was both to help rapid movement of troops to hotzones (rebellions, civil unrest etc), and to increase trade. You actually think it was inentionally done for our benefit? :rolleyes:

true wrote:

You could only say Britain "caused" 800 years of war and famine if you have a very one sided view of history.

Like yours? <shakes head> Sure, 800 years of war (not really 800 years of war, but rather a dozen rebellions?) could have been avoided, but then Irish people would have had to give up their wish for freedom, and to have wanted to be ruled by a foreign power.

But the British by occupying Ireland, knowing that they weren't wanted did cause the violence by staying.

true wrote:

The fight against Nazism , and its victims, was not comparable with your "war" in Ireland. Perhaps in Nazism had won, you would know what it is really like to live under a repressive regime.

Its strange. I've never lived under British rule. I doubt any of the posters here have (with the exception of our cousins in the North), so I'm not going to say anything about knowing personally what an oppressive regime is like.

But you should look at your history, and look at the freedoms of religions, education, property, inheritance etc that were all curtailed by British rule in Ireland, especially just prior and just after the famine. You might find that they're considered fairly oppressive by modern standards.

true wrote:

Rubbish. Take Dachau for example. Over 30,000 people died in this concentration camp, from dozen upon dozens of different countries. Even though this is classified as a concentration camp, and not an extermination camp, people were killed here as well as died of natural causes / disease/ hunger. And yes, there were ovens / crematorium. I saw them.

true wrote:

Contrast this with the British camps in South Africa, which were only glorified prisons by comparison. The mention of it is only a distraction and insult to the victims of Nazism.

I must admit i'm a bit disturbed by your example, and subsequent opinion.

The fact that 30,000 people were killed in the Boer war Concentration camps isn't enough for you to be able to compare with the concentration camps of WW2. Sure the numbers in comparison were smaller but only because the population of the countries involved were that much smaller. Had the numbers of the Boer been larger, you would have had alot more deaths.

The second issue with the concentration camps of both wars was that disease was used as weapon. Lack of sanitation and medicine was an intended weapon against the inmates.

And please stop with all these comments that such and such are insults to the victims of nazism. If you can get someone that was involved or actually saw a concentration camp prior to the end of WW2 to post here, fine. But you weren't there, you aren't one of them, and you have no right to say whether its an insult.

I may be way off base here, and Bonkey is more than welcome to warn(ban) me abt it, but your arrogance is becoming so damn sickening, that you keep making comments you have no right to say. If its your opinion say it is. :mad:

nobodythere

egan007 wrote:

More power to Ireland - If Neutrality was practiced by all there would be no problem in the first place

True but if neutrality was practiced by all and then somebody like Hitler came to power we'd be defenceless to stop him. It doesn't work in an ideal world.

true

Klaz wrote "Its strange. I've never lived under British rule. I doubt any of the posters here have (with the exception of our cousins in the North), so I'm not going to say anything about knowing personally what an oppressive regime is like".

With logic like that perhaps you should enter "Mastermind", Klaz. If you think British rule is so oppressive, Klaz, why did millions of our countrymen and women vote with their feet and go and live in the UK? If its so oppressive in N. Ireland, why do most people there want to stay in the UK, inc 32% of Catholics there.

Regarding the Boer war, there is no proof that disease was used as a weapon. Regarding the figure who died in the Boer war camps, first it was 28,000, now 30,000 and in another source 10,000. It was so long ago and so far away, why is it dragged up whenever Nazism is mentioned?

Klaz wrote "But you should look at your history, and look at the freedoms of religions, education, property, inheritance etc that were all curtailed by British rule in Ireland, especially just prior and just after the famine. You might find that they're considered fairly oppressive by modern standards."

OK but two hundred years ago the world was a different place. That was then , this is now. Nobody is denying there were injustices then, just the same as in practically every country in the world.