Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

The idea is that you could suspend or limit the death camps for a few months. While other methods may be reverted to, it would raise questions about the economic cost of the death camps, and at least set back the project by as long as possible.

But I agree; some people survived several years in Nazi death camps, and came out alive at their liberation. They would have been killed in a bombing raid.

Bombing infrastructure would not have been effective, as the railways were small and easily replaced, and large stations were already targets.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

I think the idea was to destroy the gas chambers and crematoria, obviously there would be casualties among the prisoners (don't forget there were two camps at Auschwitz, one for extermination and one for slave labour).

Besides i think being killed in a bombing raid would be preferable to a long and slow death due to malnutrition and hard labour. How were the prisoners to know how long the war would last? Having no contact with the outside world? I'd imagine that many had resigned themselves to the fact that they would die in the camps.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

Bombing infrastructure may not be the most effective thing to do, but it is still more effective than bombing wooden sheds crowded with people you're trying to save. Stations were already targets, but that doesn't mean that additional bombers wouldn't have done more damage.

Another method to increase the economic costs would have been to target those industries that were needed to keep the camps running (factories for poisonous gas, for example).

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

I understand the concept, but I'm saying outright that it's a ridiculous idea. I am quite sure there could be more humane resolutions.

In Elie Wiesel's book Night, he addresses something similar to this. Yes, they did resign themselves to the fact that their lives would end inside the camp eventually. At one point in the book, as Ally planes were bombing in the distance, the were praying that the planes would come and bomb Auschwitz--with them inside. It's not a question of suffering. Obviously a quick death from an explosion would be preferable than the torturous deaths that they had been subjected to. However, the point is, it's a rash decision that is made without consideration to every human being's basic right to life in the name of war strategy.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

Such as?

I understand the problem, but the concentration camps the world has seen, such as Vortuka or Sunghori, or Auschwitz (minor in comparison to the others), have epitomised human suffering in the extreme. But of course the question stretches our moral bounds, and even with the benefit of hindsight, we cannot make a clear decision.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

Oh, I knew that was coming. I honestly have no idea. I mean, you can't really expect me to just churn out a solution, and I am by no means a war-strategist, nor do I make the claim to be. Not even those in power had a plan, obviously. I am interested in human rights, not winning wars. Hope you understand where I'm coming from and that doesn't hurt my argument too much?

But yeah, as I said, I do understand the suffering that they went through, and that they were hoping we'd come to bomb their camps. At that point, though, they did not believe that liberation was feasible, and it obviously was. In the end, I revert to my original statement, minus the sarcasm, that the response to the mass extermination of people is not to exterminate them ourselves under the claim that it will "slow down" the killing, and reduce their suffering.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

Killing them elsewhere would have meant moving them over destroyed infrastructure, removing them as a workforce and expending extra resources in their extermination. These people were dying in mass numbers anyway, it's not like you'd really be having a massive impact on the death toll, and it costs the enemy a high price limiting their ability to make war, which is what war is about.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

Moving them from camp-to-camp wasn't anything new. I seem to recall reading about a several mile run in the snow (most of them had no shoes), in which they were shot if they ran too slow.

As for them dying in mass numbers, you'd have to look at the rate of killing... Which I'm too distracted to do at the moment. They only killed the unhealthy ones that were unable to work, not those that were able to contribute their labor to the camp. Keep in mind they also had hospitals (for those suffering from dysentery, etc.), so they just didn't knock them off every second they got (though that certainly was the case in some individuals). Granted, the hospitals weren't really their to save their lives, but they were more like "waiting rooms" for the chamber.

Regardless of whether or not it would be more strategical to kill them all at once in a giant explosion, it's just a bad idea. Like I said, it's just a shallowly thought-through idea. I'm sure we could find some sort of alternative that did not involve the compromising of morals.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

Of course. =p I wasn't expecting a full answer, not from you or anybody.

I think we run the risk of changing the question to "Should the Allies have attempted to alleviate the suffering of Nazi concentration camp inmates?", to which we can all comfortably say "yes" and be done with it.

With the question as it stands, we open up a new variety of questions, each just as challenging. Is an instant death preferable to a long suffering with the prospect of survival?

And not all inmates resigned themselves to death. Take the example of Wiltold Pilecki again - he volunteered to be sent to Auschwitz, arrived in 1940, and escaped in 1943. Or St Maksymillian Kolbe, who volunteered to take the place of a stranger to be starved to death. Many more survived because they refused simply to die.

Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

I'm not a fan of Utilitarianism. :vikki:

No, definitely no. Not to mention, the Nazis would've probably found other ways to eliminate as many Jews as possible before their defeat. Judging by their fanaticism the extinction of Jews was more valuable than the war victory, so they would've rather spent remaining ammunition on the former.