Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

> A holocaust is happening currently

Jeez. You do know that Israel had it's 70th birthday only a couple of days ago and you sit here and, basically, relativize the Holocaust. Please don't do that. Thanks.

View on HN

Holocaust is a word that has its origin long before The Holocaust happened. [0]

I did not call the non-human animal holocaust as The Holocaust (committed by the nazis).

Here's a Jewish Holocaust survivor https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2h8df0/i_am_an_80year... that gladly uses the word holocaust to talk about what is happening to docile, domesticated animals all over the world.

Here's a notable survivor too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Bashevis_Singer#Vegetari...

[0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/holocaust

> I did not call the non-human animal holocaust as The Holocaust (committed by the nazis).

Maybe this is because (at least in Germany and France) any kind of Holocaust comparison is widely deemed offensive. It may be seen as OK in the US sphere, but not in Europe. We actually have a word for this in German ("Holocaustrelativierung"), and organizations like PETA which routinely use Holocaust comparisons when talking about e.g. chick sexing, regularly get flamed for it.

The AfD are far more frightening a right-wing group, and have far more power, than e.g. UKIP in Britain. I believe that because Germans refuse to see the Holocaust as anything other than a singular event they are now at risk of repeating it all over again. Their inability to relativise it (if that can be taken to mean to put it in a historical continuum in which other events of comparable atrocity are committed) means it's snugly in the past. I think this leads to a false sense of security.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com