Luc Brunet – 31 January 2015
Well, this start of 2015 is very hectic and I guess we all have too many shocking images in our head…
- the shootings in Paris
- the 70 years anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and all the pictures in the camps
- more dead in Donbass
- severed heads by Daech
- and more
Of course we have seen much all of that, and also many geopolitical and economic uncertainties over the past decades. Of course we are big boys and girls and can filter what is very important and leave emotions aside.
But, but, but.. is it too much of the same in such a short period of time? or is something different happening this time that makes me uncomfortable? I think something happens and I would like to share it now, even if this Letter shall be too emotional or too controversial.
More than lying: rewriting history
What strikes me about what happened over the past few years is the way truth is manipulated by politicians and medias (my Letter “Power Corruption and Lies discussed that in more details). But there is one thing that made me really nervous in January. This is the attempt to rewrite history and change the way we do or should look back at past events that indeed shaped the world we are living in today. Double standard is no longer used to analyze the present, but also to rework the history. And although this has been used already many times – I am not naïve on that – for example about the period of the colonization, or the conquest of the American territories, this time it relates to more recent and more emotional part of our history – the second World War. And with the shift we see from the governance system initiated in 1945 towards a shift to the East and a multipolar world, rewriting THAT part of history is a dangerous temptation! Jews – Russians – Nazis Three groups that are close to my heart (1 and 2), or to my brain (3), after having spent lot of time to study and try to understand who were those people in black uniforms. This is why declarations published over the past weeks are no longer acceptable for me: Yatseniuk explaining on German TV how Auschwitz was liberated by Ukrainians, the Polish government reluctant to invite Putin to the 70 years liberation of that very concentration camp, and more of the same. But what can be swallowed coming from unstable and pathological fools like Yatseniuk or by traditionally anti-Russian neo-con Polish politicians is one thing. The fact that western European politicians and media almost did not react is the totally unacceptable part of the story. At a time when Nazi symbols and psychology are made fashionable in Ukraine, some Baltic States and some western European countries, and when most young people in Europe know less and less and care less and less about what happened in the 20th Century, we should react and remember what is our common history.
Why are Russians so emotional about WW2?
Western Europeans do not understand the meaning of the WW2 Victory for Russians – at all. They do not understand how such old events 70 years ago can be important for us today. The education system in Western Europe is really dysfunctional. Actually, Russians and Jews have the same perception here and the same emotional reaction. Many forget that Russia also lost millions of people during the war, much more than any Western country in percentage of population. But even more importantly, the Nazi racial strategy was very clear: first had to be eliminated the very low level races, like Jews and Gypsy. The race next to Jews in the list were Slavs and especially Russians. The Nazis had an expansion plan to the East up to the Urals, to generate a large space for Aryans. Part of the plan was to eliminate a certain percentage of the local populations (around 80% in Russia and Poland, 50% in Ukraine) and use the remaining part as slaves to work for Germany, mostly in the agriculture area. Western Europeans were either considered as Aryans (only a few by the way, mostly Scandinavians and Dutch) the rest being accepted as inferior but allowed to live and work freely, of course under the control of the Reich. For Russians and Jews, WW2 was therefore a survival exercise and capitulating was not an option. Of course Stalin made a number of mistakes and understated the risk – he should have read Mein Kampf and other German publications (the plan for expansion to the East was indeed initiated in the 20’s, long before Hitler came to power!). But mistakes made by Europeans and Americans were even more deadly. They initially supported and financed the Nazi regime, using it as a protection against Communism. Anything was better that a red Germany! When they realized that Hitler had built as many tanks as Volkswagen cars, it was too late. Sounds a bit like Al Quaida used as a weapon against the Soviet army in Afghanistan or Daech against Assad in Syria, doesn’t ‘it?
Russians and Jews won together
Western Europe totally failed to protect its Jewish population just before the war. As far as I recall, nobody remembers of warnings to Jews suggesting them to leave or at least to be careful, although again all was written beforehand and the Nazis did not act by surprise. As all countries fell to their knees within weeks, unprepared and unable to resist, the Jewish population was trapped, without even knowing what happened. On top of it, some countries like France established a local collaboration government helping Nazis to identify and eliminate the Jews. During the war itself, multiple pictures from the air revealed concentration camps (some intelligence work was certainly done about what it was..) , but nothing was done about it, not even about the visible railroad tracks leading to those infamous places. An Israeli film about planes of the IDF flying over Auschwitz some years ago shows survivors talking about their frustration of hearing US or British planes flying by, but only flying by… USSR Jews however – although not always treated very well by the Soviet regime – joined the Soviet army in mass and could fight to defend their country. They lived or died, but at least had the opportunity to fight. Jews never had that chance in Europe, with very few exceptions like the suicidal but admirable uprising of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Jews and Russians were the ones with no choice. It was either win or be physically eliminated.
Who defeated Hitler in 1945?
Here a few points. First Hitler and his regime were clinically dead from the end of 1943 and the retreat from Russia after the loss of Stalingrad. The remaining period was pure survival and was used by the USSR to build up enough forces to be able to go to Berlin – and this with or without the US intervention in France and Italy. Nobody can rewrite history, but I have two questions that I answer below. Shall each of you try to find his/her own response. Would the USSR had been strong enough to made its way to Berlin without the help of the western coalition on the Western Front? My answer is Yes. In the case Germany had made it to Moscow and topped the Stalin regime, without attacking the UK, would then the US and UK had attacked Hitler at all? My answer is No. Hearing now an idiot (Yatseniuk is Jewish by the way, whose family would have been slaughtered by the ancestors of his today’s friends if Bandera had won) say that Ukraine liberated Auschwitz, while his friends of Right Sector and similar parties celebrate each year the foundation of SS Division Galicia – this is simply not acceptable. Hearing the same idiot saying that the USSR invaded Ukraine and Germany in 1945, and that this should not be accepted again – this is also not acceptable. Hearing the silence of the Western countries after what he said, while they at home send a guy to jail because of a sign making allusion to the Nazi salute (France) or forbid the use of any Nazi sign, including music like the anthem of the 3rd Reich (Germany) – this is even less acceptable. The West is once again playing with fire and it shall again burn itself.
Now on Jews and Israel
I also have a lot of questions about the behavior of some Jews in regard to recent events. How comes the Ukrainian junta is supported by some Jews in Ukraine (by far not all of course). Is Yatseniuk happy to work with people saluting “Heil Ukraina” and keen on remembering what a good thing was SS Division Galicia? Shall Kolomoisky be honored in Jewish journals in 10 or 20 years from now for having paid neo-Nazis to fight against pro-Russian fighters in Donbass? Is Israel pursuing the right policy in following as usual the US against Iran and in general Shiite movements, and doing so playing the game of Saudi Arabia and its Salafist trolls? Of course geopolitics are not so simple. But even if it sounds strange today, I am convinced that Russia and Israel shall be together in the battles to come!
To conclude, I shall copy the sentence that an interesting French blogger, Charles Sannat, uses to close each of his articles: Il est déjà trop tard, préparez-vous. It is already too late, get prepared.