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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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Quite right, Holocaust deniers and everyone else is too fixated on gas chambers. The Shoah by bullets or starvation is just as important. Bullets are the traditional method of mass extermination, not these great big centralized, industrial operations.

I think the response to that would be that gas chambers are a big part of the narrative. I recall seeing some images from Maus (that book people got upset over last year) and it reminded me just how much the Holocaust is considered industrialized i.e people being killed by the most efficient mass process, and that this uniqueness, to me at least, seems to be an important point that is reinforced in the conventional narrative.

Maus itself doesn't particularly fixate on the industrial killing process. Indeed, the part where Vladek Spiegelman's (ie. Art Spiegelman's dad and the main character of the book, alongside Art Spiegelman) is in camp is actually not all that long, and much of it concentrates on how he got through the camp by being a crafty little shit (the entire comic's thesis is basically "Even if you're a Holocaust victim you can still be a huge shithead, like my dad, and it actually helps you survive").

Vladek is probably portrayed as going through more "danger moments" (ie. parts where Spiegelman portrays his life as if it's actually on line) outside of the camps than inside, though it's clear that inside there's a constant background danger of being selected for death if he doesn't find new ways to be useful.

Interesting to know, I haven't read it myself. That was just what it reminded me of from some history lessons almost a decade old now.