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Auschwitz Museum Releases Software To Rewrite Holocaust Nomenclature (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum has released software for Windows and Mac which is intended to catch and rewrite terms such as 'Polish death camps' and other phrases which associate the Polish people with the atrocities of the holocaust, rather than the occupying German forces which created and ran the death camps. The software comes in the form of Microsoft Word Add-Ins on Windows and a revision to the system-wide dictionary in OSX, making the facility available to Mac programs including Safari, Keynote and Outlook. A spokesperson for the ad agency that developed the programs said, "We decided to make use of the primary tool used by text writers and create an easy to install add-on that finds the mistake made and suggests a correct phrase."
My grandparents died in the Holocaust when they were six. Show some respect.
Probably related to the recent measures proposed by the Polish government to criminalize the use of the phrase âoePolish death campsâ.
I'm of German decent - great grand parents came over in late 19th century - and my family had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, my family that styed behind were accused of being German "Trolls" according to the Nazis (couldn't say anything against them or the SA was on your ass), put my ancestors back in the "homeland" into concentration camps. Yeah, they helped Jews, Catholics, etc... and disagreed with the Nazis.
It's a little disingenuous to blame Germany for it, because Polish mobs were killing the survivors from Auschwitz. The Jews didn't leave Poland because of the concentration camps, they left because Poland was trying to kill them.
Poland should just apologize and move on. We all have done terrible things in the histories of our countries. No point trying to hide it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Revisionist history
ALL history is revisionist. New documents are found. New sites are uncovered by archaeologists, farmers and earthquakes. And data science.
See, a HUGE help has been document scanners and data science. Many of the church records in England have been digitized and the historians have been using that data - along with computer science - to discover new things about it's history.
And as things are discovered in other areas, history is reinterpreted. To be a good historian, one must be familiar with computer science, biology, geology, mathematics, statistics, chemistry, economics, literature and just about every aspect of human thought.
Why is sed and other software that can do substitutions inadequate here?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Today the government mandated that the Orwellian Plugin be a required built-in feature for all word processors, editing tools and key entry for public safety purposes.
The Orwellian plugins are widely used to auto-correct incorrect thinking and terminology legally defined as hate speech and promotes a safer and more welcoming and open society.
In other news chocolate rations are up...
Like a SJW Clippy. "I see you're trying to write about historical events. Would you like help contributing to the shame pornography that is post-war German culture?"
From the example given in the article, it sounds more like "clarification" than "revision".
Please install our memory hole on your computer so we can make it look like Europe had a long history of totally loving the Jews and making them feel welcome, until mean ole Hitler came along and was the first (and only) anti-Semite in European history.
Europeans are fucking disgusting in their intellectual dishonesty.
I wouldn't view this as software with a functional purpose, but rather as a political and social commentary in the form of software, rather then a speech or a painting. It doesn't help you achieve a task, but it does make you think about the issues involved.
It's a very interesting idea.
As a person who has visited Dachau, my sincere condolences. As for the article, I would think a better way to approach this would be to address the educational material and reference material rather than implementing a revisionist methodology on individual people's thoughts. Seems rather big brother to me. Visiting Dachau and reading the history as it happened there was very eye opening to me. I was under the impression that the German government was a bunch of third world, unsophisticated neanderthals that allowed some megalomaniac take over and slowly build a war machine. ... This impression was very, very wrong. The German government at the time was very scientifically advanced, had a similar structure to what the US has today, and allowed a fair and open election that elected the megalomaniac into office. From there, they passed a law that allowed the "president" to override the congress in times of need. From there, the congress was disbanded, the constitution suspended, and within a month Dachau was opened. The Third Reich had risen. And to learn the passivity of the local population was shocking. People simply didn't care.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
From the summary, this sounds like a tool that corrects or adds additional clarity to an otherwise ambiguous phrase. The word "rewrite" almost always has a negative connotation associated with the intent of obfuscating fact. Not sure why the submitter chose to use such a loaded term. I suppose it's possible it was copied from TFA but who reads that?
The trouble is: the Polish people were actually associated with the atrocities of the Holocaust. Antisemitism and oppression were common in Poland both before and after WWII. The main reason Poles didn't cooperate more with the Nazis was that the Nazis viewed them as racially inferior as well. So, whatever you call the death camps, Poland's own despicable history must not be forgotten.
I think you should reread the post you replied to, you might find an important logical inconsistency.
It's not revisionist history. It's trying to change the descriptors of events. Camps in Poland were German camps, not Polish. The Poles weren't collaborators, but were subjugated. The Poles seem very concerned about the "true" history being lost, and the poor descriptions of events giving a false impression.
Much like the secession states in the US Civil War seceded because of slavery as the primary reason, and hate of states rights as the second, though the current thought is the opposite of the second, and that the primary is a secondary or lower cause. One must be vigilant about how words are used if meaning is to be maintained over long terms.
Learn to love Alaska
Trump 2016
You are welcome on my lawn.
"I'm Clippy! Hello! Would you like to correct 'Polish death camp' to 'Nazi death camp' ?"
(Yes)
"Would you like to correct 'weren't such Nazi's about using the term Nazi' to 'weren't such Nazis '? "
(Yes)
"Would you like to correct 'grammar Nazis' to 'grammar SJWs' ?"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Poland had more holocaust victims than any other country with around 2 million of the victims being ethnic Poles. Poland is also number one in Righteous Among the Nations (awarded by Israel for saving Jews during the Holocaust). Basically, Poland was damn proud to be a Democratic state where you could practice whatever religion you wanted which attracted the largest Jewish population of Europe and earned the ire of Germany. A couple right-wing nutters no more represents Poland than Cliven Bundy represents Americans. /., you're better than to present the Polish as a people who cooperated with Germany during the Holocaust -- a view the victims don't share either.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Because NAZI was a German party run by Germans and voted into power by Germans?
Learn to love Alaska
As a person who has visited Dachau, my sincere condolences
You made my day, dear Sir. :-)
-SR
>> grandparents died...when they were six
Not to be an asshole, but I think we're getting whooshed. How did your grandparents have kids if they were six?
Note to new Slashdot management: Can you put out the roach motels again? There appears to be another infestation.
You are welcome on my lawn.
While the majority of Germans may not have been Nazi party members the Nazis were given power by the German people in free and open elections. The German people can not wash their hands of the Nazis through a lack of party membership.
And you are not German, you and several generations of your ancestors are Americans.
When my great-uncles went to fight in Europe they were half serious when they joked that they hope they don't shoot any relatives. Being related did not make them think of themselves as Germans rather than Americans.
"Trump 2016"
Warning sign: if we hear of Trump hiring JJ Abrams to film his next big rally.
Time travel, natch!
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
I've noticed there has been a constant increase of people and media reminding people that the Holocaust happened in the past few years.
It's parallel to the growing war crimes and crimes against Humanity that Israel has been pulling off in that region, in addition to the racism against black people who even had to stage protests. As if, what is pretty much ancient history now, excuses the shit they are pulling in the present.
Of course, the justification for deporting blacks rather than giving them asylum is truly worthy of a Nazi victim that has learned well from its ancient oppressor:
"Keeping the Jewish nation pure, because Jews are special and it's called 'Patriotism', not 'Nazism' ", when they are pulling the same shit Nazis did.
You'd think Gypsies, Slavs and Homosexuals never existed during the Holocauster. Jews get more priority in being mentioned.
And yet, the whole world hates Jews yet again despite all this social-engineering and despite WW2, as evidenced by the world just about having enough of Israeli bullshit and recognizing Palestine. I do wonder why.
How could your grandparents died when they were 6, yet be your grandparents ? They obviously didn't have time to procreate...
Revisionism comes into play when a government try to enforce history by law.
Sounds like Obama, actually.. narcissistic, and writing executive order after executive order (or memo) to bypass Congress. I'm genuinely surprised he didn't try to get a 3rd term somehow, but it ain't over yet.
Hitler wasn't elected to president, is supporters forced him to be appointed Chancellor, and then increased the Chancellor's power.
Hindenburg won the run-off, the Nazi's did win a plurality in parliament while government still functioned.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
When they were six, or when you were six?
If the latter, my sympathies.
If the former, there's a logical problem with people becoming parents at age six.
First amendment? Gay marriage. Suspended. Check.
I think you're a bit premature here. Please double check item 23b section iii on the Agenda. We haven't succeeded until heterosexual marriage is illegal!
I get that this is turning into a political debate that is taking staunch political lines between republican (foxnews) and democrat (msnbc) ideologies. And that is unfortunate. That division of ideology is exactly why Trump is doing so well. And that ideology is blind to the fact that it really doesn't matter which political party you align with, the damage come just the same. The Patriot Act, and many of the other political issues that are raised here on Slashdot are bi-partisan. Yes, that means it doesn't matter which soda you choose, both coke and pepsi have a crap ton of sugar in them that will make you fat. Let's shift focus back to the original point of the article and away from whether Obama or Trump or Bush or who the heck ever would be qualified as worse president ever. Let's start picking better presidents and better legislators. Not what Fox or MSNBC says we should pick, who are they to decide what's right for us?
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
Ach, don't compare Abrams to Riefenstahl!
All though an Abrams production of a Trump rally would be hilarious. I can see the lens flares now. Snap zoom to Trump's hair!
My grandparents died in the Holocaust when they were six. Show some respect.
How did people that died at 6, which is well prior to the age at which homo sapiens achieves sexual maturity, become your grandparents? How did the child of these miraculous 6 year old parents survive, or was it born to them at 3 and didn't get taken to the camp?
Nazi experiments. :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Well, will it?
I'm the grandson of Polish jews that came to Argentina. Everybody knows, I've heard that from my family a dozen times, that the Poles were mostly antisemitic, they happily joined the nazis and they even happily stole the property of the escaping jews. I've heard that some people coming here at the time burned their Polish papers because of that. And now this museum is focused in some chauvinist correction than in remembering the real horrors of the time.
Considering the state of education in the world, how there are millions of people that don't believe the attempted extermination of the Jewish people happened, it wouldn't surprise me that people would try to hold the Polish people responsible, for the death and destruction at the hands of the Nazi party. During the end of the war in 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower forced the German people to clean up and bury those in the death camps, and had the worlds journalist document all the death inside those camps. When asked why, he responded "because there will come a day, that the people of the world will not believe the events that happened". By photographing, and documenting this, no matter what people say, there is hard evidence, that the holocaust did in fact happen, at the hands of the Nazi's.
You mean like the bogus claims by leftists that Republicans were running the South and created all the Jim Crow laws and that it was Democrats who went down there to protest against the Republican Governor Wallace and that Sen. Byrd was never in the KKK until they all of a sudden remember that he was completely reformed?
Is that the re-writing you are claiming is happening? Or maybe the rewriting that makes the claim that not one single person ever mentioned the 2nd amendment applying to individual private citizens until the NRA fabricated the story somewhere in the 1980s? It really does not take very long to prove that many of the Founding Fathers were under the impression that every one of the rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights applies to private individuals.
Yes. At least Riefenstahl knew how to make a decent film.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This impression was very, very wrong. The German government at the time was very scientifically advanced, had a similar structure to what the US has today, and allowed a fair and open election that elected the megalomaniac into office.
This isn't strictly true.
Hitler was not elected fairly per se, during elections in the late 20's the Sturmabteilung (SA or Brown Shirts) stood over elections in many parts of Germany to ensure enough votes were cast for the Nazi party. This was enough to make the Nazi's the second largest party in parliament, giving them enough numbers to cripple it with repeated walkouts until Hitler was given what he wanted by the president, Paul Von Hindenburg. What Hitler wanted was to be given the position or Reich Chancellor. After being given the Chancellors position in 1933 Hitler dissolved the Reichstag (the lower house, similar to the US Congress) and forced general elections. During this time the SA standover men were everywhere in Germany. Hitler also passed laws limiting the freedom of the press at this time. After the Reichstag Fire Decree, civil liberties were severely curtailed.
After this, the Nazi's stormtroopers, the Sturmabteilung were openly operating in Germany virtually unopposed, enforcing boycots against Jewish business and the like. When Paul Von Hindenburg died in office in 1934, Hitler organised a plebiscite to combine the office of the Chancellor with the office of the President, this passed with a 90% yes vote but this is mainly due to the standover tactics employed by the SA and the Nazis. Hitlers rise to power was a very long and often violent subversion of democracy. Its a bit of a misnomer to say he was legitimately elected.
As several bills had passed the Reichstag in 1933, laws were able to be made by the Reich Chancellor without the involvement of the Reichstag, Hitler who was now both president and chancellor held absolute power. At this point Hitler also had control of the limited army in Weimar Germany, so a military coup was also out of the question. He began the process of folding the SA into the army (culminating with the assassination of Ernst Rohm, leader of the SA).
I dont think the US is at this level just yet.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I'm the grandson of Polish jews that came to Argentina. Everybody knows, I've heard that from my family a dozen times, that the Poles were mostly antisemitic, they happily joined the nazis and they even happily stole the property of the escaping jews. I've heard that some people coming here at the time burned their Polish papers because of that.
As with all such generalizations about a group of people, it's complicated. For many centuries, Poland was the home to the largest Jewish community in Europe because of their policy toward religious tolerance. That changed with the partitions of Poland, where imperial powers (e.g., Russia) started targeting Jews.
And if you read that article (which is very long), you'll see what was going on in the first half of the 20th century was complicated too. Poland was still home to the largest Jewish community in Europe at that time, and many Jewish people were highly respected. But anti-Semitism was on the rise again in many countries, including Poland.
My condolences to your family, who must have suffered terribly. But on the whole, it's not clear that Polish people were significantly more anti-Semitic than the rest of Europe at this time.
And now this museum is focused in some chauvinist correction than in remembering the real horrors of the time.
I absolutely agree that the horrors should NOT be ignored. On the other hand, well... there's this. As you'll learn there, not only did Polish people likely save a half-million or more Jewish lives during that time, but these Polish people were victims of numerous massacres when they were punished for trying to protect Jews -- estimates are that up to 50,000 Polish people lost their lives just trying to do this.
So, yeah -- were there bad Poles who betrayed Jews the Nazis, etc.? Of course. Were there also ones who helped Jewish people at the risk of their own lives? Yeah, a lot of those too.
History is complicated, and little good generally comes from stereotyping or vilifying an entire group of people. Hopefully the irony here is not lost.
I'd really like to see the Armenian version of that software. In France, it's a criminal offense to deny the Armenian genocide, while in Turkey it's a criminal offense to say there was an Armenian genocide. Isn't it nice?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
But where were the survivors buried?
Well... This is a lovely place to be in.
No, I do not disbelieve the stated numbers. No, I am not racist.
But, nothing that person said is indicative of any racist beliefs. You do not have to be racist to disbelieve the stats.
In short, you're an idiot. They *might* be racist. They've given you no reason to believe they're racist. You reached that conclusion on your own and without evidence. I'd suggest that such makes you more prejudicial than the other person has given us cause to believe they are.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
These are not the Polish collaborators you are looking for.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Hitler was appointed, not elected.
227-3517
I don't think the US is at the level where Congress is being nullified, but that's not to say that it can't be. Congress is at the level where it's passing laws that "bend" the rules of the Constitution, both Republicans and Democrats are quick to point out instances where such bending impedes their unique sensibilities. Civil Rights organizations are quick to point this out as well. I did simplify my explanation of the history to fit in the 5 minute write up. But you're right, there is more to it. But the point was, it was fast. And the take over was targeted against a similar form of government to what the US has. I believe the law in question that was passed was called "The Enabling Act" which enabled Hitler to circumvent the Reichstag. But that's not saying that a President and Congress who are of the same party can't could push other similar legislation in the US. The three houses of Government are only effective at preventing hostile take overs such as what happened in Germany when the checks and balances between each other are respected.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
There's more mention of the Holocaust now as the remaining survivors pass away. The people who were actually in the concentration camps will soon be no more, and the events that they suffered must be remembered.
I suppose that your reference to blacks being deported refers to the economic migrants who cross the Israeli-Egyptian border. They are provided housing, health care, food - but they are not wanted in this country. They bring no skills, have no affinity for the culture, and as a group are simply trying to find the first first world country that they can move to. You may also pay attention to the large immigration of Ethiopian Jews who are successfully integrating into Israeli society.
Your insinuation that Israel is equivalent to Nazi Germany is beyond the pale of rational thought. There are no death camps; there are no death marches; there is the reality that 20% of Israel's voters are Arab.
Israel was founded to be a Jewish state, after literally a thousand years of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Arab world. It's not a case of keeping the Jewish people "pure", it's a case of keeping the Jewish people alive. And after over six million Jews were murdered in a few short years, I think we have a compelling argument for having our own safe and secure state.
You should know that I'm very left wing - I want the Palestinians to have a state, and I live less than eight miles from the West Bank. Given how the Palestinians have handled Gaza and how Hezbollah has handled South Lebanon, you may understand if enthusiasm for that idea is not high amongst the Israeli populace.
The whole world hates Jews? Are you speaking for yourself anonymous coward or do you have any real evidence? And if you hate Israel and Jews so much, you should almost certainly throw out the computer your spreading your vile with, as it's CPU was designed here by evil Jews.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
First amendment? Because the government won't support religious objections on who gets to file jointly and who's next-of-kin any more? Religious freedom means that you get to forbid anything offensive to your religion. It means that your religious group can make its own internal rules and can't order others about.
Second amendment? Do you realize when that died? Do you realize who was President when the right to go out and by a modern military rifle was taken away? That leftist loon, Reagan. If the "well-regulated milita" clause means anything, it means that the Second is talking about military arms. Banning some guns because they look scary while not banning other, more or less equivalent, guns, which is about the looniest thing the Left did about gun control, is trivial compared to that.
I haven't seen many Third Amendment cases go by, but, moving on, do you realize which leftist loon President got civil forfeiture ramped up to what I consider unconstitutional levels? Reagan again. There have been lefties in favor of it and righties against it, but Reagan and the Republicans started us on the path.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I think that calling Hitler elected in a free and fair election is either ignorant or deceptive, myself.
It's also worth considering the political environment. The US Government is one of the oldest in the world, with a strong tradition of individual rights. The Weimar Republic was not really popular, being the Germans' first real attempt at a democratic republic, and with large parties on the left and right that wanted to change it drastically. The right wing had been attacking it for a long time, as part of a plan to avoid admitting they lost the Great War fair and square.
The Reichstag could pass the Enabling Act, and other laws that ended the Republic, going far beyond what the US Congress and US President can do. The US courts are accustomed to slapping down the other branches of government as needed.
The US is very far from being as susceptible to totalitarian rule as 1933 Germany was.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Hungarians were actually pretty good about protecting Jews, perhaps the best of the German allies after Finland. The burst of Auschwitz activity in 1944 came as the Germans overthrew the Hungarian government and installed a puppet government, which still didn't cooperate fully in shipping off Hungarian Jews.
If you ever see an argument about bombing Auschwitz, it's about trying to save those Jews.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Holocaust or Shoah which the Israelis (some of whom are Jews, but there are also non-Jewish Israelis) are perpetrating upon the Palestinians (some of whom are Muslims, but there are also non-Muslim Palestinians). There's also a historical reference, but that's an active Holocaust at the moment.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
And then the mindless followers on both sides completely miss the fact that they are merely two faces of the same party.
The holocaust is the death of millions and a historical event denied by dimwitted right-winged fools like you. It is quite remarkable how dumb some people are!
Obama could do without executive orders if the Republican Congress would start doing its job! All they do is stall and say "No" to everything. Someone needs to keep things going.
What does gay marriage have to do with the first amendment? If anything, the pseudoreligious propaganda from the rightwingers is what goes against the first amendment. The second amendment was adopted before machine guns were invented and incredibly accurate firearms were mass produced. I'd be fine with keeping the 2nd Amendment if all that can be sold and carried are muzzle loaded muskets and folks have to cast their own lead bullets. The fact that times have changed is completely ignored by rightist loons like Scalia.
Huh? Trump is in the right extremist (Fox News) camp up to his hair. The only one who is even worse is christian terrorist Cruz.