[OT] aargh.. the big swirl of offtopicness sucks me in, too. help!
Am Mittwoch, den 07.03.2007, 09:43 +0000 schrieb Liam O'Toole:
> On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 10:14:38 +0100
> Michael Dominok <du.lists@dominok.net> wrote:
>
> > Am Mittwoch, den 07.03.2007, 09:02 +0000 schrieb Liam O'Toole:
>
> [...]
>
> > > I see plenty of linguistic diversity in Europe. Or are you
> > > referring to this newsgroup?
> >
> > Well, if you're talking about languages literally you're above
> > statement is nonsens. There was "plenty of linguistic diversity" in
> > the USSR or the Third Reich.
>
> Not at all. Both the Nazis and the Soviets went to great lengths to
> Germanise or Russify the areas they acquired or inherited,
> brutally suppressing other languages and cultures in the process.
Puh. Two different approaches. The Nazis wanted "colonies in the east"
for their masterrace to proliferate so they set up a german
administration using german terms and names for cities, rivers ...
They didn't care what their "slavonic slaves" spoke. As long as they
understood when they had to pull the plow and when to stop.
I totally agree with you about suppression of culture. But since the
suppression of the slavonic languages wasn't the prime target i would
speak of a "walk-by-suppression" (of language).
Anyway, nothing like this happened in the west, the south or the north.
Neither Amsterdam, Paris, Tripolis, Copenhagen nor Oslo got germanized
names.
So, concerning nazi-germany 3/4 of your statement is wrong.
My knowledge of soviet-history isn't that good but IMHO there was "only"
a small period of time, during Stalins earlier years, when the
relocations of many ethnic groups (That's what i think you're probably
refering too) took place.
And looking at how easily the remnants of the USSR regained their
national identities i doubt that it was official soviet policy to
suppress their languages and cultures - simply because they would
probably have succeeded. If you take into account the amount of time
(about 3 generations) and the means they had it seems a rather easy job.
Especially if you look at what the Nazis did to Germany in such a few
years.
> Why do you think the world remembers the horrors of Auschwitz, rather than
> Oswiecim?
Because they remember the horrors of a german concentration-camp named
Auschwitz-Birkenau and not the small polish village Oswiecim nearby
(Named Auschwitz during Nazi occupation) where (i guess) no horrors took
place?
Cheers
Michael
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