[shliachtx]

> Lots of people did shitty things in that war (and all wars)

I don't think Germany's singular goal of racial domination - and specifically extermination of world Jewry - is comparable to most wars. Nazi Germany is viewed differently historically because it was different.

That is not to say OP's grandfather is responsible for all of Nazi Germany's actions, but it is not just "lots of people did shitty things."

[soperj]

>I don't think Germany's singular goal of racial domination - and specifically extermination of world Jewry - is comparable to most wars.

That wasn't the reason for the war. Nor were there any country actually try to help the jews before or during the war.

It's also not different from thoughts at the time held throughout the western world. Britain specifically didn't help the jews during ww2 because they thought they would flood Palestine (a british colony) after the war. A famous quote in Canada before ww2 was that "We'd take as many as we can, but none was too much." America as well famously turned away boat loads of jews.

[bzbarsky]

> Nor were there any country actually try to help the jews before or during the war.

Depending on how you define "country" (as opposed to just "a large fraction or majority of its citizens"), Denmark did in fact help Jews, at least Danish ones.

And the story of Bulgaria is .. complicated. Again, they protected Bulgarian Jews in practice.

Portugal helped not only Portuguese Jews, but many others as well. In particular, they generally allowed a huge number of refugees (16% of the country's population), including Jews, into the country.

It's true that the main Allied powers were not particularly going out of their way to help Jews, but "any country" is a high bar.

[bruiseralmighty]

Saving the Jews was not on any country's radar entering WWII. It was only afterwards that evidence of holocaust was discovered.

[soperj]

That's absolutely veritably false. The Polish government-in-exile in London first reported crimes in the Auschwitz complex to the western public in 1941.

[bruiseralmighty]

Yes you are correct. I should amend my previous statement.

>It was only afterwards that evidence of holocaust was verified and/or believed.*

The reports from the Polish government in exile did not make front page news. I'd still stand by the earlier statement:

> Saving the Jews was not on any country's radar entering WWII.

You might argue that Poland wanted to save the Jews, but at the point that reports of mass murder were coming out of Germany in 1941, the Polish government no longer had a country to manage. They had exited WWII as losers.

Reports of mass murder of Jews weren't verified by the USG until 1942. I would still argue that saving the Jews did not even crack the top 10 reasons for the USG invading Europe. After all, they verified these reports and still waited 2 years before making landfall.

[soperj]

>Saving the Jews was not on any country's radar entering WWII & >Reports of mass murder of Jews weren't verified by the USG until 1942. I would still argue that saving the Jews did not even crack the top 10 reasons for the USG invading Europe. After all, they verified these reports and still waited 2 years before making landfall.

I absolutely agree with these.

[shliachtx]

Yes, America turned away boatloads of Jews. Yes, the world did not do enough, and turned a blind eye when it didn't affect them directly.

> That wasn't the reason for the war.

This is false. Hitler spoke and wrote at length about the "Jewish problem." It wasn't the _only_ reason for the war but it certainly was _a_ reason for the war. Even the war against the USSR was framed as against "Jewish Bolsheviks."

This is aside from the fact that OP referenced their grandfather being a member of the SS. The SS was _not_ the German army. The SS was the military organization of the Nazi party - often conflicting with the army to achieve their goals. They enforced racial policy in Germany and its conquests, ran the concentration camps and death camps, and were specifically tasked with eliminating Jews.

Perhaps it is because of the collective guilt of not having done enough for Jews at the time, but people often gloss over the explicitly racial and antisemitic aspect of World War II. The extermination of Jews was not a byproduct, it was one of the key goals.

For further detail, I encourage the interested reader to check out "The War Against the Jews" by Lucy Davidowitz.