Every country has its paradigms.Hektor wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2026 10:17 am
2. The 'eastern camps' like Auschwitz and Sobibor, were for sure less accessible for research and it was quite risky to challenge the narrative in those countries. The threat would have come from two side there. The Communist threatened, because the Holocaust in an especially crude form was an important narrative to them for a number of reasons. But to Polish Chauvinists that was also an important talking point. As far as more thorough research is concerned, it is difficult for a private individual or a club to do something like this. You'd need permanent employees working full time on this. And this would typically be people working for a government agency or university (Which tend to be de facto government institutions as well). And from gov. related groups one can hardly expect that they would do any research potentially contradicting the consensus line of governments. So, while the West was officially free and it was easier possible to do research there, it was still less likely. The persecution of Revisionists with the help of government violence has become norm since the 1980s. Prior to this it was easier possible and there was also a larger number of doubters with WW2 experience. The latter group faded away since 2000, when they either became too old for this or died of natural causes.
Here in Brazil, we have a tendency to anthropologize structural problems like violence, corruption, poverty, etc. But a careful analysis will reveal that there are two countries in the same territory, one with excellent indicators, almost those of a developed country, and the other with indicators of a country devastated by civil war. Why? Because colonization lacked knowledge of geographical viability factors regarding where it would be possible to establish civilization or not, so they simply occupied the land, and demographic inertia did the rest.
What I mean by all this is that all governments have their prejudices. In the case of Brazil, we have the prejudice that the territory is homogeneous and that the existing problems are due to public policies or the lack thereof, which is not the case. The government has an interest in maintaining the status quo because blaming one part of the territory is politically suicidal; it's better to blame left versus right, and thus nothing changes.
In the case of World War II and the Holocaust, each side involved has its own interests in ensuring that the order established in 1945 continues to prevail, both victorious and defeated.
There's always someone who says something like, "Do you think you know more about Nazism than the Germans?" As if modern-day Germans had complete freedom of expression.
