Young Writers Society

You know I read that a lot of the time, the SS officers didn't hate Jews, but they didn't care about them either. The SS officers were just doing their job and trying to put food on the table for their families. So you don't have to talk about hating anybody. Maybe just explain something like "you gotta do what you gotta do"

Although some of them did probably hate the jews as a result of propaganda or past experiances (like Hitler), some SS officers just did as they were ordered to, trusting in the near-divine leadership of their Fuhrer. They were doing it for Hitler, their children, and the glory of the third Reich which would last a thousand years. The jews had to be eradicated for the sake of Germany and its people. Although for Hitler is was about hate, for the people who did the killings it was mostly bout following orders and doing the best for Germany. And it's hard to truly hate things. For example, one officer of a death camp said: (not exact words but in that frame)

"Cargo. I began to think of them as cargo, not people."

lyrical_sunshine wrote:Okay, well, i have only one tip that comes to mind. we did a pretty extensive chapter on WWII in history last year, and we watched an interview by Elie Weisel (survived a concentration camp.) he said that the Nazis didn't hate him; they just didn't care. They felt indifference, not hate. meaning they could shoot someone and it wouldn't even bother them. Weisel said that indifference is the opposite of love, not hate.

i don't know if that helps or if it just confuses you more lol.

I'd believe this, absolutely. Hatred is a pretty intense thing, but to begin with, in order to have it, you have to make it personal. Supposing a lot of the nazis really did believe everything they were told about the Jews. If they saw the answer to that problem as a simple method of correcting a problem, they didn't have to necessarily stop and have personal ill will towards each of their victims. They (theoretically) believed that they were doing the right thing in the situation, and probably did it like any other duty. And actually, the nazi's ideas on humanity, shall we say, didn't stop with the Jews. I believe people of color and also other religions (including Catholics) were also killed during that time. (My family knows a few who have told such stories of their Catholic family members). It was more encompassing than a lot of people appreciate, but again, to most of them it was probably just a duty... and perhaps to many (not to let them off the hook) it was do or die themselves. It's my understanding that joining their armed forces was not exactly optional in some cases.

But in any case, hatred is a pretty strong and specific thing. Could you hate someone you know nothing about, even if you thought they were part of a faction of people trying to ruin your country or whatever? You might hate the ideas trying to ruin your country, but if you look at the individuals and realize they're doing what THEY think is right...


Flat out hatred is a lot more callous a thing than most people give it credit for being. Even when you get really mad at someone, we don't generally hate people enough to want them to really, literally die, let alone want to be the ones killing them.

Actually, I heard that the polar opposite of love is indifference. Which sort of makes sense, if you think about it. Because hate is passionate... if he hates Jews, then he puts some kind of zest into it, which although it is scary, is not completely freaky. Completely freaky would be more like Dr. Josef Mengele, if you know what I mean. He didn't hate the Jews, necessarily... he just didn't care.

So that could be another path you could think about.