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Abstract: The Holocaust was not a rational project of social engineering.
The Nazis wished to eliminate the Jews--to punish, torture and destroy them--because they were possessed by profound, passionate hatred.
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In Modernity and the Holocaust (2002), Zygmunt Bauman explored the idea that the Nazi state was the first example of a gardening state; a state that used its monopoly of violence to introduce effective engineering solutions to social problems, influenced by scientific management’s emphasis on technical efficiency, division of labour and good design to shape and control society.
This theory brought to my mind a passage from Inside the Concentration Camps (Aroneau, 1996). The author collected accounts of behavior witnessed and reported by survivors of the death camps. Here is an example:
Of the many episodes I witnessed, one especially sticks in my mind. I had been in the camp two or three weeks when a group of about 200 Belgian Israelis appeared. They were taken immediately to the gas chambers. Among them was one young Israeli girl of exceptional beauty who was holding a child of about three in her arms.
The SS guard looked her over and and said: 'Come with me to the barracks and I'll postpone your fate a few hours.' Instead of an answer, the young woman pointed to the child in her arms. 'That's not what I have in mind,' cried the guard, and he tore the child out of the mother's arms. The child began to laugh, thinking that the officer wanted to play, and leaned forward, apparently intending to give the German a kiss. Without a moment's hesitation, the SS guard swung the child in a wide arc and smashed its head against the concrete wall.
During the Nazi reign, instances like this occurred hundreds-of-thousands of times. The Holocaust was not a rational project of social engineering.
The Nazis wished to eliminate the Jews--to punish, torture and destroy Jews--because they were possessed by profound, passionate hatred.
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