@Asriel
Finally, someone that can actually look at situations without demonizing people by association.
Society tends to demonize groups of people regardless of an individual's actions, instead, they simply take a negative connotation associated with them at its face value. Such is with the case of criminals as well. Blanketly taking away liberties from everyone who is labeled as such and shunning them without taking into account the individual situation, or even the actuality of the crime. Someone who shot a thief who could have harmed their family and is incarcerated for it (there's many cases of people being put in prison for protecting themselves and/or their families due to technicalities in self defense law) is treated the same as someone who raped and murdered a family. People only see "he's a felon and is evil!"
People tend not to look past the surface level, and demonizing people or groups is easy when you do not seek to understand. If people looked to understand the situation on World War II, not a single person would blame those living under fear of tyranny, only those keeping the tyranny. It would be like blaming the citizens in
1984. Personally, as I see it, most of the officers didn't really have a choice but to comply with their corrupt orders, as the punishments are too great for insubordination, and if they didn't, it would merely force another to do it in their place. If anyone should be punished, it should only be the decision makers that ordered the atrocities.
I'm of the mindset that all incarceration does not fix the core issues, and instead what should be focused on is methods to stop such things from happening again. For example, the US' incarceration system, leads to most people involved in the system being unable to integrate back into society, and makes anyone caught within it MUCH more likely to commit more crimes. Especially as an ex-felon, it's almost impossible to get a job, and if by a miracle someone gets one, they almost always will be paid less than half of what anyone else in the position would make. On top of that, they usually are forced to take rehabilitation classes for a long time after release that cast a small fortune to attend. It's no wonder people in these positions can't survive properly in society when shunned by it.
Have we not read enough manga to know how people turn out when rejected by society? This mindset of demonization merely leads to more demons. Unfortunately, too many people are unable to see that.
@portable perhaps I misunderstood, but I took his argument to say that the guilt isn't established with the people, but with those that have power of authority. If one is to go against the power structure in place, them and their family will have terrible things happen to them. Can we truly fault those that try to save their families? The German empire has an establishment of guilt, and those in charge were punished in trials. It is of my belief that most people will blame themselves more for the atrocities they were forced to commit, and forcing them to take responsibility for a decision they cannot control, with consequences too severe, is nothing but cruelty on our part. Would you commit atrocities to save your family (that will be committed by someone else if not by you), or let them die? There is no true right answer. I do believe that you both are very much not understanding each other, but understanding, even when you disagree or hate it with your whole heart, is the first step to growing as a person.
Also, keep in mind that the jews were the German people as well, and they suffered under the same tyranny as the rest of the German people, just to a much, much, much worse extent. No one is exempt to a tyranny. No one here is advocating for such an awful thing to happen. His point is only not to pin the blame on those who are also victims.