17 Thoughts About IBM's Role in the Holocaust

Theme song: Once in a Lifetime

1. I just finished reading IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black. The book is fascinating, chilling, and heartbreaking -- all at once.
2. IBM and the Holocaust shines a glaring light on two sets of facts: technology, specifically census technology in the form of machines called Holleriths, was what allowed Hitler and the Nazis to kill so many people so efficiently during World War II and 2) America's own IBM provided over 90% of that technology and made money off of every aspect of World War II that could make money -- from counting and killing Jews to creating and producing weapons that killed Germans who were killing Jews. IBM was even able to cash in on post war reparations.
3. IBM's role in the Holocaust was more than a crime. Atrocity, practically a cliché, is the right word if it is strong enough.
4. This information about IBM and the holocaust scared and depressed me. Mostly depressed me because fear, in this case, is probably pointless.
5. I feel helpless and angry when I read about things like this. And it's not that I knew nothing about World War II. Of course I did. Now I know the grisly bureaucratic, technical, and logistical details of applied -- what? Madness? Cruelty seems far too tame a word.
6. I guess this is what you call disillusionment. I've already been preaching that corporate America practices economic terrorism. IBM's actions give life to the idea that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.
7. Perhaps IBM is the only corporation that has ever behaved this way -- or ever will. Maybe this was just one big, fat 12 million person exception. Maybe all the rest of the multinationals are led by sweet, peaceful people who just want what's best for their constituents, er customers, er -- whatever.
8. IBM should admit what it did in World War II, its central -- and criminal -- role in the Holocaust, and apologize. IBM should disband itself and give all of its money to the victims of war. Any war. Every war.
9. I used to ask myself, "How can people behave so inhumanely?" Now I know all about "how." Maybe a better question is "why?"
10. It has only been 69 years since the end of World War II. How did the German people recover so quickly from the trauma of a whole society gone mad? Or am I giving mental illness a bad name? What is the right name for a society that, in concert with international corporate interests, tortures, rapes, robs, maims, and kills millions of people?
11. It's true, humans have always lived a pattern of cruelty and recovery. I guess that's life -- and death.
12. Technology and the ability to track and measure have been revolutionized since World War II. I, for one, am almost always carrying a homing device. I've been numbered, categorized, and catalogued for better or worse and so have you. No one has been left out.
13. If they -- whoever "they" are when the time comes -- want to, it won't be difficult for them to get me. They'll just send an Amazon drone converted from delivering Christmas presents to picking people off at the front door. Not that they give a f*** about me -- a cold comfort.
14. I wonder if that kind of "they don't give a f*** about me" cold comfort comforted the Jews on the platforms at the train stations where they waited for trains scheduled by IBM?
15. It doesn't matter, anyway. I am meant to die and die I will. Of course I hope it will be in a nice, warm bed with crisp, white sheets situated near a lace-curtained window with a view of a bright green field held by someone I love.
16. But if by accident of time and place I find myself in the cross hairs of corporate interest and my life means nothing if it stands between them and the Almighty Bitcoin, what will I do, say, or feel when they come for me?
17. Meanwhile, I'll just keep on keepin' on because there's one thing that can never be counted by any machine, anywhere, and can always be counted on, everywhere, and that is the miracle of love pushing up between the cracks like green, green grass. That, and a sense of humor, should carry me through.

That's what I've got. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. If you don't believe me, read the very well-researched book yourself. Or ask the folks at IBM.

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