For example, upon arrival at Auschwitz the SS would select many of the arriving Jews for extermination and these would be led to the gas chambers and killed within hours of arrival. However others were kept in barbaric conditions - worked to death and frequently many from the surviving group would be selected for extermination. Others would simply be shot or beaten to death on a guard's whim or a perceived infraction.

Given that the ultimate goal of the Nazis was to exterminate all Jews, why did they make a distinction and keep some alive for what amounted to a slower death. From what I have read it does not seem that the ones that were kept alive were used to perform any work useful to the work effort. And if there was a lack of capacity in the gas chambers to kill everyone soon after arrival, one would expect that Nazis, being efficient killers, would simply have expanded the capacity.

What I am getting at is what was the rationale among the Nazis for keeping alive the "lucky" group that avoided immediate extermination. I realize that of course even those who avoided immediately being gassed or otherwise murdered, were often murdered later - but why did the Nazis have this two track system so to speak?

Further to that, I was recently reading Victor Frankl's book called "Man's Search for Meaning" in which he recounts his experiences in an extermination camp. Having survived the initial selection and avoided the gas chambers he is in the concentration camp where he is starved and beaten regularly. Many of his comrades are beaten to death or shot almost randomly, but often when they are sick. At other times, there are further selections made and prisoners who survived the initial selection are sent to the gas chambers. Usually the ones chosen were sick and unable to work. Yet at the same time Frankl tells of how at one point he fell ill and was sent to a a makeshift infirmary to recover. There was even a Jewish doctor and some orderlies treating the patients.

What explained this contradictory behavior by the SS guards? If prisoners were executed when they fell ill, why were some given medical treatment? Especially since the goal was extermination.

My brother doesn't believe that Jesus was ever alive. He needs evidence so ask historians, I need you.

For the purposes of this question, I'd like to focus on Switzerland, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Flemish Belgium and ignore other Germanic regions like England and Scandinavia. I know German ≠ Germanic, but the regions above have been geographically, culturally and politically linked to Germany and Austria in intimate ways which England and Scandinavia have not (particularly via the Holy Roman Empire). In addition, their languages are more closely related to German and Austrian than those of Scandinavia or England.

I'm not terribly well-versed on the subject, but it seems safe to say that "Pan-Germanism" had moments of great popularity in the regions we now call Germany and Austria. By contrast, the Germanic nations I've highlighted above never seem to have considered the prospect of willfully joining a greater German union or Grossdeutschland. Is that correct? Why?

I was wondering if anyone could direct me to some good sources for understanding the history of slavery in Brazil and the history of Brazilian racial dynamics. I'm interested in comparing those topics to their counterparts in the United States, and I'm looking for sources that give a good overview of the topics.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote a book called Coal to Cream where he described a vacation he took to Brazil some years ago. He gave a broad overview of some of the racial dynamics there, and suggested that the national narrative was that there was so much race mixing in Brazilian history that everyone is highly mixed, thus creating one Brazilian ethnicity. Robinson suggested that this was visibly untrue, and that he was easily able to identify racial categories on sight the way we do in America, but that people nevertheless seemed to largely buy into this national narrative. I'm wondering if this is an accurate assessment of things.

Somewhere along the way I heard that smallpox scars were once (I'm unsure of the time period this supposedly was) a mark of beauty in China. Presumably, the scars would serve as proof of their bearer's immunity to smallpox in the future, indicating they'd be a spouse who wouldn't die of smallpox a month after the wedding.

Is this remotely true, for China or anywhere else? I don't remember where I heard this, but I can't find anything about it online.

I remember hearing stories about how older students would get younger students to perform sexual favours for them, how true is this and how common was it?

Did the two of them like each other? Why didn't Alexander III follow in his father's footsteps of reform for Russia? Did Alexander II have any opinion on Alexander III's conservatism? Or Alexander III on his father's reforms?

I assume that the Jewish spouse was sent to concentration camps. I also assume that there were marriages between Jewish people and non-Jews. I also assume these couples had children. If I am wrong, let me know.

Were the non-Jewish spouses also sent to concentration camps?

Were the children treated as Jewish children?

What caused the city to turn to ruin? Why are he ruins so well preserved? What have we been able to learn about their society?

Ignoring the mythology that is associated with the Trojan War (The Odyssey, etc.), did the event happen? Most of the stuff I've read seems to be rather inconclusive.

1. In 1850, Jewish people began returning to their original geographic location after being driven out centuries ago by the Babylonians (597 BC), Romans (70 AD) and Muslims (637 AD).

2. At the turn of the century around 1900 the area was populated primarily by Arabs, mostly Egyptian and what would now be considered Jordanians. Although at this time 50,000 Jewish people had resettled to the area.

3. After WW1, the British Empire took control of the area with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and gave control of it to Egypt around 1920. The British called it the Palestine Mandate. Egypt, in turn, refused to grant citizenship to the Arabs currently there. Meanwhile, Jewish people were continuing to settle there.

4. WWII. Bad stuff with the Nazis. The world realized maybe we should give the Jewish people statehood, as they had been settling the region, returning from their diaspora for nearly a century.

5. 1948, Israel is granted statehood. One day later, 6 Arab nations ( Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria) declared war on Israel. Israel defeated them.

6. After the Arabs were defeated, the remaining Arabs in Israel territory felt out of place, to put it mildly. 700,000 or so decided to move, with many of them deciding to move to Gaza, which was given over to Egypt. Additionally, Israel signed a pact with Jordan to divide Jerusalem and give East Jerusalem to Jordan.

7. The Arabs in Gaza were refused citizenship by Egypt, despite being under Egyptian civilian authority. During this time, in 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization - the PLO - was formed, to give voice to these stranded Arabs, who were unwelcome in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel.

8. 1967, Egypt, Jordan and Syria launch another war against Israel. They were defeated. Israel takes East Jerusalem back from Jordan.

9. 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, which is a national holy day in Israel. Israel defeated them.

10. Needless to say after launching all-out war on Israel three times, and being 0 for 3, there was a lot of animosity in the Arab world toward Israel.

11. To remedy this, in 1978 Israel signed the Camp David Accord with the defeated Arab nations, which further led to a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979.

12. 1980, Israel declares all of Jerusalem its capitol.

    1. It's important to note here that Jerusalem was historically the capitol of Israel hundreds of years before Christianity. (traditionally ~970 BCE). During this time it was taken over and controlled by the Babylonians (before Christianity) and later the Romans (at the founding of Christianity.) 600 years after the invention of Christianity by Paul, Islam was invented by Muhammad.

    2. Ten years after Islam was founded by Muhammad, he marched on Mecca with 10,000 men (the Siege of Mecca) and declared it a holy city, smashing all remnants of what was then Arabian (pagan) mythology.

    3. Thirty years after the founding of Islam, Muslims attacked and took over Jerusalem (the Siege of Jerusalem), declaring it a holy city.

13. 1987, Hamas is formed. Hamas is a militarized Muslim organization which literally seeks the destruction of Israel, and the return of all land that is now Israel to Arabs.

14. 1987, The first Intifada is launched, which involves a guerrilla military campaign against Israel. Lots of suicide bombers.

15. 1988, the PLO, a civilian authority declared Palestine, the area created by the British Palestinian Mandate after WWI, to be an independent nation. This included Gaza (formerly under Egyptian civilian control) and the West Bank (formerly under Jordanian civilian control) although both areas were under Israeli military control.

16. 1993, First Intifada ends with the Oslo accords, a peace treaty.

17. Lots more peace treaties signed between the Palestinians - the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank - and Israel, including Oslo II (1995) and the Hebran Protocol (1997). This trajectory stalls in 2000 with the 2000 Camp David accords.

18. 2000, Second Intifada is launched against Israel, with lots more suicide bombers.

19. 2005, Hamas elected as the governing body of Gaza. The Second Intifada ends.

20. 2005-2014, lots of rockets being launched by Hamas. In return lots of incursions into Gaza by Israel.

21. 2014, 3 Israeli teenager are kidnapped and executed. Israel blames Hamas. All hell breaks loose.

How did Institutes like the Max Planck Institute become so prominent, when Germany had previously been so famous for the Research University? Did any of the academics who left during/before the war for political reasons return?

Is it because Art History is more about art than history? I know little about either discipline other than some casual interest, but I was curious.

If the Moors were able to remain there for so long, an indication to me of their strength over the Catholic Kingdoms to the north, why were they pushed back?

In modern day, dogs are referred to as "man's best friend". From my experience, most of the times dogs are companions and aren't necessary for survival. Although we do use dogs for many work tasks (seeing eye, bomb sniffing, etc) these roles seem modern and not jobs that would've been done/needed historically.

In movies depicting the Victorian era dogs are often depicted hunting with the wealthy, but for game rather than pure necessity. Were there cultures or times where dogs were necessary (or at least very valuable) to survival?

I love history but I'm just a hobby historian and my expertise is unlike many other not in the era of the second world war. So I turn to you experts. Who was the most 'evil' of them? Göbbels? Himmler? Or was it actually Hitler himself? Anyone else?

I may be wrong here (please correct me if I am) but apparently he

1. Made a cavalry charge with no infantry or artillery support

2. Captured enemy cannons but did not spike them

3. Failed to capture the crossroads at Quatre Bras, and also failed to inform Napoleon that he hadn't met his objective

4. Gave contradicting orders to some of his men which sent them marching off to help Napoleon, and then right back to Quatre Bras, effectively ensuring they could complete neither task

Was it just bad luck on top of bad luck, a rusty Ney, fear of being caught between the idea of the Emperors return and the possibility of failure and a Bourbon restoration? Just seems odd that Ney would pull so many boners after having such a stellar career before that.

Any insight? I know I'm missing something here.

Thank you to everyone.

I am reading everything and trying to learn more before interjecting firstly because I am very green on the subject and secondly a lot of questions I may of had are being answered are being answered in the thread.

Side note. Historical, genealogical evidence even related religious accounts is great.

I'm trying to build non political point of view.

Thank you to everyone. Input is very much appreciated.