The Animal Holocaust
Several notable writers and philosophers have compared the industrial exploitation of animals to the Holocaust. These comparisons, out of respect for the Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide, are not lightly made. The comparison could, however, be made just as effectively with human slavery or the oppression of Blacks during apartheid. The Nazis learned their techniques for the mass slaughter of Jews from the assembly line of John Ford, who in turn got his idea from the Chicago slaughter houses. The fact that we continue to abuse animals on a massive, industrial scale shows that we do not learn much from history. Like ordinary Germans who allowed the mass extermination of Jews to occur, and even participated in the crime, but more often pretended not to know that it was happening, consumers of animal products are complicit in the animal Holocaust perpetrated on a daily basis by the animal exploitation industries.