Holocaust annoyance

I'm taking the big leap here. I know that a lot of people will read only part of what's written here and won't even stop to think about what I'm saying. Many will tag me an anti-semite (which I am not and have never been). But hopefully, some of you will read this to the end and understand what I'm saying.

Before I start, I would like to exclude, for this thread, any comments about the holocaust not having happened or not having happened the way we're told. I would like to stick with the official story.

I'm in my early 40's. Back when I was a kid, in the 70's, Holocaust references spoke of the 14 million victims of the camps. Then, in the late 70's or early 80's, there was a shift. People spoke of the 14 million victims, among them 6 million Jews. In the late 80's or early 90's and to this day, references to the Holocaust spoke only of the 6 million Jews who died.

If you visit Jewish websites that discuss the Holocaust, they make no mention of the other victims (none that I could find, anyway).

I don't believe these sites represent Jewish people as a whole and I don't believe that they speak for all Jews. But it annoys me that they leave out the other victims. If my math is correct, 14 million victims, minus the 6 million Jews, leaves 8 million, the majority, non-Jews who suffered the exact same fate and who have become unmentionnable.

These figures are the official figures, yet a lot of people I speak to have no idea that the camps killed non-Jews. This is the image that is now being represented, the Holocaust as a Jewish thing.

I find this is terrible in regards to the other victims of the camps.

I've actually never heard those figures (eight million) before... Very interesting.

But it's quite true; the lack of "other" Holocaust knowledge is literally insane. One of my friend's (who's 26 (I'm only 18)) mentioned the other day (we were watching a movie) how the character in that film had a "Jew number." For some reason the fact that she said that flabergasted me... the fact that so many people do not realize other people died, as well as Jews, makes me quite angry actually...

I'm not sure what else to add other than I find this topic to be quite interesting, as well as sad.

The only place where I've seen a mention of theses figures in recent times in the excellent movie "Apt Pupil".

Agreed. What the Germans did the Jews was terrible, but the official story of the Holocaust is almost certainly wrong and its obscene to see people who weren't even alive when it happened get shook down for guilt money.

Agreed. Here's another non-original-yet-wise one-liner: I am not responsible for the sins of my father.

You hit it on the nose when you titled it "Holocaust annoyance".. It used more for pity, or more so to make someone feel bad about not feeling sorry for something they're not responsible for.
eh...I'm tired of trying to be made to feel "guilty"
There has been a ton of attrocities towards humans resulting in high numbers...but this one keeps poppin' up for some reason...

Notice how in Every movie before Schindler's List The Nazi's were portrayed simply as German Soldiers and after Schindler's List Nazi's were shooting jews in the head randomly in every movie made since.

It's like "nowadays" Nazis just shoot Jews in the street for fun. Haha! Can't shovel snow? Boom! Funny looking? Boom! sitting Down? Boom!

One thing is for sure, if your movie has Nazis randomly killing jews for fun you will certainly win an Oscar... At least a nomination...

How does the 8 Million break down in ethnic terms?

One of the reasons the holocaust deals mostly with the jewish victims is because they were by far the largest ethnic group treated in this way.

But the holocaust is about ethnic cleansing, it's about the murder of non-combatants during a period of war and no one should be deceived: other races and other minorities were also used for murder, abuse and medical experiment. Disabilities, ethnic origins and sexual proclivites made you a potential target. The Jewish contingent was just the largest such community, by a long way.

I think the American public became more aware of the Holocaust in the late 70's due to Elie Weisel releasing his book and then the miniseries named the same thing. Do you remember the miniseries?

It was during this same time frame that the term Holocaust came back into public vernacular as a term used to describe what happened in WW2.

I believe Weisel's book used this term for this description the first time. Up till then, I heard the term "shoah" used by camp survivors I knew.

reply to post by ajmusicmedia


When i first learned about the Holocaust at a young age I was taught that not only were Jewish people murdered, so were Romas, Homosexuals, and the mentally ill.

Once I got older my mother gave me more in depth details about our family history. My mother's side ( Romany) and my father's side ( Jewish) suffered losses. My geat grandmother narrowly escaped death in a camp. A little known fact that the Swiss routinely forbade the Jenisch ( Swiss gypsies) entry back into switzerland even though they had Swiss passports. My gran had to sneak back into her own country of birth because she was a "dirty gypsy".

I have to disagree with the the OP as I found refrences to other victims easily on some promient web sites

The United States Holocaust Museum - In the description clearly describes other victims - Holocaust Museum

The official website of Auschwitz - Auschwitz

It's a Jewish out reach Centre - Jewish Outreach Institute

reply to post by ajmusicmedia


Here is why-

The Jews made up the largest percentage of those who were killed. As many a 90% of the Jewish populations of Poland, Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia were executed. In other German occupied areas the numbers were not as high, but in the nations specified, the ethnic cleansing was very efficient.

Yes, there were as many as 8 million other victims, but these were various groups- Soviet and other assorted POWs, political prisoners, ethnic Poles, ethnic Serbs, gypsies, the handicapped & mentally disturbed, etc.

In total, as many as 14 million were killed. The Jews were the main target and accounted for slightly less than 6 million deaths. Then there were 2-3 million POWs killed, up to 2 million Poles killed, a million or a million and a half political prisoners of various races and nationalities who were killed, as many as 1/2 million Serbs, up to 1/2 million gypsies killed, etc.

So no other ethnic group came close to the number of Jewish dead.

Originally posted by chromatico
Agreed. What the Germans did the Jews was terrible.

First off i wanna say that i agree that the horrific and terrible loss of life that occurred was absolutely horrible.

But

I just thought it necessary to point out that it in fact wasnt the "Germans" per say that were responsible for this.It was the Nazis who may be "German" in origin but do not in any way shape or form represent the actual German community now, or at the time back then . The reason i chose to respond to this is because i am half German and alot if not all of my relatives are fully german and they find the events that transpired absolutely evil and feel as angry,resentful,sad,regretful and hateful about it as we do , i guess a good way to put my point here is All Nazis may be German but not all Germans are Nazis .

I just wanted to point that out.

Omega

*EDIT* to fix typo


[edit on 13/3/2008 by Omega85]

This is a very good point which, unfortunately, has to made again and again. Just as Jewish movements do not speak for Jews as a whole, Germans does not equal Nazis. And even among the Nazis, most participated or else were killed rather than participating according to belief. Goering comes to mind...

Also, contrary to popular belief, Jews were not #1 on Hitler's extermination list, Gypsies were. Maybe less of them were killed than Jews, but there were a lot less of them to begin with.

And in the end, all non-Arians (most people in the world) were on that list...

Originally posted by ajmusicmedia
I don't believe these sites represent Jewish people as a whole and I don't believe that they speak for all Jews. But it annoys me that they leave out the other victims. If my math is correct, 14 million victims, minus the 6 million Jews, leaves 8 million, the majority, non-Jews who suffered the exact same fate and who have become unmentionnable.

These figures are the official figures, yet a lot of people I speak to have no idea that the camps killed non-Jews. This is the image that is now being represented, the Holocaust as a Jewish thing.

I find this is terrible in regards to the other victims of the camps.

This topic has been discussed before. See in particular this thread here. I appreciate the point you're making, and the effort you have gone to in pointing out that you do not speak with any hostility to Jewish people.

As this topic unfolds again, I hope both sides will avoid the sort of extreme mud-slinging that has blighted other such threads in the past.

The simple answer to your point is, you are correct. It is a huge shame that there is not the awareness of the deaths of millions of other people that there is of Jewish people.

However, where I begin to lose faith in your point is where you say it is the Jews themselves that "leave out" the other races and peoples that died. Why is it directly their responsibility to increase awareness? Isn't it as much yours? Or mine?

You'll forgive the glibness of the comparison, I hope, but if I visit an exhibition of African art, I expect to see African art, and I don't then accuse Africans of marginilising art from other continents. If I visit a Jewish website (as in, a site created by Jewish people) I would expect it to take a Jewish-centric look at the matters it covered, whether it be a Jewish music site, a Jewish culture site, or a Jewish site about the Holocaust.

The point about the majority of people who died in the holocaust not being Jewish might well be statistically accurate - but what is its exact relevance? The largest single group of people who died in the systematic slaughter of the Holocaust were Jewish. I don't dispute that millions of other races suffered huge losses - after all during World War II it was the Russians who lost the most, by some distance. But I do dispute the implication that the Jewish people themselves are to blame for the lack of commemoration of their fellow sufferers, even if those fellow sufferers when added together outnumbered them.

The reality is that modern day holocaust memorial focuses on the very pressing point that genocides and holocausts have not been prevented by the memory of the one that occured in 1940s Europe. Cambodia, Sudan, Kosovo, Rwanda - the list goes on and on. See the United States Holocaust Museum's website - www.ushmm.org... for an example.

It is an insult to forget any single person who died at the hands of the Nazis in the death camps of Europe. It is, however, surely an even greater insult to their memory that such barbaric acts have been allowed to occur not just once, but over and over again, in our wretched history since those ghastly camps were liberated.

We need to keep remembering - and not by reducing the attention given to Jewish people, but by increasing the attention given to others.

But rather than devoting our fury to condemning our memory of the past, let's focus our attention on stopping it ever, ever happening again. To anyone. Surely, surely, surely that makes more sense?

LW

Well, I mean it's the same with the fact that everyone dwells on how "eeevil" Hitler was, but they don't talk about the 20-80 million people that Joseph Stalin killed... Talking about a double standard.. Whew!!

reply to post by SpeakerofTruth

I think you got a point here. Nazi's socialism, Soviet socialism and PARC's socialism killed a huge numbers of people. But in USSR and even in modern Russia there are a lot of people who still think that Lenin, Trotsky and mainly Stalin did it because it was "right" thing to do at the time. The same ,but even in larger amounts in PRC. Mao is still in high regard there.
The only reason that Hitler and his helpers are acknowledged for the monsters that they really were is the fact that they lost the war. Soviets were one of the winners. And who writes the history?
As for "eeevil" Hitler - wasn't he? How much did he killed , not only by ethnic cleansing, but by starting WW2?

Well, I mean it's the same with the fact that everyone dwells on how "eeevil" Hitler was, but they don't talk about the 20-80 million people that Joseph Stalin killed... Talking about a double standard.. Whew!!

Great point. Add the millions that dies in China.....


AND STILL DIE!!!!

Sad how we do not bring this up in the media.

Found this on Wiki - Victims and death toll

Victims Killed
Soviet POWs 2–3 million
Poles 1.8-2 million
Politicals 1–1.5 million
Serbs 330,000 - 500,000
Roma 220,000–500,000
Freemasons 80,000–200,000
Disabled 200,000–250,000
Spanish POWs 7,000–16,000
Jehovah's Witnesses 2,500–5,000

Totals Approx 6 - 8 Million


I remember at school (NZ) we were taught all about the holocaust including those that were non Jewish.

reply to post by ajmusicmedia


I agree with you. At the same time, it doesn't diminish the incredible tragedy of the Jewish persecution.

In light of recent events, I've recently thought about the holocaust and what we should have learned from it. What are the most important things to "never forget"?

I was at a family event recently. Someone made a comment about opening the chamber doors in Auschwitz. I realized at that moment that maybe the seeming 100% focus on the gas chambers and persecution at the worst time in the history of the holocaust will not help us prevent another.

In my opinion, while the horror and tragedy of all of the victims will impress upon us its importance, to prevent it from happening again, we must remember...

1. The fact that it happened means it can happen again.

2. The events that changed a functional democracy and a peaceful society into a dictatorship with a desensitized and terribly frightened people turning a blind eye to torture, rape, and murder institutionalized by members of their own government and perpetrated upon anyone it chose.

If "we will never forget" only applies to Anne Frank and victims of the gas chamber, as important they were, there's a good chance we'll forget the Reichstag Fire and the subsequent war on terror that arguably began the holocaust's chain of events, the signs in Germany saying "your paper's please" encouraging Germans to submit in the name of safety and by negative example the US to reject any national ID card for all these years, the spying on citizens, the blind patriotism, the private armies of brownshirts, and the relocation of civilians that all preceded the worst of the holocaust. When the real crackdown came, the camps were built, the bricks were laid, and it was too late.

If we are to prevent another holocaust, we must analyze, understand, and remember its causes and indicators as well as have the willingness to do something before it is too late, not only mourn its effects.

It is a shame that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. It is just as much a shame that 8 million other people died in the Holocaust as well, They are ALL victims. All 14 million. I think that there should also be memorials for all others who died in the Holocaust: the Gypsy's, homosexuals, dissidents, etc. And like someone else pointed out in this thread, Stalin's 20-80 million victims make Hitler look like a rank amateur, even though Hitler is still one of the most eveil [Snip] who ever walked the face of the Earth. And let's not forget Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, either. The in turn helped murder millions of their own people, too. The 20th Century was full of evil tyrants who killed for what seemed the sheer enjoyment of it all.








Mod edit: Censor circumnavigation. Please see Vulgarity and The Automatic ATS Censors. Thank you - Jak


[edit on 16/3/08 by JAK]