Why do people understate the holocaust so much?

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Something I find very disturbing and upsetting is that when I come across a mention of the holocaust in the media, they refer to "6 million Jews being murdered by the Germans". Which is bit like people mentioning "the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, where 11 Australians were brutally murdered". They've utterly forgotten the scale of the disaster.

The fact is between 30 and 40 million civilians of many different nationalities were murdered by the Axis powers; every Axis country was involved. Yet for some reason, only 10& of the total victims are focused on. "Holocaust" used to refer to all genocides of the Axis yet it has been restricted to cover a tiny minority of the victims who have somehow become more important than the others. Why is this?

[Condottiere 40K]

Part of the issue with it currently is that the Jews have over used the victim card, and most of the rest of us have gotten tired of it, combined with their obvious mistreatment of Palestinians, ironically mirroring what the Nazis did to their forefathers.

[Astaroth]

It's fairly simple.

It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

[chilon]

It's fairly simple.
It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

Well, the Armenian genocide happened first and the Ottoman Turks were massacring Armenians for decades even before that.

[mishkin]

It's fairly simple.

It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

Perfect answer to OP question.
Saying more would be crawling in the with some people.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

It's fairly simple.

It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

But literally the exact same thing can be said of other groups like the Polish:


Look at Warsaw. Population in 1939: 1,350,000. Population In 1945: 118,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned...tion_of_Warsaw

I have no idea how anyone can argue the Jews somehow had it worse than any other group the Azis hated or that their suffering is more important.

Or these two Japanese officers who competed to see who could kill 100 Chinese with their sword first:

[Stark of Winterfell]

The Polish population was not exterminated for being Polish. Numerous Poles were enslaved and died due to those conditions, but Hitler still had use for them (like the Russians). Perhaps, if the Nazis had won, the Poles and Russians would have suffered the same fate of the Jews (rounded up, shipped to camps, exterminated). But the Jews, Roma and other groups which were targeted for extermination suffered a higher percentage of their populations lost. The Soviet Union lost 10% of its population, and Poland lost 16.7%. I'm not sure about the Roma, but 33% of the world's Jewish population was exterminated, and obviously a much higher percentage of the population that fell under Nazi control. The Nazis nearly succeeded in eradicating a not insubstantial ethnic group/religion from their lands, and that makes for a horrifying and important historical note. Had Hitler killed a similar percentage of Poles, that would be the main thing remembered of all the Axis genocides.

[PointOfViewGun]

But literally the exact same thing can be said of other groups like the Polish:

You're actually using an unauthentic version of his speech. After WWII when evidence was being submitted to the Nuremberg trials there were 4 versions. Only one version had the last sentence that says "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" and this version was not submitted as it wasn't authentic. It's usually seen as one of the forgeries made for the support of the Armenian genocide claims.

[The Useless Member]

Would that include the millions of people Stalin killed?

[Qasper]

Would that include the millions of people Stalin killed?

Would what include your statement?

What Dicloe said? - Fantasy figures.

Or my former post listing deaths in WW2? - Based on facts.

Stalin didn't kill as many people as Nazi-Germany - full stop.

And for the record: Mao didn't kill millions of Chinese.. his failed policies involuntary caused the deaths of millions. Directly he and his auxiliaries killed many thousands of Chinese.

[boofhead]

That's the second time I've seen you post that image. Perhaps now is the time to state that the authenticity of that statement is a matter of controversy, and in fact was thrown out as any sort of evidence during the Nuremberg Trials.

The problem with this linkage is that there is no proof that Adolf Hitler ever made such a statement. Everything written to date has attributed the purported Hitler quote, not to primary sources, but to an article that appeared in the Times of London on Saturday, November 24, 1945. Said article, entitled "Nazi Germany’s Road To War," [2] cites the quote and bases its attribution to Hitler on an address by him to his commanders-in-chief six years earlier, on August 22, 1939, a few days prior to his invasion of Poland. According to the unnamed author of the Times article, the speech had been introduced as evidence during the November 23, 1945, session of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Hitler is quoted as having stated, "Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my Death’s Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians ?" [3] However, this version of the address was never accepted as evidence in this or any other session of the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Furthermore, the Times article of November 24, 1945, was not the earliest mention of Hitler’s alleged statement on the Armenians. Rather, this quotation, and indeed an entire text of a Hitler speech purportedly made at Obersalzberg on August 22, 1939, was first published in 1942 in a book entitled What About Germany ? and authored by Louis Lochner, a former bureau chief of the Associated Press in Berlin. [4]
On the opening page of his word, Lochner cites an unnamed informant as his source for a document called "Contents of Speech to the Supreme Commanders, and Commanding Generals, Obersalzberg, August 22, 1939." He further states that he obtained a copy of this speech (a three-page typed German manuscript) one week prior to Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland. [5]
This "document", the provenance of which has never been disclosed, investigated, and much less established, is the real "source", and indeed the sole source, of Hitler’s purported remark vis-à-vis the Armenians. In its historical debut, as published by Lochner, the "quote" reads as follows :

I have issued the command - I’ll have anybody who utters one world of criticism executed by a firing squad - that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness - for the present only in the East - with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space [lebensraum] which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians ? [6]

http://www.tetedeturc.com/home/spip.php?article565

There are no doubt things you can quote that are actually verifiable.

EDIT: Sorry TheSutekh missed your post

[ivan_the_terrible]

It's fairly simple.

It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

I'd say the Gypsies, disabled and homosexuals were fairly 'specific groups of people', yet they are not mentioned nearly as often as the Jewish victims.

In my opinion, the Jewish community has been the one that has most effectively informed people around the world (especially the Anglophone world) about their persecution in the Holocaust. Nothing wrong with that, of course, as they are not obliged to devote equal time and resources to the other groups. It's just that Gypsies, disabled and homosexuals haven't been nearly as effective at spreading information on their own plight at the hands of the 3rd reich.

[Humble Warrior]

It's fairly simple.

It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

This is the way I see it.

Killing a particular people became a factory production - end production?

I can`t think of any other kind of dedicated no-holds-barred mass murder on these grounds throughout history. Maybe it happened in the same way before somewhere, but it must`ve been a very, very, very long time ago and no one lived to tell the tale.

That don`t mean other terrible things similar to the Jews holocaust did not happen (Rwanda, etc), but just not quite to the premediated planned over a long period style of the Nazis.

[Sphere]

It's fairly simple.

It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

This is just not historically correct.

The first ethnic group sent to the Nazi concentration camps were the Romani (starting in 1936) not the Jews (starting in 1938). They were forced to wear a brown triangle on their sleeves, they were herded into ghetto's with many thousands being sent to Warsaw itself. In 1943 Himmler specifically ordered all Romani and "part-Romani" to be treated in the same way as the Jews as part of the Final Solution. Even the infamous Dr. Mengele spent most of his time experimenting on Romani children, that is until the Romani population of Auschwitz was liquidated in 1944 and he was reassigned to overseeing Jews. In the end ~1 million Romani were killed in the camps or by einsatzgruppen.

Tell me, how was this any different that the Nazi attitude/actions towards Jews?

Spoiler

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It wasn't

[Nikitn]

It's fairly simple.

It was the first time in history that a specific group of people was systematically hunted down, persecuted and murdered on a continental scale with industrial means. All the other deaths during WW2 were tragic as well, no doubt about that. But the hatred with which the European jews were systematically killed in dozens of camps by the millions is simply a whole different matter. Same goes for other groups that were systematically murdered (such as the Sinti and Roma), but the hatred and obsession that the Nazis had for the jews might even go beyond that.

That doesn't change the fact that the Nazis killed other ethnic groups just as much as the Jews. The problem with killing Jews was that the Nazis couldn't slaughter them outright in the West due to them mingling with the general population, unlike the situation in the East. Why should this give Jews a special status?

My opinion is that the Jews gain a special role in the West not because of the way they were killed, but because they were the major Western-European victim of the Nazis.

[Astaroth]

Yes, but the Ottomans did not create "labor" and death camps all over Anatolia, systematically hunting down every Armenian in their homeland and even extending their murderous spree to new countries that they conquered. Sure, they did commit countless murders and they made a concerted effort to kill lots of Armenians. But it simply wasn't done with the same deadly "precision" and ruthlessness that the Nazis employed.

[Himster]

Something I find very disturbing and upsetting is that when I come across a mention of the holocaust in the media, they refer to "6 million Jews being murdered by the Germans". Which is bit like people mentioning "the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, where 11 Australians were brutally murdered". They've utterly forgotten the scale of the disaster.

The fact is between 30 and 40 million civilians of many different nationalities were murdered by the Axis powers; every Axis country was involved. Yet for some reason, only 10& of the total victims are focused on. "Holocaust" used to refer to all genocides of the Axis yet it has been restricted to cover a tiny minority of the victims who have somehow become more important than the others. Why is this?

Antisemitism is a special concept that has been burned into the psyche of the international media.
But yeah, it is tragic who we choose to forget: the 3 million Russian POWs were systematically butchered. People often forget the country that suffered the most during world war 2, the country that lost the highest percentage of it's population: Poland, 16.7%, that is 4 times the average for a contemporary country at war. Let's not forget the 2000 clergymen in the death-camps, 15,000 homosexuals, half a million gypsies. The highest numbers were in fact the soviets who were often just shot on sight: 11.7 million by third party estimations while Russian sources claim 13.7 million. Looking a bit closer it seems like madness to just concentrate on the Jewish causalities, as tragic as they were.

[Stark of Winterfell]

The fact is between 30 and 40 million civilians of many different nationalities were murdered by the Axis powers; every Axis country was involved. Yet for some reason, only 10& of the total victims are focused on. "Holocaust" used to refer to all genocides of the Axis yet it has been restricted to cover a tiny minority of the victims who have somehow become more important than the others. Why is this?

The event "Holocaust" only refers to the 11-12 million deliberately and purposefully rounded up, usually confined and enslaved, and then exterminated for their religion/race, sexuality, or political affiliations. The 6 million Jews accounted at least half of these deaths and the largest single group of victims, so attention generally focuses on them. So far as I know, the general German devastation in the USSR which killed 10+ million more civilians doesn't have a particular name associated with it, nor does the Japanese occupation in China. Those fall under the general category of "yet more Axis war crimes".

About Polish deaths: half of those deaths were Poland's Jewish population, so that often intersects with Holocaust discussion.

[Astaroth]

Yes, the Nazis hated the Polish/other slavic peoples, no doubt about that. And yes, there were countless massacres and murders.

But did the Nazis go around, rouding up EVERY SINGLE Polish person they could find, putting them ALL into death/forced labor camps (if they could get a hold of them) and systematically hunt them down?

Did Polish people have to flee to different continents by the thousands? Did they have to hide in secret rooms in different countries for years (Netherlands - Anne Frank)? Did a large percentage of all Polish people get systematically murdered in industrial death camps?

I am NOT belittling the suffering of anyone who died at the hands of the Nazis. But even the other atrocities of the Nazis cannot be compared to the systematic murder of 6 million jews.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Yes, the Nazis hated the Polish/other slavic peoples, no doubt about that. And yes, there were countless massacres and murders.

But did the Nazis go around, rouding up EVERY SINGLE Polish person they could find, putting them ALL into death/forced labor camps (if they could get a hold of them) and systematically hunt them down?

Did Polish people have to flee to different continents by the thousands? Did they have to hide in secret rooms in different countries for years (Netherlands - Anne Frank)? Did a large percentage of all Polish people get systematically murdered in industrial death camps?

The Poles and other eastern countries were protected by the size of their populations. The Axis simply didn't have the resources to kill them all, so they focused on smaller groups first4. But if they had defeated the USSR, they certainly would have expanded that to include others.

Same goes for the non-Japanese in the "Japanese Empire".