The Holocaust as a unique event in history

Please bear in mind that the Holocaust death count includes all people of Jewish persuasion killed during WWII, including combatants in other theatres of war, and civilians killed by the Allies. It is not exclusive to those murdered in the death camps.

The Soviets were also targets – they lost over 23 million lives to Axis forces, a figure which also includes civilian and friendly deaths.

kakosi said :

Postalgeek said :

One problem I have with the focus on the Holocaust is that, as terrible as it was, the Nazis murderous intent wasn’t exclusively directed towards the Jews. Herbert Backe’s Hunger Plan sought to cut off 20 million Soviets from their food supply in the pursuit of food security. Anti-semitism determined who was killed first in the name of food security, but it wasn’t just the Jews who were meant to die.

In other words, the focus on racism can be a distraction from understanding other underlying factors that haven’t gone away and may recur this century.

The Jews were particularly targeted by the Nazis and millions died in camps. There were also others exterminated and experimented on that weren’t of Jewish faith…slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, minority religions, anyone who didn’t join the local fascist party, etc. My aunt ended up in Auschwitz and her two sisters were sent to slave labour camps in Germany for not joining the Croatian fascists during that war. There were indeed lots of reasons why a person ended up in the camps – but if you were Jewish you were pretty much not going anywhere else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The croations were even more vicious and horrible than the nazis.

Not about making a difference any more, sadly it’s become about making a buck. And as a “go to” whenever Israel violates human rights, or sabre rattling at Iran.

Slaughtering our own kind has being going on since we first held rocks in our hands. As horrible as the Jewish holocaust was, I would not call it “unique in the 20th century”. From Armenians to Argentinans, we have witnessed genocide. Indeed several member countries of the UN Security Council have murdered their own citizens in that century. We shouldn’t single out that century either as it was during the 19th century that the British utilised the name and concept of concentration camps. Whilst genocide did not take place in our Capital Territory, let us not forget the Molonglo Concentration Camp, the name of which was whitewashed to an Internment camp.

Postalgeek said :

One problem I have with the focus on the Holocaust is that, as terrible as it was, the Nazis murderous intent wasn’t exclusively directed towards the Jews. Herbert Backe’s Hunger Plan sought to cut off 20 million Soviets from their food supply in the pursuit of food security. Anti-semitism determined who was killed first in the name of food security, but it wasn’t just the Jews who were meant to die.

In other words, the focus on racism can be a distraction from understanding other underlying factors that haven’t gone away and may recur this century.

The Jews were particularly targeted by the Nazis and millions died in camps. There were also others exterminated and experimented on that weren’t of Jewish faith…slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, minority religions, anyone who didn’t join the local fascist party, etc. My aunt ended up in Auschwitz and her two sisters were sent to slave labour camps in Germany for not joining the Croatian fascists during that war. There were indeed lots of reasons why a person ended up in the camps – but if you were Jewish you were pretty much not going anywhere else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Postalgeek said :

One problem I have with the focus on the Holocaust is that, as terrible as it was, the Nazis murderous intent wasn’t exclusively directed towards the Jews. Herbert Backe’s Hunger Plan sought to cut off 20 million Soviets from their food supply in the pursuit of food security. Anti-semitism determined who was killed first in the name of food security, but it wasn’t just the Jews who were meant to die.

In other words, the focus on racism can be a distraction from understanding other underlying factors that haven’t gone away and may recur this century.

While were at it we may as well remember the post war ethnic cleansing of Germans from the formerly overwhelmingly German territories of Silesia, East Prussia and Pomerania (plus parts of Brandenburg), as well as the German minorities formerly in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia.
In terms of scale and the number of deaths (In Poland and Czechoslovakia the expulsions were carried out with the maximum possible brutality) the postwar expulsions are entirely comparable to the Armenian genocide.

One problem I have with the focus on the Holocaust is that, as terrible as it was, the Nazis murderous intent wasn’t exclusively directed towards the Jews. Herbert Backe’s Hunger Plan sought to cut off 20 million Soviets from their food supply in the pursuit of food security. Anti-semitism determined who was killed first in the name of food security, but it wasn’t just the Jews who were meant to die.

In other words, the focus on racism can be a distraction from understanding other underlying factors that haven’t gone away and may recur this century.

Deref said :

HenryBG said :

Interestingly, humanity’s dark heart that led to the holocaust is alive and well even today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/israeli-poll-majority-apartheid-policies

“More than two-thirds of Israeli Jews say that 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank should be denied the right to vote if the area was annexed by Israel, in effect endorsing an apartheid state, according to an opinion poll reported in Haaretz.

Three out of four are in favour of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and 58% believe Israel already practises apartheid against Palestinians, the poll found.

A third want Arab citizens within Israel to be banned from voting in elections to the country’s parliament. Almost six out of 10 say Jews should be given preference to Arabs in government jobs, 49% say Jewish citizens should be treated better than Arabs, 42% would not want to live in the same building as Arabs and the same number do not want their children going to school with Arabs.

A commentary by Gideon Levy, which accompanied the results of the poll, described the findings as disturbing. “Israelis themselves … are openly, shamelessly and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists,” he wrote.

“It’s good to live in this country, most Israelis say, not despite its racism, but perhaps because of it. If such a survey were released about the attitude to Jews in a European state, Israel would have raised hell. When it comes to us, the rules don’t apply.”

+1

Oh, the irony.

So Israelis know they live in an apartheid state, but our Western governments continue the appeasement, delusion and denial.

The only politicians over here who’ve got it right on Israel are the watermelon Greens.

HenryBG said :

Interestingly, humanity’s dark heart that led to the holocaust is alive and well even today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/israeli-poll-majority-apartheid-policies

“More than two-thirds of Israeli Jews say that 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank should be denied the right to vote if the area was annexed by Israel, in effect endorsing an apartheid state, according to an opinion poll reported in Haaretz.

Three out of four are in favour of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and 58% believe Israel already practises apartheid against Palestinians, the poll found.

A third want Arab citizens within Israel to be banned from voting in elections to the country’s parliament. Almost six out of 10 say Jews should be given preference to Arabs in government jobs, 49% say Jewish citizens should be treated better than Arabs, 42% would not want to live in the same building as Arabs and the same number do not want their children going to school with Arabs.

A commentary by Gideon Levy, which accompanied the results of the poll, described the findings as disturbing. “Israelis themselves … are openly, shamelessly and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists,” he wrote.

“It’s good to live in this country, most Israelis say, not despite its racism, but perhaps because of it. If such a survey were released about the attitude to Jews in a European state, Israel would have raised hell. When it comes to us, the rules don’t apply.”

+1

Oh, the irony.

Taught courses on the holocaust and the international school for holocaust studies?? Talk about getting in deep. Considering jews have been murdered en masse by various countries over the centuries it was only a matter of time before one nation decided to ‘streamline’ the killing.

An equally sinister event in World history, although not on such a massive scale, was the de-urbanisation of the Cambodian population during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror.