Why do we always hear six million for the Holocaust?

American Jews are very much part of the "fabric" of the U.S. I can't believe that's the same in Europe. They may live in Europe, but don't get elected to many (any?) political offices. Don't tell be about Sarkozy; his grandfather was a Jew; he's not.

Since you know history, the U.S. saved Europe from its political excesses two times in the 20th century. And today many Europeans can just criticize the U.S.; I consider that ingratitude.

If you think I'm alienated from continental (non-British) Europeans because of the Holocaust, that's not true, I'm alienated from them because they still tend to be Eurocentric in their concerns (they're concerned about the Middle East; where do they get their oil from?), I believe. The Holocaust was just another example of Eurocentricism, since Jews were just considered non-Europeans (to be a European meant to be Christian; religion is not the criterion to be an American) that oddly wound up in Europe for two millenia. That's my opinion. If you don't agree with me, why are the Turkish guest workers in Germany not allowed to have citizenship, after living in Germany for two generations?

There's not even a word for Americans being Ameican centric. But, I am. I really am only interested in the U.S. and its neighbors. Probably this entire hemisphere. It ends there. Not even interested in Israel.

Can someone please help find a link showing statistics of deaths by nationality for the 12 million victims? I tried to but could not find any yet.

Poles were one of the first targets of extermination by Hitler, as outlined in the speech he gave the Wehrmacht commanders before the invasion of Poland in 1939. [..]

The Nazi occupation of Poland was one of the most brutal episodes of the war, resulting in 1.8-1.9 million non-Jewish deaths in addition to some 3 million Polish Jews. Scholars disagree as to what proportion of these non-Jewish Polish civilian deaths during the Nazi conquest and occupation of Poland were part of the Holocaust, though there is no doubt of the eventual genocidal intentions of the Nazis towards the Poles. At least 140,000 Poles were sent to Auschwitz and hundreds of thousands to the other concentration camps, while the Polish intelligentsia were the first targets of the Einsatzgruppen death squads.

During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, millions of Red Army prisoners of war (POWs) were arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in particular by the notorious Waffen SS), died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner of war camps and during death marches, or were shipped to concentration camps for execution. According to the estimate by the USHMM, 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in the German custody out of 5.7 million (compared to only 8,300 out of 231,000 British and American prisoners). [..] At least 140,000 up to 500,000 were executed in the concentration camps by the methods of shooting, gassing, and burning alive.[3]

Thousands of peasant villages across the Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were annihilated by German troops [..]. During occupation, Russia's Leningrad, Pskov and Novgorod region lost around a quarter of its population. Some estimate that as many as one quarter of all Soviet civilian deaths (5 million Russian deaths, 3 million Ukrainian deaths and 1.5 million Belarusian deaths) at the hands of the Nazis and their allies were racially motivated.

Proportional to their population, the death toll of Romanies (Roma, Sinti, and Manush) in the Holocaust was the worst of any group of victims. [..] Between one quarter to one half of the Romani population was killed, upwards of 220,000 people. In Eastern Europe, Roma were deported to the Jewish ghettoes, shot by SS Einsatzgruppen in their villages, and deported and gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka.

[In Wikipedia's main article on the Romani Holocaust (or Porajmos), it says: "Because the Romani communities of Eastern Europe were less organized than the Jewish communities, it is more difficult to assess the actual number of victims, though it is believed to range from 200,000 to 2,000,000."

At least 75,000 mentally and physically disabled people also were executed. [F]irst and foremost, the mentally and physically handicapped were considered an affront to Nazi notions of a society peopled by a perfect, superhuman Aryan race. Around 400,000 individuals were sterilized against their will for having mental deficiencies or illnesses deemed to be hereditary in nature.

[..] The T-4 Program was established in order to maintain the "purity" of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness. Officially 75,000 to 250,000 people were killed between 1939 and 1941, including in the first Nazi gas chambers.

[..] homosexuality was deemed incompatible with Nazism because of their failure to reproduce the "master race." [..] By 1936 Heinrich Himmler led an effort to persecute homosexuals under existing and new anti-homosexual laws.

More than one million homosexual German men were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were serving prison terms as convicted homosexuals. An additional unknown number were institutionalized in state-run mental hospitals. Hundreds of European homosexual men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order. The deaths of at least an estimated 15,000 homosexual men in concentration camps were officially documented, but it is difficult to put an exact number on just how many homosexual men perished in death camps. According to Heinz Heger, in the concentration camps homosexual men "suffered a higher mortality rate than other relatively small victim groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners."

[..] The number of Freemasons from Nazi occupied countries who were killed is not accurately known, but it is estimated that between 80,000 and 200,000 Freemasons were murdered under the Nazi regime. It is impossible to arrive at a total figure as no one knows the number of Freemasons from occupied countries who were killed.[12]

The Nazis also targeted some religious groups [..]. Around 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses perished in concentration camps, where they were held for political and ideological reasons.

On the one hand, Foofie, you say, that US-chilcren aren't taught geography as good as it is (perhaps) taught in Europe.
Then you accuse us that we are Eurocentric ...

And later, you say that the US is great, because they teach their respective history of all groups who came to America.


I suppose you are referring to school education and not to what is taught at universities, right? (Sorry to ask again.)

Thank you, Walter and nimh. It is just horrifying to read all this.

On the other hand, although it is not the subject of this topic, I would like to point out the atrocities committed by the Japanese in Asia. Here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

Lest we forget.

I would say to Foofie that it is not a shame for the victims, it is a shame for the killers.

By the way, I have no idea why Serbia has a need to "expose Zionism and anti-Goyism" (Goy means Gentile in Yiddish)?

Serbia has nothing against Jews. In fact, Serbs were one of the nations persecuted during WW2, similar to Jews. Could you please not speak of the entire nation, just because there is one organization with such an agenda?

By the way, I have no idea why Serbia has a need to "expose Zionism and anti-Goyism" (Goy means Gentile in Yiddish)?

Serbia has nothing against Jews. In fact, Serbs were one of the nations persecuted during WW2, similar to Jews. Could you please not speak of the entire nation, just because there is one organization with such an agenda?

More confusing is the reference to exposing anti-Goyism. Where are Jews that are anti-Gentile? I never heard of Jews being anti-Gentile. I heard of Jews being anti-racist, anti-illiteracy, anti-cruelty to animals, anti-Fascist, but not anti-Gentile.

Foofie wrote:

More confusing is the reference to exposing anti-Goyism. Where are Jews that are anti-Gentile? I never heard of Jews being anti-Gentile. I heard of Jews being anti-racist, anti-illiteracy, anti-cruelty to animals, anti-Fascist, but not anti-Gentile.

Ive heard of the term "anti-Goy" before, usually in the context of some far right group / publication.

You know how far right folk get all annoyed at what they see as an everpresent 'hype' about antisemitism.. and since they're obviously at the receiving end of that reproach, they came up with this term anti-Goyism in defense or self-justification, to create a kind of supposed moral equivalence. A kind of "well there's hate from all sides, they are hostile to us too, so we shouldnt be singled out" thing.

BS of course, but there you are..

genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Ragman, there is a definition of genocide. It was coined in international law by Raphael Lemkin, and embodied in the 1948 Genocide Convention:

Quote:

genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.