why do we remember the Holocaust but not the Gulag nor the Great Leap Forward?

Question

I would certainly say that more people were ruthlessly murdered in the Soviet Gulag and Mao's Great Leap Forward than the entire Holocaust. Why do we have numerous musuems, monuments, and memorials to the Holocaust but nearly nothing remembering the Gulag and Communist China's oppresion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_leap_forward#Consequences
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

Answer 1

I can see two reasons for this:

1) Jews have a huge, wealthy population in USA. They have a wide and receptive audience who will read their books and watch their movies. Many book and movie industries are also owned by Jews, so they disseminate their version of events that involve their people. By conrast, I have never heard of a Russian or Chinese 'Spielberg' who could do the same for their own nationals in Hollywood!

2) Most Russian and Chinese sources have been closed. Communist countries were/are usually tight-lipped about what goes on behind the iron curtain. Now a lot more info on Gulags will be coming out with the fall of the Soviets. It's just been 17 years so far.

Actually, there has been some info on these subjects. Russian Alexander Solzhenitsin is one of the best writers on his gulag experiences and has been famous for years. More recent events have been recorded in memoires of Polish and other East European survivors of gulags. Slavomir Rawicz wrote "The Long Walk" in 2003 about his experiences.

As for China, that's more obscure, I assume, due to the language and culture barrier. Not many books translated about that. Also, who can relate to it in the West? Plus, China is still a world power, and communist to this day. Iron curtains are still locked there.

The Holocaust in general is also considered more horrible because of the way it was done and by whom. For example, the Russians and Chinese, from the biased Western perspective, were always viewed as barbaric and uncivilized.
It was "understandable" that they would do savagery like that.
But the arrogant Germans, with their "high culture", Chrisianity, and great machines were considered civilized. When they used their engineering know-how and organization abilities to systematically murder millions, the shock of that idea stunned the world of the West till now.

Western countries still have to deal with their own naive belief that they have "killed the beast in man" with high technology and civilization. Holocaust films are great reminders that the beast has not been killed, but lives on in the heart of man who remains unconscious to his own natural insincts.

Answer 2

Good question. I wish I had a simple answer. The problem with the Gulag decimation was that for many decades, it was mostly hidden behind the "Iron Curtain," although word did manage to get out eventually. And the Chinese near-genocide, as well, eventually came into the light, and there are memorials for both; however, they're hard to find. I think the major reason for the Holocaust having such a history is that it could be attributed to the "scapegoat syndrome;" after all, we won (allegedly) the war with Germany, and it didn't take long to find the death camps. Since the Gulag and Communist episodes weren't as documented (because we didn't win any wars in those countries, at least not overtly), they received less recognition. But that's only a theory, although I believe that evidence can back it up.

Answer 3

Well 12 million people died in WWII.
And 6 million of them were Jewish people killed in Holocaust.

I'm not saying the Great Leap Forward and Gulag were not disasters, but America is more involved in WWII. It made our country what it is today, actually; the war pulled the US out of the Great Depression and into super-power status. WWII was so much more to us as Americans, which is why I think we pay more remembrance to the Holocaust than anything.

Hitler once said, "Who remembers a million Armenians?" Referring to the Armenian genocide. No one. Why? I'm not exactly sure. But 6 million, we remember.

Honestly, though, we spent about four weeks on the Great Leap Forward in social studies freshman year.

Answer 4

Those are remembered. The reason the other don't get as much attention (at least in the West) is that they were "internal" atrocities, while the Holocaust was part of WWII and became imprinted in the Nuremberg Trials (which has no counterpart in the former Soviet Union, nor in the PRC).

Answer 5

Thanks for bringing all of the topics up, and posting the websites too. I have read a little, or seen some programs on the topics you listed. One of the reasons why we do not read or see more about China's events is the language barrier, the lack of sources, and the control of the media in China.
Prior to Glasnost, the same could be said about the Gulags.
One other you could add to your list - the Khmer Rouge and its genocide in Kampuchea (Cambodia).

Answer 6

It's just the ciriculum of the times; I think more people are paying more attention to it now though. Like - Dafur and The Killing Fields in Cambodia

Answer 7

Or even the ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Native Americans during the expansion of the USA

Answer 8

Because the Jews were definitley smarter to make something out of that, whereas the others are still kind of victimised, not objectively, but by their own vocation for victimization.