Why when somone mentions the holocaust?

Question

do they only talk about the Jews. Nearly as many non-Jews, mostly Poles, were killed. Hitler hated all Slavic peoples and wanted to kill them for Lebensraum.

Answer 1

As stated by many of the previous Answerers, a large variety of people were massacred during the reign of the Third Reich.

However, Jews were the primary target of Nazi hostilities. Germany's National Socialist government targeted Jews more than any other group. Not only was Anti-Semitic legislation passed to oppress and antagonize the Jewish populace in Germany, but this was the only group to be politically and legally defined by the Nazi government. No other group was targeted so vehemently by the Third Reich.

Answer 2

Why is it that when we talk about useless loss of civilian life we talk about Hitler? Stalin may have killed more. He too had a propensity to want to get rid of the Jews in his land.

Still, you have to admit, if you've looked at the matter seriously and honestly, Hitler himself made Jewishness a public priority in his murderous efforts. There were piles of Christians in those camps, often because they got in the way of his rampage against the Jews.

Hitler wanted the supremacy of his people, so he pruned and decimated the peoples of several lands. Yet, his hatred of Jews was complete. While he would be happy with a small but servile population of Slavs, he wanted the full extermination of Jews. The one was a control issue, the other complete hatred (even though some of his ancestry was Jewish). Decimation is one thing, genocide is another.

Answer 3

It may be that it is more a case of Jews mentioning the Holocaust more often than other people, not that they are the only ones mentioned. Most Jews are only too aware that other people have suffered and are suffering from attempted genocides.

There were approximately elven million people killed by the Nazis. Six Million were Jews. It is the largest proportion of any of the other groups, by far. The Poles and other Slavs were the next most victimized group, and they were the targets of genocide, just as the Jews were.

It is the idea of genocide, the idea that a whole ethnic or religious or cultural group might be completely wiped out that is so terrifying about what the Nazis did.

What people rarely realize is that the Jews were also targeted by Stalin. He probably killed more Jews than Hitler. His campaign went into full swing right after World War II, and the Jews didn't have time to live quietly ever after--they had to start working for the Jews in Russia as soon as the German camps were closed.

Both Stalin and Hitler exemplify the problem that most Jews worry about: evil men like that hide what they are doing from the world. There are still an unbelievable number of Nazis all over the world, and particularly in the United States, who claim that there was no Holocaust. They claimed it then, and they claim it now. And it has only been since the fall of communism in eastern Europe that the files have been opened revealing all the horrors of the communist regimes.

Genocide went on before World War II. There were many ancient examples. In more recent history, the systematic murder of millions of Armenians by the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire around the time of World War I is considered by many to be the first genocide of the twentieth century. But even today, when the scholarship is solid, many Turks still deny that there was ever an organized genocide against the Armenians. People who have various political reasons for not wanting to annoy the Turks will just go along with it.

The very recent attempted genocide by Slovodan Milosevic against the Muslims (ethnically European) in the former Yugoslavia was a departure from the normal course of events--the rest of the world got together and did something about it. Not nearly soon enough, but they did do something.

Genocide is going on now in Darfur, where we can see a perfectly good example of what makes the history of these things so awful: nobody seems to be willing and able to stop it. The dictators lie, and everyone else is too willing to accept what they say.

The organizations that are supposed to stop these things appear powerless to stop them. They are not powerless, but right now, for example, the United Nations would rather not confront the people who are killing off an entire population. In this case, as opposed to the former Yugoslavia, it is Muslims trying to kill others.

The Jews are a special case for one reason: For all intents and purposes, there is very little distinction between "Jew" as an ethnic AND religious designation.

Muslims are not defined by ethnic or geographic area, although most of us in the U.S. see it that way. It is a religion, not an ethnic group. The homosexuals and the physically and mentally handicapped who were also victims of the Holocaust were not ethnically distinct from the rest of the population in pre-war Germany. While the Germans considered the Slavs ethnically distinct from themselves, they did not have a different religion from many of the Germans.

The Gypsies were ethnically distinct and did have a distinct religion. They suffered many of the same problems throughout history that the Jews did, but they were a smaller group than the Jews, and nomadic still at the time of the Holocaust. They did not seek out citizenship, even when it was available to them.

It is only recently that scholars have traced the Romani or
Gypsy language to an area of India, where it seems there was a war a thousand or more years ago, when they were expelled from their homeland. Their history was lost, even to them, until recently, and they carried no story that could keep them organized with a sense of where they came from and where they were going. They didn't have the scriptural and historical cohesiveness--or the huge influence on history--that the Jews have had, and so they have not had a platform from which to speak out. Their best defense has been to stay "under the radar," so to speak.

What the Jews decided after World War II was that their motto with regard to genocide would be "Never again." They were determined that they would never allow themselves to suffer again without a country to go to or a voice to tell what was happening.

One of the reasons Jews are so vocal about the Holocaust is that they refuse to accept the idea of genocide with respect to any people. At Pasover meals, celebrating the Exodus from Egypt, most Jews this year mentioned Darfur as a place in need of help for those suffering genocide. Jews are right now one of the loudest voices calling for action in Darfur, and quite naturally refer to the Holocaust in their attempts to find support for those who are suffering in North Africa. Perhaps that is why you are hearing so much about it.

Answer 4

Keep in mind that also homosexuals, communists, political prisoners, jehovah's witnesses, soviet POW's, gypsies, physically disabled people, mentally disabled people, convicted prostitutes, trade unionists, freemasons, africans, and asians were all killed as well. Hitler hated Slavic people as well as the Jews and considered all of the above to be inferior, undesirable, and dangerous. The victims of the Holocaust were considered by the Nazi's to be a German word meaning sub-human.

What I think is ironic is that there is a rumour that Hitler is actually 25% Jewish. Also he was so into exterminating all non-aryans (blonde haired blue eyed people who are supposed to be the original master race) but he himself had dark hair and eyes?! What he did was beyond terrible.

Answer 5

Well, you said it yourself, Jews were persecuted for a longer time, and had more people killed than any other social, economic, racial, cultural or religious group

Hitler started his attacks and persecution of the Jews in well before he came to power in 1933, and continued through 1945.

In addition, as he conquered countries during the war, his usual first line of business was to isolate, arrest, murder, or otherwise attack the Jews

Hitler obsession with the Jews was so far reaching and perverse, his policies often conflicted with normal army functions in war, production of food and material, and administration of new governments.

The number of six million Jews murdered is not the whole total. Numerous other groups had Jews in them that were not counted as a murder of a Jew, but as a murder of another group. The Nazis apparently hated conflict in assigning labels to people.

Rob

Answer 6

I would imagine it is because no single group was targeted in the same way as the Jews. Slavs in general were not made to wear an emblem, nor were they, as a group, forbidden from the same activities and rights as the Jews. While Hitler may have hated all people who did not look like his mythical "Aryan" race, the Jews were specifically targeted as a group in a way that was not matched by any other.

Answer 7

Great point you make. Perhaps a movement needs to be started to educate people about the other millions that were killed by Hitler. There were more non-Jews killed in the holocaust than Jews, but we hear little if nothing about them.

Answer 8

The Nazi camps held huge numbers of Russian POWs.

In Poland, 90 per cent of all Catholic priests were interned. this is the largest assemblage of clergy since the Council of Nicaea, 325 AD.

The Nazis exterminated Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals in large numbers. Homosexuals were made to wear the pink triangle on their camp clothes, just as Jews were made to wear the yellow star.

You hear a lot about the Jews, which may be because many of them survived. I don't know of any Jehovah's Witnesses or homosexuals who came out alive.

Answer 9

More than 12 million people died in the Holocaust.
8 million were Jews.
Black triangle: Mentally retarded, gypsies, vagrants, alcoholics, prostitutes, lesbians, women who used birth control, anarchists
Green Triangles: Criminals
Pink Triangles: gay and bisexual men
Purple triangles: Jehovah Witnesses
Red Triangle: commies, political prisoners, Freemasons
Yellow star or David, Jews
Star of David with a pink Triangle: A Gay or Bi Jewish man
A black and yellow star was a race defiler..an Aryan who we outside their race
The oddest one Ive seen is a yellow triangle and an inverted purple triangle...a Jewish Jehovah Witness?

Answer 10

As long as you also recall that most of the Jews were Polish and not count them both as Jews and as Poles. Why complain too much, we remember the horror, being picky sounds nit-picky.