What makes the Holocaust the holocaust?

Question

What makes it so unique?

Answer 1

It is unique because it had the support at least tacitly and passively by a modern civilized industrial society of people who voted for the party that carried it out. Most other holocausts were imposed on a society without consent.

Adolf Hitler never concealed his intention to suppress the Jews and the Holocaust was just putting into practice what he had been teaching since 1922.

Not that Jews were his only targets. They were just the most numerous victims.

Also, many German Jews were well educated, many were wealthy, and many had overseas connections.

The Romani (a.k.a. "Gypsies") were poor, rustic and isolated, and were hated and despised and oppressed in many societies including the USA. So they could be exterminated without anybody caring or noticing.

Homosexuals were also exterminated. No doubt Reverend Fred Phelps who tells us "God hates fags" (showing that George Bush is not the only person who gets private communications of the Divine Mind direct fom the Almighty) - would be delighted to help the Nazis exterminate Germany's gays.

All Jehovah's Witnesses went into the camps, and so far as is known not one of them came out alive.

In Poland, 90 per cent of the Catholic priests were in the camps, the largest assemblage of clergy in the history of Christianity, larger than the great Councils. Most of them died, and the Polish Christians are quite justified in erecting a memorial to them at Auschwitz over the protests of people who want to present the Holocaust as Jewish.

The Jews were actually one of the last groups of people to go into the concentration camps, probably not until 1943. The first victims were the Spartacists, allies of Communism. Then came the trade union leaders and organizers.

As to numbers, more Slavs (mostly Poles, Ukrainians and Russians) were killed by the Germans than Jews were. And Mao Tse Tung killed more Chinese with his Great Leap Forward then any European Holocaust did.

Nobody knows how many Cathars were killed in the Albigensian Crusade. This was Christians killing Christians. What makes that Holocaust unique is that it was totally successful. The Cathar civilization was totally wiped out. It was in that Crusade that the slogan was invented: Kill them all, let God sort them out.

The Nazi Holocaust victimized a lot more than Jews, but if you refer to the Jewish aspect of it, the correct word is "Shoah." The word "holocaust" actually means total destruction by fire, and the Nazi event was neither total nor by fire.

Answer 2

People make holocaust jokes and nine-eleven jokes for the same reason that anybody on earth makes a joke lampooning an event, a person, anything. We as humans are by nature negative and out to seek self-fulfillment at every turn. Ask yourself why you would rather keep 3,000$ then give it to a homeless individual. You tell yourself and others that its the right thing to do, but what deep down do you really want. Its a hard answer for a lot of people, mostly because humans by nature are selfish and greedy people. To tie this into making holocaust jokes, we don't make them because we have some deep-seated issues that are the result of an "underdeveloped mind" (as mentioned above), or because we are just out to get a quick laugh out of someone else's expense. NO! It is because making jokes like this are genuinely funny to some people. We understand that what happened in the holocaust was bad and shouldn't happen ever again, but it is that very reason that makes it humorous. It so absurd and so awful that you can't help but reflect on the stupid act of humanity and laugh. You know the old expression: "You'll look back on this one day and laugh". It is kind of like that. We cant have a world where things like this cant be made fun of because that actually divides our minds and further marginalizes the people who were affected those many years ago. It infact makes the people who don't want jokes to be made about it look selfish and stupid on behalf of people who did not ask to be defended. Plane and Simple :) lol

Answer 3

Mass killings and ethnic cleansings have gone on for a millenia, so what makes the holocaust, THE holocaust.... The high volume efficiency of state-sponsored extermination, which topped out at 26,000 deaths per day at the Auchswitz-Birkenau complex in the summer of 1944. Good ol' IG Farbin was supplying 4 1/2 tons of zyclon-B to the SS per month (according to the bills of lading presented by the Nuremburg prosecutors).

The HIGH-VOLUME from Jan 1942 to Nov 1944 made the holocaust during WWII, THE holocaust of all time. It wasn't the total numbers (6 million), for afterall the greatest butcher of the last century doomed off 30 million of his fellow countrymen...but i digress.

Answer 4

There have been holocausts before, but this was the first one that was organized on such an massive, industrial scale. You should see the research the Nazis did on the most efficient ways to kill people, and testing them out on German mental patients. The Nazi's even ran efficiency studies on the best ways to cremate massive amounts of bodies! The Holocaust was a holocaust industry.

Answer 5

I will add, by documenting this slaughter so carefully, it became a very "modern" holocaust... Millions have been murdered before. As an example, the Turks almost completely wiped out the Armenians just 40 years earlier... but they didn't keep records...

Answer 6

The mass killing of the entire people, not just the Jewish. Except who Hitler thought was the master race which was blond and blue-eyed people (which inst a race but characteristics).

Answer 7

Don't forget the Congolese holocaust.... 8-10M dead

Answer 8

the massive genocide... what makes World War II, World War II... get educated

Answer 9

Hi from Canada!

Answer 10

Open a book. Read. Don't go on a Q&A.