Was the Holocaust of the Jews "unique"?

Question

I admit that my question is supercontroversial. But then I "love" to create controversies. Now, I admit Hitler and his Nazis had the obsessed idea of destroying all the Jews they could find. Maybe that makes it "unique". But haven't we seen other mass murders of millions also with the intention of "total complete eradication"? So the Holocaust is not so "unique" in my view. Mankind has always been evil. What do you think?

Answer 1

My answer will be supercontroversial ... I think people put so much emphasis on the Holocaust -- at least in the West -- because Westerners can relate to (and sympathize with) European Jews more they can relate to victims of genocide in other parts of the world. Europeans are more "human" than say, Pol Pot's victims or the victims of recent genocides in Africa. At least, I think that is part of it.

Answer 2

The Holocaust was extraordinary in the level of sophistication and efficency the Nazis employed. If there is one thing you can say for Germans, they know how to organize things.

But there are several other genocides which were almost as horrific.... Pol Pot and the killing fields in Cambodia and the Rwanda massacres of 1994 come to mind.

A French journalist tells of being in Rwanda shortly after the genocide ended, and seeing a pile of machetes -- thousands of them, several feet high, many covered in blood -- he said it reminded him of the piles of shoes at Auschwitz.

Has mankind always been evil? Perhaps.... but it's only been in the last century or so that we've had the technical capability to make mass killing a reality on as broad a scale as the Holocaust.

Actually, the greatest mass killing in history was the destruction of the population of the Americas between 1500 and 1600.... approximately 80 to 100 million killed by smallpox and other infectious diseases. But only some of those deaths were intentional.

Answer 3

Well the thing about the Holocaust is only reason why we know about it is because we got involved in the war, Genocide occures more often than people would like to admit, sometimes on larger scales like the Holocaust, other times smaller, like what was seen in S. American and Africa over the past 50 years, why don't we notice the other though? Because people turn a blind eye to whats not effecting them, if it wasn't for us getting drawn into WWII we wouldn't have given a flip about what was being done to the Jews in Europe, the freeing of the Holocaust victoms was just secondary to our goal of defeating Axis Powers.

Answer 4

It's not a new thing at all. I think what makes us focus on this one is that it was going on for years and we didn't know until the end of a major world event, the second World War.

Unfortunately, people acted shocked, like it happened that one time, when the truth is people are still dying at the hands of leaders that can be compared to Hitler today.

It wasn't a unique event - it's just what we remember, and that is what makes the Holocaust a unique genocide.

Answer 5

No it wasn't. According to the Bible when the jews first entered the land of Canaan they found other people living there and proceded to carry out ethnic cleansing against them because they claimed their god had promised them this land. They fought many battles , the most notorious being the battle of Jericho where they slaughtered every man , woman and child in the city.
In the early 20th century the Turks tried to eliminate all the Armenians, this is what gave Hitler the idea for his genocide.
The Holocaust in WW2 is only notable for the methods involved and the wide categories of people killed as well as the jews.

Answer 6

Yes, the Holocaust of the Jews was 'unique.' Never before in history had the latest technology & record keeping systematicallly destroy the vast number of one race in such little time, historically. We are talking conservatively, of 6 million Jews. It was so highly, politically calculated & systematically carried out, that it was even given a special name: The Final Solution. History has never before or since seen such advanced technology implemented to especially wipe out an entire race, while killing millions of other people who they thought were 'diverse' from them, or a threat of some kind.

Answer 7

I am not a religious person in any way - but the Holocaust was just terrible. There are not actually words to express how totally disgusting the whole thing was. Nothing like that will ever happen again, to anyone. It can't do. It's just... horrible. No one deserves that.

Answer 8

There have been many genocides throughout history. Even today. But yes, the Holocaust had unique characteristics.

Answer 9

Honestly, I don't think your question is supercontroversial.
Yes, genocide has a long and ugly history in world culture. It has existed long before Hitler and still exists in modern times. To make an ironic point, if you want to see an example of genocide in early human history, read the following:

Deuteronomy 7:1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
7:2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:

Read the Old Testament. It's full of horrors.

Answer 10

well you have to remember he wasnt just after the jews... he was after many different people. people see this is more unique because this is the most true recent occurance, but it also makes it unique because he was after more than just one race.. most other genocides were after a certain race, not multiple