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Move Proposal

I agree with Adam, so I think we should move this to Nazi Holocaust (or European Holocaust) and move Holocaust (disambiguation) here, I mean after all there are many Holocausts in history. --Member 9 July 2005 00:12 (UTC)

I disagree. Which ethnic groups seriously refer to the acts of genocides carried out against them as "holocausts"? Do we have to take PETA seriously and link to pages of alleged "animal holocausts" as well? I don't think it's very helpful to use the term inflationary and I don't think it's very ambigious to begin with. Something else: Does anybody know if the talk page is somehow "full"? I wanted to make a new subsection but it doesn't show up somehow... Zerofoks 16:49:29, 2005-08-13 (UTC)
Nevermind about the last question, I figured it out. The "Start a new topic" link was just pointing to a wrong talk page. But another question: Why is this section up here? Wouldn't such a new talk section more to the bottom (where my new subsection can be found)? zerofoks 22:04:33, 2005-08-13 (UTC)

Proposal to overhaul article

My first proposal is to have an article called Holocaust, which will discuss the origins and various usages of the term, and a second article called Holocaust (World War II), which will be specifically about the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. I think that will take some of the heat out of the definitional issues surrounding the current article. Adam 05:08, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

I think this issue has already been adequately addressed through the creation of Holocaust (disambiguation) which is linked to at the start of this article. I think that most people, when they search on "Holocaust," are going to go be looking for the article that we have now. I do not think this is a productive direction to take the article. Snowspinner 02:57, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)
I don't agree with that at all. Many other groups have had their Holocaust, and shuffling them to the side in the (disambiguation) category is downright disrespectful. Even though our media focuses more on the WWII holocaust, usually called the Jewish Holocaust, the numbers were far greater in other holocausts (e.g. the Ukrainian Holocaust). I think Adam Carr is right on target with what he wants to do, and I encourage him to go through with a proper restructuring once and for all. Sep 22, 2004 142.161.91.56

That is highly questionable (about the numbers being higher than the Holocaust). Much of the extent of the Ukrainian Famine is as many of the pertinent documents came to light during the Nazi occupation. Several historical studies are coming out now which tackle this issue, and some have concluded that many mass graves attributed to the Famine, were in fact, murders purpotrated by the Nazis during their occupation of the Ukraine, and that the Nazis then went on to claim these as casualties of the Famine a decade earlier — incidentally, if this ever proves to be the case, it would become very pertinent to the Holocaust — it would be a grave error, in my opinion, to view these studies under the prism of Holocaust denial, though I should note that my familiarity with these is lacking. At any rate though, this was not the reason why I removed your addition, that was just an aside (the manner in which it was formulated was, as well, problematic, also an aside), I did so because I also do not think this is a productive direction to take the article. Lastly, you may find it beneficial to sign your ip following your comments (or better yet, register and sign your username). El_C


How long would this "Holocaust" article be? What about the great many links to this page that intend to go to The Holocaust? Perhaps naming that holocaust 'The Holocaust' would be better. --mav 05:21, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

It would be as long as it needed to be (what other answer can there be to that question?). I would of course accept the responsibility of fixing the redirects if I moved the World War II part of the article to a new article. Adam 00:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

So long as it is not a stub, or worse just a definition. --mav

It certainly won't be either of those. Adam 05:00, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Snowspinner that I think having this article on The Holocaust and the Holocaust (disambiguation) article for other meanings works better. john k 20:22, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The problem with that approach is that it appears to pre-judge the question of what the word "holocaust" means, when that issue is far from settled and is the subject of controversy. If people seaching for "holocaust" are taken to an article on The Holocaust, with all other meanings relegated to a disambiguation page, they will not unreasonably conclude that Wikipedia has taken a position in the debate on the meaning of the word. However, I am more concerned at present with fixing the text than the question of which article leads to which, so we can have that discussion when I have a draft ready. Adam 23:45, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I thought about this at one point, and considered moving this to a disambig page. Ultimately, though, I decided that almost anyone who was searching on Holocaust was going to be looking for The Holocaust - otherwise, they'd probably search for genocide or ethnic cleansing. And I think articles should be located so as to be the article that's being looked for the most on a search. I'd be very, very surprised if this were anything but this article in this case. - Snowspinner
In terms of article naming, given that it's a zero sum game, there's no way to do it without taking sides in one manner or another. As such, I think the consideration of "what are people looking for when they type in 'holocaust'" is the most important consideration, as Snowspinner suggests. At any rate - yes, let's postpone the discussion of location to the actual improvement of the article - which is, as you point out, pretty awful at the moment. john k 00:13, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It has taken me longer than I expected to get round to this but I will do it eventually. Adam 07:53, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Adam, I basically agree with you that for start we should move the Holocaust (disambiguation) on Holocaust; in such a case, the Jewish Holocaust should undisputedly be on the top of the disambiguation list, as it comprises the highest death toll. But note that this article doesn't just refer to the Jewish victims of the death camps; it mentions other people who suffered a similar treatment. And apart from the death camps, and when it comes to my country, Greece, there are some WWII incidents involving Christian victims which are also called "Holocausts". The "Holocaust" term is mostly used when referring to the Holocaust of Chortiatis (alternative spelling: Hortiatis, Χορτιάτης). There the whole population of a village near Thessaloniki was eradicated in a single mass execution that happened on-spot. There's some effort to increase public awareness about these facts in Germany (distomo.de), and since the reunification of Germany, Greece has been claiming compensations for the victims. (more soon) Etz Haim 01:18, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I erased one of my statements above, as this may be disputed, and some people -like the friend who posted here before me- may find it disrespectful. I think it's better this way in order not to lose focus in this discussion. Etz Haim 01:40, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

El C, there is also lots of evidence of the Jewish holocaust being exaggerated. There is, in fact good reason for Israel to want to have the holocaust exaggerated as it has received plenty of money in retribution. So, it would still be unfair to sweep other holocausts under the rug. Cute cat BTW.

  • Okay, it seems people are missing the point. First of all, the "WWII Holocaust was not the holocause of the Jews". Only about half the casualties were Jews. Second, we are not deciding which genocide is deserving of the title Holocaust. Our articles should not be labelled by "the most accurate term". That is POV. It should be the term that best coincides with real use. That means if more people refer to the Jewish genocide as "Holocaust" that should be what are article addresses as well. It doesn't matter whether there's a legitimate reason for people to call that the Holocaust. Superm401 | Talk July 5, 2005 03:39 (UTC)

Origin and use of the term

The article contains two different translations:

  1. Shoa ... Hebrew for "Calamity"
  2. Instead of holocaust many Jews prefer the Hebrew word Shoah, which means "desolation".

I propose to bring the section Origin and use of the term up to the beginning of the article and merge those two. Any takers? Also, should the term be prepended with the definite article? ←Humus sapiens←Talk 22:01, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As much as I dislike this page, the latest additions were patent nonsense. "Many people hold: means nothing. Find me a decent Holocaust scholar who says that. Danny 23:01, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wording Question

I'm confused by the end of section 2.5, "Extent of the Holocaust". It says "The following groups of people were also victimized by the Nazi regime...". The word "victimized" would normally include people who were killed, imprisoned, had their property taken away, etc. Are those the figures on how many people were killed?

I too am confused by the number of people killed. It would appear that we are guided to beleive that the Holocaust refers to WW II, and a systematic genocide. Yet no referance is given to the book of Revelations and the Holocaust that will happen to the Jewish people after they are encoraged to return to thier homeland. Which by the way now has a population of 6 million.

Others who are working on this Holocaust page should also keep an eye out for vandals on other Holocaust related pages. Recently in the article on Gays Under Nazi Germany some wikis have been adding texts that asserts such things as: the Holocaust was a myth, only Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, most Nazis were gay men, etc. And also adding links to books that have been published that are sold on Amazon.com that try to offer "evidence" backing the claims. All of such books have been denounced by governments, and Holocaust organizations. I have been trying to keep an eye out, but I cannot check everyday. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Jan 20th.

Recent edits

The picture of a Jewish woman pleading for her life seems to have lost its caption. Any ideas on how to get it back? Jayjg 06:45, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Actually, if you look at the article version before I started re-arranging the images, the caption wasn't there, just as with two other images. I tried to use the |thumb| function but it only blew up the image and distorted it; I've just found out that |frame| is what allows for captions with already small images, and I've edited the section accordingly.
Also, two notes on the "Bibliography" - 1) apologies to whosever hard work I erased by removing ISBNs and publisher names, but as I have explained here (I didn't link it correctly in my edit remark), ISBNs and naming specific publishers, etc only limit the options of book searchers (ie they only point to one edition that may not be the one available in the reader's country, or the most recent copy, etc.) - however the years of publication still need to be added to most of the works; 2) the majority of the books focus on Western Europe, there is not enough about Central and Eastern European nations apart from Poland (Ukrainians suffered huge losses because of Nazi deportations and anti-Slav/anti-Semitic atrocities) which could probably be ironed out, though the bibliography is already rather long. -- Simonides 08:22, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Curious approach. The bibliography, in theory, could be seen as listing the works (with varying dates of publication, not necessarily the most recent) which were employed by the respective contributor(s), it isn't necessraily designed to serve as the source for the very latest edition, though that might still be desriable in some format or another, as is noting the original date of publication, which I attempted to provide with my latest revision (for example, one of the works I dated here was originally published in 1947, but the latest edition is from 2004). Bibliographically, this is probably noteworthy. As for ISBN no., it certainly could be helpful, if not pivotal (that is, we are presuming that if a reader is capabale of searching-for/reading a scholarly work, they can work around ISBN discrapencies and ambiguities). In my opinion, it is not necessary (or even pressing), but since it has already been compiled, it should be undeleted and reinserted. Likewise with publishers, though again, I do not consider it a pressing matter (not so much as having bibliographical items dated, for example). Many more thoughts on the bibiliography as well as the article in general, but I will save those for a later date. El_C

The external links section has suffered a lot of unreviewed additions, and I think the article would not be affected negatively by removing links to individual victim's sites/lists. There is no structure in the list, perhaps this can be introduced. I'll have a go at trimming this list very soon if there are no objections. JFW | T@lk 16:01, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Jayjg 16:06, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Table Of Contents and Organization

Why is there so much information crammed into the opening paragraphs that the TOC doesn't even appear on the page, you have to scroll down to get to it. I thought the opening paragraph or two set the stage for the document that follows, with information organized into sections and presented logically and orderly. This is a good case of lots of people thinking their particular fact is so important it needs to be seen first, instead of creating a document of value it is a giant hair ball that one must deconstruct to understand. It is a shame given the importance of the topic that there is not better organization. Stbalbach 07:59, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. El_C

Clicking on reference [1] as of today yields this result:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/P/FrontPage/FrontPage&cid=1002116796299
- irismeister 20:37, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)
Introducing
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/20.May.1997/News/Article-2.html
inside the search box on the page where clicking the reference brings the reader yield this result, as of today:

No Articles Found

No articles were found for the search you submitted. Please try one of the following suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly. Try different search terms. Check the FAQ for info about searching. More search tips... Please click here to try another search.
- irismeister 20:42, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)

Clicking on reference [1] as of today yields this result:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/P/FrontPage/FrontPage&cid=1002116796299
- irismeister 20:37, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)
Introducing
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/20.May.1997/News/Article-2.html
inside the search box on the page where clicking the reference brings the reader yield this result, as of today:

No Articles Found

No articles were found for the search you submitted. Please try one of the following suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly. Try different search terms. Check the FAQ for info about searching. More search tips... Please click here to try another search.

Please do not vandalize this page, user 82.82.52.240

http://www.webyield.net/cgi-bin/ipwhois.cgi?addr=82.82.52.240 gives the dsl-082-082-052-240.arcor-ip.net or the 82.82.52.240 vandal. We'll follow, and I already wrote a note to vandal 82.82.52.240 - irismeister 19:04, 2004 Oct 10 (UTC)

Clicking on reference [1] as of today yields this result:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/P/FrontPage/FrontPage&cid=1002116796299
- irismeister 20:37, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)
Introducing
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/20.May.1997/News/Article-2.html
inside the search box on the page where clicking the reference brings the reader yield this result, as of today:

No Articles Found

No articles were found for the search you submitted. Please try one of the following suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly. Try different search terms. Check the FAQ for info about searching. More search tips... Please click here to try another search.

Clicking on reference [1] as of today yields this result:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/P/FrontPage/FrontPage&cid=1002116796299
- irismeister 20:37, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)
Introducing
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/20.May.1997/News/Article-2.html
inside the search box on the page where clicking the reference brings the reader yield this result, as of today:

No Articles Found

No articles were found for the search you submitted. Please try one of the following suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly. Try different search terms. Check the FAQ for info about searching. More search tips... Please click here to try another search.


edits to Intro by wereit

actually, i thought that paragraph 4. he added today was kind of interesting/relevant. agree? disagree? anyone? Gzuckier 18:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Made a minor change to the intro, the grammar and sentence structure still needs some editing for cohesion. Ronabop

I see jayjg removed my additions w/o a comment. If people feel it should not be included, so be it. However, what was written was true, in so far, as its indentification of Germany's role in the world and its culture and Germany's turn to Nazism. This insight is definitly something that is always jarring to people but usually on a subconcious level and not fully expressed. Jayjg seems [just from a glance at a few things; may not be true at all] to be very worried and wary of additions and always more comfortable with the status quo. But the status quo is not always correct. Just because someone wrote something first does not mean that person had any idea as to what she or he was writing.

Point in case, one of the things that struck me about this article was its relative disregard for the Nazi's targeting of Jews. Although, the Nazis did massacre many other people as indicated in the article, all historical testimonies and documentation turn to the fact that the goal and attention of the Nazi regime was directed towards the Jews. Obviously, to say the least, while they were at it, they hated and murdered other groups. Just because the original writer of the article took a more detached point of view does not mean that view corners the market. Wereit [Sorry to sign like this, still getting acclimated to active participation].

I'm concerned about changes to the status quo which aren't achieved first through consensus in Talk:, particularly on controversial topics like the Holocaust. Jayjg 15:56, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, getting off on a tangent, one of the more unusual sides to the holocaust in question was the germans' role. After all, sad to say, genocide itself is not all that remarkable, even today. People kind of expect Turks (from 100 years ago) and Somalis and Rwandans and Bosnians and Serbs to enjoy the sports of genocide and mass murder; that's kind of one reason many Jews avoided those countries and settled in the civilized, cosmopolitan, educated cities of Germany. Therefore, all the more remarkable that that's where this malignancy took root; it's hard now to imagine what it must have been like when the Nazis entered power, kind of like imagining what it would be like if the US suddenly turned to such lunacy. It serves as evidence that, in fact, no country, including the US, can ever be trusted to be so free and progressive and advanced as to be considered absolutely immune to a sudden attack of homicidal insanity. Toss in the efficiency with which bad deeds can be conducted due to modern technology and organizational management in a first world nation, then or now, and you have a scary picture. Which is kind of what you were saying, yes?

Gzuckier 22:00, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • I tried a new version of the introduction, with an explicit statement that Jews were the largest group targeted. A lot of the other information was already in parts of the article, and didn't seem appropriate to the introduction. I think that adding other information to the section on Jews might be appropriate. The article seems fairly clear that anti-Semitism was a major motivating factor, and that the Jews suffered the largest number of deaths, but I'm sure it could be improved. I wouldn't be against stronger statements being added to the paragraph I wrote; I just don't think that the specific details should be added to the Introduction. -- Creidieki 03:04, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Holocaust Memorial Day

Can someone with a bit of time take a look at this please? You've got until the end of January. Dunc|☺ 15:28, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yad vaShem db recently gone online

The computerized portion of the archives has become available online last week at http://names.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Entrance . I believe that this is the same thing that was previously accessible via the local network access for the museum visitors. Please update the article accordingly — the link has to be incorporated and the quote changed to reflect the news. BACbKA 21:27, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jews were the main targets

I hesitate to wade in with heavy editing of this article because I've not been involved in the discussion. But it struck me immediately that there's been almost a minimization of the fact that Jews were the largest group incarcerated and killed, and that Jews were the main targets. In the list of things that made this mass-killing different from others, there was no mention of the fact that it was a concerted effort to wipe out an entire race of people. (I have added that point, although I put it in as point 4, when I feel it should be point 1). I feel that the balance of this article needs to be changed to reflect the facts: viz. (i) the people who were killed were predominantly Jews; (ii) the ways the Jews were treated in the camps (zero privileges, compared with other groups, which meant they died sooner of starvation, lack of medical care, beatings, as well as in the gas chambers); and (iii) the fact that the Nazis specifically discussed the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. They didn't discuss the Final Solution of the Gypsy Question. That is not to minimize what happened to the other groups, but the Jewish people were the targets.

I don't know what the consensus is, so I won't edit it, but I hope some more discussion takes place around this because it's an important article. Slim 08:00, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

I suppose the question is was the 'apparatus' of the Holocaust established for the extermination of the Jews with the other groups included as an 'after thought', or would the mass killing of the other groups have happened anyway? I believe this should determine the emphasis of the article. Sean3000 14:16, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Slimvirgin i can understand that your intentions are meant in the best spirit but feel i must dissagree - I was imediately struck by how refreshing it was that all of the unfortunate recipients of this dark period of history are refered to fairly evenly throughout this article.

(i) in the light of the utter tragedy it seems a bit churlish to insist on some kind of numerical ranking of tragedy. every single death is an outrage. for any one to lay claim to being more wronged than others is simply the first act of politicising victimisation.

(ii) One can be fairly sure that the camps were no picnic for any of the inmates - to quote from the Porajmos page on the wikipedia "According to testimonies of Jewish and Nazi witnesses, Gypsies sent to the death camps often suffered even worse than Jews. In some instances, the Nazis were so appalled by the sight of Roma arriving in the transports that they would not even let them in the gates of the camps for selection and simply murdered them by the railway platforms. In one remarkable instance, the victims were so terrified that they would be killed on the spot that they actually stormed the gates of the death camp, demanding to be allowed in."

(iii) The polish question was discussed and used as an excuse to invade that country in the first place, therefore to use your reasoning one could then suggest that the jewish question was an afterthought. Of course that is not the point here, the point is that evil intent was aimed at many groups and individuals - in an event that has come to be widely refered to by a term borrowed from the yiddish language.

But perhaps I am missing the point, this page is about the holocaust, which strictly speaking is the jewish term for a tragedy visited upon the jewish people. the nazis planned a final solution to the perceived impurity of their 'so called' aryan race, the term holocaust was not applied by them just as much as the term Porajmos wasnt. there is an issue with the common usage of the term to denote the genocide that took place - either we are describing the jewish experience here or we are describing the genocide, if it is as i suspect the latter then it does nobody any justice to clamour for priority.

David

no. jews cannot be named the only victims. many other groups, like homosexuals, suffered just as much but the death rate of these groups is only lower because the number of people in these groups were smaller. soviet POWs were used to make soap in 1945 (i cant remember the exact page but this is from beavor's berlin book).--GregLoutsenko 20:58, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Number of Jews killed

I am unclear about the number of Jews killed. In the relevant section it states about 6 Million Jews were killed. The next line states that 3-3.5 Million Polich jews were killed. Is that including the six million killed or is it a seperate number?

Holden 27

I'm pretty sure the 3.5 million is supposed to be included in the 6 million. The section does seem to be formatted badly so as not to make that clear. Lemme see what I can do. Gzuckier 16:07, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Several editors have been changing the total death toll in the introduction, which in recent edits has been 4-6 million, or 40-60 million. I believe the accepted figures by scholars are 12-26 million all groups, six million of them Jewish victims, so those are the figures I've inserted today. Slim 17:32, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)
Slim, please quote your sources. What you believe is irrelevant, what reputable sources actually say is not. jguk 18:56, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Politeness would be appreciated.
http://veritas3.holocaust-history.org/jews-central/ for low estimate of 12 million
http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/history/cahr/holocaust.htm for high estimate of between 15 and 26 million. Source for high estimate on this website is "Service d'Information des Crimes de Guerre: Crimes contre la Personne Humain", Camps de Concentration (Paris, 1946), 197, though the author notes true figure will likely never be known. Slim 20:26, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)
I can't seem to be able to open those links. The figure 12-26 million seems far to high I think, and approches the total number of war dead rather then the Holocaust alone. Six million Jewish victims and two million non-Jewish victims are the figures I have generally seen. Sean3000 14:10, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The links are working for me, but note that the word "for" isn't part of the first link, as it seemed to be before this edit. It's this [1] Slim 01:18, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
The links work for me as well. Jayjg 01:26, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I’ve managed to open those links, I don’t know what I was doing before. I couldn’t find a figure for non - Jewish victims in the first link, but I’m even more suspicious of those figures now I’ve read the second link. The thrust of his argument seems to be that some of the 6 million Jews killed were done so outside of concentration camps, and other nationalities were killed out side the concentration camps, so they should be included too; which I think is shoddy reasoning. The fact the article is written be a prospective MA student of no stated discipline should be considered too. My Britannica puts the total war dead as between 35,000,000 to 60,000,000; I suspect Karen’s Holocause figure is that minus the dead of the Pacific theatre, Britain’s, America’s and the colonies. While I didn't see a break down there, have a look at top left corner of http://remember.org/ . Sean3000 13:10, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here is a good summary of the relevant scholarship:

There is no precise figure for the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. The figure commonly used is the six million quoted by Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS official. Most research confirms that the number of victims was between five and six million. Early calculations range from 5.1 million (Professor Raul Hilberg) to 5.95 million (Jacob Leschinsky). More recent research, by Professor Yisrael Gutman and Dr. Robert Rozett in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, estimates the Jewish losses at 5.59-5.86 million, and a study headed by Dr. Wolfgang Benz presents a range from 5.29 million to six million. The main sources for these statistics are comparisons of prewar censuses with postwar censuses and population estimates. Nazi documentation containing partial data on various deportations and murders is also used. " [2]

The quote was pasted on the article. I have removed it, and replaced the "six million" with "between five and six million". Sir Paul 01:22, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

If this : "dead as between 35,000,000 to 60,000,000; I suspect Karen’s Holocause figure is that minus the dead of the Pacific theatre, Britain’s, America’s and the colonies." is the basis of the figure for the total victims of the holocaust, it's including the german and eastern front military casualties as well, which does not seem appropriate.

Are there "scholerly" estmates for the total number of victims, corrisponding to the estimates of jewish victims given above?

Shoka

In the Hitler article, under Holocaust [3] it says 3.5 million Jews. When you get to Wiki's actual Holocaust page -- this one -- it says 6 million 'victims'. The numbers on both pages are too vague to derive any sense of. Please, anyone who is available and knowledgeable, clear them up. Thank you.

The Hitler page [[4]] says 3.5 million Jews died in concentration camps, vs. 6 million total, as calculated from census figures before and after the war. Gzuckier 15:49, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The upper totals on this page are approximately correct. However, 5 million Jews is not the lowest reputable total. Reitlinger estimated 4.2 to 4.6 million. I therefore suggest replacing 5 with 4.2 as the lower limit in the relevant section. The number who died in death camps is also given as various numbers: Hilberg quotes it as 2.7 million, rather than 3.5. If no-one objects, I propose altering this article to reflect the full range of reputable scholarly opinion (only excluding the prejudices of anti-Semitic cranks). 82.36.26.229 17:07, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Logistical considerations

I will state flat out that I am a holocaust revisionist. I believe the true number to have died at camps to be somewhere around 400,000 and primarly from causes of disease, starvation and old age. Before you jump on me and label me anti-semite or whatever, hear me out on this point.

Just to begin with: You've provided a reasonable factual summary of your skeptical reasoning without evident bias, which is a reasonable position. I will offer my comments in the same vein. Gzuckier 19:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why is there no section on how this supposed mass murder was actually accomplished from a logicistal point of view? You can't just say offhand 6 million people (12 including the non-Jews) were gassed to death. Most people don't immediately come to terms with just how many people that is, because it's just something they've been told all their lives.

One point: I don't think the majority would argue that all 6 million Jews, 12 million total were gassed. If you look at the detailed explanation, that's the total death toll, of which the death camps would be only a part, and the actual gas chambers an even smaller part.Gzuckier 19:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC) - If I could just add to this - the main thrust of this argument seems to revolve around the fact it is impossible to gas and cremate so many millions of people and not leave evidence. Well, as Gzuckier touches on, the majority of the people killed in the holocaust were not gassed at all. Within the first few weeks of the war, soldiers were carrying out unsystematic massacres of Jews who they came across in the pushes into Poland. As the war went on these occurances became greater in number, as did organised shootings. Often whole towns would be forced to dig their own grave and then would be shot. Just because they were shot, rather than gassed, does not make their deaths not "count" towards the overall toll of the Holocaust. CiderDaemon 17:04, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A core argument to holocaust revisionism is the fact it was technically impossible to exterminate 6 million people and leave no evidence, let alone do it in the time frame required. For one, there would be over 30,000 square kilometres of ash from the cremation of bodies alone (conservative estimate). That is enough ash to blanket Europe!

That seems excessive offhand, let me do some calculations 'out loud' here. (To begin with, note that 2 million people a year die in the US and most of them aren't even cremated, so if your numbers are anywhere near correct we ought to be one giant graveyard by now). Let's say 6 million to start with. A cremation results in about 2 kilograms (5 lbs) of remains, taking up about a gallon of volume (4 liters). So 6 million cremated would be about 12 million kilograms = 12,000 metric tons, about 24 million liters = 24 * 10^9 cc. Over 30,000 square kilometeres that would be 24*10^9cc/30000*10^6 sq meters =24*10^9cc/30000*10^10sqcm = something less than 10^-4. In other words, the absolute total ashes of everyone of those 6 million if all were cremated would cover your hypothetical 30,000 sq kilometers to a depth of 1/10,000 centimetres. Therefore, I find your estimated 30,000 sq kilometres vastly too large. Looking at it another way, if you had a pile of ashes from 6 million people that was 10 centimetre deep, about 4 inches, then it would cover an area about 24*10^8 sqcm, or about 50,000 cm on a side, or about 500 meters by 500 meters, about a third of a mile by a third of a mile. That's a far cry from blanketing Europe, even if you double it to include the entire 12 million victims of all races being every single one of them cremated. Out of curiosity, where did you get this 30,000 sq KM number?
Large quantities of ashes were apparently found. A web search comes up with references to 'In an article in the journal published by the same IHR that publishes these Q&A, the Journal's editor reported that a Polish commission in 1946 found human ash at the Treblinka death camp to a depth of over twenty feet. This article is available on [holocaust denier] Greg Raven's web site.' I haven't verified the original source myself, though. There are referenceson Raven's site to piles of ashes at Majdanek: 'One experience that deeply affected Galler was seeing a huge mound of ashes preserved next to a crematory at Majdanek. "My credibility increases," Galler said, "when I can say I've seen a crematorium ... and I've seen ashes as big as [our] school."' [5]. No explanation of why he regards this as 'remarkable nonsense'. References on Raven's site to ashes being dumped into the river at Auschwitz: 'The ashes were then collected. Bones were pounded into a powder. All of the remains were then dumped into the river'.(Auschwitz camp commander Rudolf Hoess) which he dismisses as the result of a coerced confession. [6] Gzuckier 19:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Photos we see are of starvation and typhus victims at the end of the war, not victims of gassing.

With respect, I don't think starvation and typhus at the end of the war would reduce the inmates to actual literal bare skulls. [7] Gzuckier 19:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not going to go into the many other areas of evidence brought up by revisionists and deniers, but I think this one is the most important for you to address as believers, as well as from a historical point of view.

Dead people leave evidence. 12 million dead in the space of 3 years should have left a LOT of evidence.

Really? Over 3 years, 6 million people die in the US, with not only no attempt to conceal it or clean up the results, but in fact great efforts to memorialize the dead. Yet, we don't see the entire country covered in ashes, and in fact if you don't go specifically looking for the evidence of their deaths it's not very apparent. I don't think the amount of evidence that exists for the deaths of 6 or 12 million over 3 years in wartime Europe with some efforts at minimizing the evidence and reducing the clutter of dead bodies all over the place is proportionately unreasonably less than the evidence of the US death rate.
And that still leaves the testimony of those who were there. Gzuckier 19:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you would like to move this to the discussion page for holocaust denial, then do so. Thank you!

Holocaust addendum

"before making any further edits, and please cease adding inflammatory material without so much as a source to back it up"

I challenge you to point out the lack of citation of sources in the comment I posted, which I will paste below in it's entirety: -

In March 1933, international Jewish organizations declared an international boycott of German goods. Newspapers around the world reported the declaration of war upon Germany. A front-page headline in the London Daily Express (March 24, 1933), for example, announced "Judea Declares War on Germany."

Ugh, this 1933 headline gets thrown into the argument by every neonazi on the internet. See! The Jews declared war on germany! The holocaust didn't happen, but even if it, it was justified self-defense! The sensationalist headline of a london tabloid does not history make. Or would you consider the boycott of Israeli goods a declaration of war and justification for anything their army does? --Cypherx 19:38, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The hostilities of the Jewish community, especially with the focal point of the Jewish Commisars of Russia impended them as a direct threat to all Christendom in Europe. During the Commisars regime in Russia in excess of 105,000,000 (105 million) people were killed purely on the basis that they were Christian at the hands of the Jewish Commisar 'red brigades'.


I quoted the exact newspaper, and as for the death toll of the Commisars, it's a well established historical fact, even more founded than the Holocaust figures. Just because factual information disagrees with the information posted doesn't instantly mean it's anti-semetic inflammatory subject material.

Posted by 211.31.12.95 at 05:39, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A call for a boycott by some Jewish organzations in reaction to Nazi actions is not a "declaration of war", regardless of what an editor writes as a headline in order to sell newspapers. As for the 105 million Christians being killed by Jews for being Christian, you have provided no credible evidence for this absurd claim. Jayjg | (Talk) 15:33, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
105 million? Sorry, not even Stalin killed that many people, and as far as I know he and Hitler hold the record for the two most (unless you count certain Chinese policies as such).
105 million is more than a third of the population of the United States. 105 million is TWICE the modern population of France. It doesn't take much thought to state that 105 million people were not exterminated in Russia, much less by Jews - that would be roughly 2 people killed per Jew alive TODAY. No, sorry, someone made up that number. Not even that many people were killed in Russia PERIOD. Most people killed by Stalin were killed because they were political dissentors or PoWs. Titanium Dragon 13:16, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Jesus Christ, however many people died under the Bolsheviks (it was certainly nowhere near 100 million), they were certainly not killed "by the Jews" - for a start, neither Lenin nor Stalin were Jewish, and the Bolshevik ideology was not particularly Jewish in any notable way. Can we just ban the anti-semitic trolls? john k 06:48, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't the Offical Jewish Death Toll 1.1 Million, Not 6.

As far as I knew the offical death toll was revised to 1.1 million as a minimum death count resulting from emcampment and a 4 million figure of deaths as a threshold if not going by camp records.

The 6 million is a pre-eighties estimate.

The Auschwitz toll was 4 million, but it was later (quietly) revised down to 1.1 million. However, the holy "6 million" figure was not similarly changed. They obviously found some other way to fill in the missing numbers, or it could just be that the figure is such an accepted part of the holocaust story that it just couldn't be changed.Darkfalz 05:55, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Why do you imagine that historians took the Soviet "4 million" number seriously, or used it in their calculations of total casualties? By the way, the Soviet 4 million number included 2 million non-Jews, so even if it had been used (which it was not), the number of Jews killed would have been "revised down" by only 1 million. Jayjg |

(Talk) 03:57, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Only 1 million? 1 million is still 1 million, leaving 5 million. But obviously the Jews aren't willing to make even that concession, maybe for semi-legitimate reasons (ie. fuelling revisionist debate) or maybe just because they are obsessed with the mystical 6 million figure. And historians did take it seriously as it appeared in most books on the subject before the figure was revised.
You have missed the point; the Auschwitcz numbers were not used to calculate the death totals, so even if there were 1 million fewer Jews killed at Auschwitz, it wouldn't affect the totals, since the Auschwitz death numbers weren't used to calculate the death totals. I don't know how to explain that any more clearly. In what way did "historians take it seriously", and why do you imagine it "appeared in most books"? Most books contained numbers under 2 million. As for the "mystical" 6 million figure, it's just a round number estimate, actual historians have estimated all sorts of numbers from near 5 million to near 7 million. Jayjg | (Talk) 22:49, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The statistics below are also suspect, not only because nizkor is hardly an independant group (they are just as biased towards the holocaust story as neo-nazis would be against it) but also because, after the war, it obviously wasn't considered popular to be a Jew in Europe.
No kidding. See, I would have thought that it wasn't popular to be a Jew in Europe under Nazi rule, but after they lost it would have been unpopular to be a German in Europe. Or the US. Certainly there was a lot of de-germanization of names and words. Did we see a lot of Germans disappear, to be explained because they changed their names and laid low, that we don't know about? But you say it was the Jews who went into hiding after the war. Go figure. Gzuckier 18:06, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Many Jews changed their names and when censuses were conducted, many Russian Jews chose, for example, to simply call themselves "Russian" rather than "Jewish". Personally, I don't believe in the 6 million figure. I am not entirely convinced about the existance of gas chambers either. But I don't have much argument with the rest of the holocaust story, or that mass killings took place, but generally in an ad hoc fashion by SS units who were sick of the burden of transporting trainloads of Jews and Poles around when they had a war to fight (which they were losing). I truly believe millions of Jewish and millions more non-Jewish lives would have been saved if Churchill had accepted Hitler's peace proposal in 1941, but I guess we'll never know for sure. It is clear, however, that it's not a line of thinking that western world, at large, can afford to have... which is basically why I believe the Hitler and Third Reich has been stripped of all postive aspects and had the negative ones blown out of proportion, distorted or entirely fabricated.Darkfalz 16:02, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
<satire>Actually, the entire Holocaust of the Jews is a statistical abberation. Due to the war there were a lot of traffic accidents. Of course, these would occur in the cities and larger town; and that is where the Jews lived, so it looks like their death rate was inflated.</satire> Gzuckier 18:08, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I have yet to see 100% convincing evidence that there ever was a person named Adolf Hitler or a movement called the Nazi Party. Indeed, I have my doubts that there ever was a Second World War and that it's not just a myth concocted by a certain generation in order to swindle "veteran's" pensions and other benefits from a gullible population. Really, can anyone *prove* absolutely that there was a world war from 1939 to 1945? Sure there are a lot of old people who say there was but memories are unreliable, especially 50 years after the fact, and they could have just been all making it up. Also, if you line up stories told by different individuals you can come up with dozens of contradictions among those who claim there was a "war". AndyL 23:34, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That's a good point. Both a war and a holocaust would mean that lots of people died. Yet, I have never met anyone who died in the war, and nobody I know has ever met anyone who died in the war. Clearly, it's exaggerated. Gzuckier 20:53, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's a neo-nazi myth. see here and see this site for a breakdown of the numbers: Numbers of missing Jews (post-war minus pre-war):

  • Germany 195,000
  • Austria 53,000
  • Czechoslovakia 255,000
  • Denmark 1,500
  • France 140,000
  • Belgium 57,000
  • Luxemburg 3,000
  • Norway 1,000
  • Holland 120,000
  • Italy 20,000
  • Jugoslavia 64,000
  • Greece 64,000
  • Bulgaria 5,000
  • Rumania 530,000
  • Hungary 200,000
  • Poland 3,271,000
  • USSR 1,050,000
  • Less dispersed refugees (308,000)
  • Total number of Jews that were exterminated 5,721,500

AndyL 03:18, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sadly you are mistaken. The 1.1 million or thereabouts is the estimate of those killed at Auschwitz alone. The estimate for all Jews killed in the Holocaust is between 5.3. and 6 million. AndyL 07:07, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC) .

There wasn't 6 million Jews killed, suggesting that there were is crazy. The real number is more like 3 million but, of course with America's current media the number will never changed.


---

The figures above do, at least concerning Denmark and Norway, not represent the historians' figures. Most of the Danish Jews - about 7000 - were saved by fleeing to Sweden, which was neutral in the World War II. According to my sources, 77 of the Danish jews died in concentration camps. Regarding Norway, my sources say that about 700 jews managed to flee to Sweden, while about 900 were killed in concentration camps. Source: Nordens Historia (Roughly:A history of the north European contries), by Prof. Harald Gustafsson of the University of Lund. ISBN 91-44-49031-3, page 239. Simon

Simon, you are right, the US Holocaust Museum also gives 77 Danish Jews as the number killed. The list above came from the Anglo-American Committee, and I believe it included the Danish Jews under "dispersed refugees" which it subtracted from the total. --Goodoldpolonius2 14:38, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Exterminating the disabled?

I recently read a fairly comprehensive book on the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth).

In it, I was rather surprised to learn that disabled boys and girls were encouraged to join the Hitler youth, and that they were able to participate in all the wholesome activities that the other youths enjoyed. The only thing that was denied to them (or protected from, if you like) was military training and service.

I found this quite intereresting. The structure of the Hitler youth was more or less by Hitler's own design, to create a generation of well disciplined, strong bodied and loyal Germans. If Hitler viewed the disabled as a "burden" that must be exterminated, why did he in fact encourage them to join in group activities? And they weren't to be used as cannon fodder either.

Makes me wonder what little bits and pieces here and there are truly legitimate concerns about the orthodox holocaust story. Anyone who hears a reigeme which systematically kills disabled people would immediately make the assumption it was a purely "evil" reigeme, but we obviously never get the complete truth when it comes to things like that. The truth may be that we can't afford to know the real truth, because the cost of the war had to be justified somehow.Darkfalz 10:00, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to add something to this. I was discussing it with a friend today. The "disabled" people who were sent to the camps probably weren't the physically handicapped, but most likely the mentally insane. That is, people who were a danger to themselves or society. Remember that before the camps became "death camps", they were more or less just prisons (like Dachau) where people dangerous to the state were held. Not all opponents to the NSDAP were there, obviously, since there was just over 50% of Germans that didn't vote for them. But some of the more dangerous aspects to the government, just like we have today, were detained. No government can afford to have people roaming around plotting violence and attacks against them. And likewise for the mentally unstable, we keep those people in asylums or institutes even today. It's not like there weren't criminally insane and crazy people in Germany too.
But then when the "death camps" story got around, anyone who was in those camps suddenly became a "target of extermination". I think that would explain a heck of a lot. Being a practicing homosexual, for example, was against the law. So if caught, they would have been sent to one of the prison/work camps. After the gas chambers story gets out, these too become "targets of extermination".
It's actually a tad more nuanced than that, because the policies were based on early 20th century theories of eugenics. Those who were considered "disabled" in terms of being targets of sterilization and extermination were the individuals who (rightly or not) were thought to be *genetically disabled*. Thus, a person who was disabled from a war wound (as Hitler was), or a childhood accident or disease, was not considered to be a "genetic liability" in the same way that somebody who was born with a disability was considered. Ronabop 09:42, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Non-Jewish Poles Part of Holocaust

I am questioning this statement from the Holocaust death toll.

"The following groups of people were also killed by the Nazi regime but there is little evidence that the Nazis planned to systematically target them for genocide as was the case for the groups above. 

   * 2.5 – 3.5 million non-Jewish Poles"

I have been investigating this throughout the internet and have found websites that bring up quotes by Hitler and Himmler that if accurate suggest that there was a goal to eliminate all Poles as well.

http://www.polandsholocaust.org/1939.html

August 22 1939. Hitler authorizes killing "without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language."

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_east.html#Poland

An order issued by Hitler stated that 'no German soldier could be brought to trial for any act committed against Polish or Russian citizens'.

Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, had said 'All Poles will disappear from the World'.

This is reiterated in more detail here.

http://www.citinet.net/ak/polska_26_f2.html

On August 22, 1939, a few days before the official start of World War II, Hitler authorized his commanders, with these infamous words, to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space [lebensraum] we need".

Heinrich Himmler echoed Hitler's decree: "All Poles will disappear from the world.... It is essential that the great German people should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles."

It may just be that it was more convenient in their minds to eventually kill all Poles, I'm just a Pole wondering if the above websites are accurate on this?

Thanks


Hello, I have found this in The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh ISBN 0333644875 -

The aims of Nazi policy towards Poland - which changed according to external contraints over time - were to destroy her social and intellectual elites and her intergrity as a nation; to effect large-scale ethnic cleansing, involving the deportation of Polesa and Jews , policies eventuating in the deplettion of the former and the mass murder of the latter; and, finally, to barbarise Polish cultural life , with a view to converting Poles into semi-educated helots labouring for Germany. ... (p441)

Burleigh goes on to say (p442): around 48000 intellectuals fell under the Nazi designation.

On page 416 he states that 3000 Poles a day died during the occupation. I cannot find an total amount of deaths of Polish non-jews but I believe it is in the millions. I do agree of course with most commentators such as Burleigh in that not only were Polish Jews decimated (with some of the largest death camps sited in the General Government/ Occupied Poland ) but the Nazi apparatus from SS , Einsatzgruppen and Gestapo were involved with murdering intellectuals , so-called undesirables and anyone else. Mr Burleigh is well-known historian (research professor) based at Cardiff University. He also specialises in the study of the Nazi's euthanasia programs. I will keep looking for the Polish Jew Holocaust figures and non-Jewish Polish deaths .. although I am sure they are near by - perhaps under another article? max rspct 02:33, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Globalization

The major point to the validity of history is the sway of political trends and their need to survive. Capitalistic globalites needed to demonize National Socialism, as the fundamental aspect of nationalism is the protection of race and cultures of the World. Hitler obviously put most response on protecting his own.

From what? global capitalism? Hitler was the best friend the huge German corporations like IGFarben ever had. Or would they have instituted a more German form of global capitalism than, say, Ford? Gzuckier 18:11, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If England and France never declared war over Germany reclaiming pre War World 1 land, then the future may have been in a very different light of understanding and outcome. As readers should know, a declaration of war on someone is a statement to fight to the end. How many declared wars have ended with an agreement to stop on good terms, I guess not many. There is usually a winner or a losser. Once war was declared on Germany, they had to fight it out for regional power. I couldn't see England revoking a war stance once made.

Regarding death tolls, it is a fact that many people died from disease. Example one million Russian soldiers supposedly died in German run camps. Many German soldiers also died in camps controlled by Americians/Allies. So it is easy to see conditions of the time. Many Jew survived the entire duration of German enternment camp and that includes now famous people.

Most movies of the time show camp worker groups in good health and most shots are showing them working without guards. The worse state of people I hvae seen in film was from the Warsaw Ghetto and the people that starved the last weeks of the war when no supplies were coming to camps and disease was at its height. The Ghetto shots could have been showing the worse case situations of a poor social system, in why dead were left in the streets, etc. Also the fairness of food handouts may have played hard on people that couldn't demand their share from others stronger to claim it. Alot of people look well fed and trading on the streets, whilst others are starving and begging.

Looks a little more systematic than folks who died in the last few weeksGzuckier 18:18, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well said, although you'll probably still be labelled a "Neo Nazi" for your well thought out and expressed words.

Resource page

Why exactly did the 'resources' section get moved to its own page, again? Squelches further reading when Wikipedia is going through a periodic slowdown. Gzuckier 15:51, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Karaites and the Holocaust

I am told that the Karaites, an early splinter from mainstream Judaism were not targetted by the Nazis, but were more or less left alone. Their number was a lot smaller (a few thousand), than mainstream Judaism.

Can anyone confirm this, or is it just hearsay? I have found nothing much on karaites in the Third Reich.

The story is much more complicated than that. The Nazis weren't sure what to do with them, and treatment varied, with many questions being asked. In general, though, they were left alone. Jayjg (talk) 22:03, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Significance?

I'll try to word this as gently as possible, but I'll probably end up offending some anyway:

What makes The Jewish Holocaust so much more important than all the other holocausts and genocides that have prededed and followed it? I'm sure there's a reason, I just can't think of one right now. I mean, it's not very hard to find references of it everywhere, while most others are almost completely ignored, at least by people outside the respective nationalities.

It's not the recentness of it (Rwanda), it's not the enormity of it (can't think of a larger one at the moment, but I'm sure there are), it's not the fact that the victims were Jewish (previous Jewish Holocausts); and yet, as proven in the Prince Harry incident, people are much more sensitive about this than anything else. If this would be either addressed in the article or explained, I'd very much appreciate it.

If I put a rhetorical question on the main article, people would be out for my blood. Come on, doesn't anyone have an answer?
Perhaps no-one noticed your questions because they were on the top of the page, not the bottom. Or perhaps they considered them troll-bait. Jayjg (talk) 23:33, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Well, anyone's free to reword it any way they want to make it sound nicer, but seriously, I tried pretty hard to keep it unoffensive. By the way, thanks for moving it. Anonymous
Well, I think I'm kind of a maverick on this from previous discussions, but for my money, the fact that it happened to Jews is less significant; people have been picking on Jews for a looooong time. What I find remarkable is that it came out of Germany, a place where not only were Jews assimilated to a great degree and felt safe, but overall one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of civilization, philosophy, culture, etc. etc. etc. (largely through the participation of Jews). It's difficult now, after the Holocaust has colored everything, to imagine what a surprise that must have been. Nowadays, not only is Germany still tainted, but the world's innocence is lost and we wouldn't be as surprised if the US, for instance (just as an example of a civilized tolerant country, no hidden political implications or insinuations) went nuts over a period of several years and started concentration camps. I mean, people would be pretty surprised, certainly, but it wouldn't be the first time it happened in the civilized world any more. Like I said before, nobody bats an eye when some African despotism or even some place like Turkey goes and massacres a million people, we sort of view the non-first world countries as being prone to that kind of thing and we have to go repair the damage periodically.
So that sort of leaves the significance of the Jews vis a vis the Holocaust as kind of the canary in the coal mine of sociological pathology, I guess. Gzuckier 05:48, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. It doesn't explain why people are so sensitive about it, but it explains nicely why it's important. I'll go out on a limb here and say the sensitivity is because of extended wartime propaganda directed towards the axis by the allies (so the whole world knew in gruesome detail), whereas Rwanda and the like got nowhere as much publicity, but needless to say I won't include any of this in the main article.
I'll try to answer succinctly: Why did it have enormous impact? Among the reasons: (1) It was an intentional, premeditated and institutionalized genocide on a scale not seen before. (2) It was perpetrated by people we were actively at war against. (3) It was done to relatives of people who live in this country and throughout Europe (4) There were newsreels that revealed the horror to a level never before seen. Why are we so sensitive about it? That one is easy, because there is a history of holocaust denial that is motivated, at least for many, by undeniable anti-Semitism; so extra vigilance is called for. Jliberty 03:35, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Why are we sensitive about it? People were herded into camps and murdered in vast numbers, solely on account of their race. Rwanda happened to black people; most people in Europe and North America are white. They looked like us, they lived in our cities, they were people just like us. Join the dots. Dr Zen 09:04, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think people make a big deal about it because Jews can pass for Whites. I suspect Gzuckier's explanation above, is partially correct (although I think the real shock to Europeans' faith in "civilization" was World War I). Another reason may be the temporal proximity between the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. Israel commemorates the Holocaust each year and it is possible that if Israel did not exist, commemorations of the Holocause wouldn't have become common in Jewish communities world wide. That said, my own sense from the scholarship is this: it is of special importance to Jews because unlike other slaughters, Hitler really seemed to want the extermination of all Jews (this I think is the view taken by Fackenheim). And I think that it is of special importance more generally because it represents the first time Fordist methods were applied to murder, so it epitomizes something about modernity.
But this is only may vague sense. Ultimately, it is irrelevant, just as Dr. Zen's "join the dots" argument is irrelevant. There is a host of literature out there on the Holocaust and its more universal meaning. It is not for us to speculate as to why it is so special; it is for us to actually research that literature and report the various ways people (Jewish leaders, historians, etc.) have explained why it is special. The last time I immersed myself in the academic and critical literature from Holocause studies was a little over twenty years ago. I know that there has been an explosion in the field of Holocaust studies, but I haven't followed it. Are there any editors out there who have? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:33, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why the page is protected from editing

I, and an internet buddy of mine, edited it to where it said "It never happened".

I'm sorry I spoiled whatever revisions that were going to take place, but you have to admit, it did cause some chuckles. Anyways, I just wanted to say I'm sorry and it won't happen again.

No joke. Your better off writing articles on Arctic circle weather stations or such like. max rspct 22:21, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here's an book extract for the un-hinged or insidious to contemplate - (BACKGROUND- the war is drawing to a close and the mass killings are accelerated)

"Every evening fifty trucks brought the victims, 4000 at a time, to the crematoriums. A horrible sight, this caravan of trucks, their headlights stabbing the darkness, each bearing a human cargo of eighty women who either filled the air with their screams or sat mute, paralyzed with fear . In slow succession the trucks rolled up and dumped the women, who had already been stripped of their clothes, at the top of the stairway leading down into the gas chamber . From there they were quickly pushed below."

Dr Miklos Nyiszli - Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eye-witness Account ISBN 559702028

Oh please, let's just use cold reasoning instead of emotional stories to settle arguments and showcase points. I hate to say it, but otherwise it's almost like the "wave pictures of dead fetuses in your face" approach used by pro-life groups. Sorry if I sound like an insensitive prick, by the way, but I hate it when people try to make their argument "sacred" and label any opposing points as "blasphemy", so to speak. User:Some Guy Who Wasn't Previously Part of the Argument
You're right it won't happen again, because if it does, you'll be banned. Jayjg (talk) 01:03, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)


=

OK, OK. It was just a stupid experiment. I had no idea it would cause this much commotion. Having said that, I understand the offensive nature of what I did. I'm sure that you all can find it in your hearts to forgive me. I really do want to contribute, and, yes, I did submit Nord, Greenland. As a history major, I fully understand the magnitude of the Holocaust.

"Every evening fifty trucks brought the victims, 4000 at a time, to the crematoriums. A horrible sight, this caravan of trucks, their headlights stabbing the darkness, each bearing a human cargo of eighty women who either filled the air with their screams or sat mute, paralyzed with fear . In slow succession the trucks rolled up and dumped the women, who had already been stripped of their clothes, at the top of the stairway leading down into the gas chamber . From there they were quickly pushed below."

I would just like to point out the stupidity of this quote. Assuming that the so called "eye witness" is talking about Auschwitz, in which there were four crematoria, the number of 4000 people per day is extremely exaggerated. This is because 4000 people, would lead to a cremation rate of 0,694 per minute per crematorium. The real figure of the cremation rate would of course have been different, as the crematoria were not operated "around the clock", and were sometimes under repair. As such, I can say that person must have either been lying, or we are not talking of the same Holocaust. Therefore, this quote is just an emotional pile of crap, not proving anything at all.

Well, we also have, independently,
"Dr Ada Bimko, a Polish-Jewish physician, arrived at Auschwitz in August 1943 with 5,000 other Jews. According to her account, of these 4,500, including her close relatives, were sent straight to the crematoria."
"On 10 April 1945 Radio Luxembourg broadcast the account of an unnamed survivor of Auschwitz, who had subsequently been evacuated to Buchenwald. In the interview this witness stated that Auschwitz was an extermination camp which killed between 12,000 and 20,000 people a day. He described how the transports arrived, how the selection took place, and how those who were chosen to die were killed instantly and cremated."
"Stanislaw Jankowksi gave evidence to the Polish Central Commission in 1946. ...His evidence was that the killing reached its zenith with the Hungarian Jews in about July 1944 when, he claimed, 18,000 were being killed per day. Jankowski reckoned that Crematoria 2 and 3 had a daily incineration capacity of 2,500 corpses while Crematoria 4 and 5 could incinerate 1,500."
"Dr Charles Bendel, a Rumanian Jewish physician who had been living in Paris before he was deported to Auschwitz, gave evidence that he had been detailed to work as a sonderkommando and in that capacity observed the gas chambers and crematoria in action. He testified that on occasion the Nazis would burn corpses in pits because the ovens could not cope with the number of people who had been killed."
and
"a letter dated 28 June 1943 from Bischoff, Chief of Central Construction Managemnent at the camp, to SS Brigadefuhrer Kammler setting figures for the incineration capacity of the five crematoria, according to which their total capacity is 4756 people in every 24 hours. ... The apparent urgency of the installation of the ovens, together with their huge capacity which, according to van Pelt, was far in excess of what could possibly have been required to cope with future typhus epidemics, reflects the policy adopted following Himmler’s visit to the camp in July 1942... this capacity was at that time deemed to be necessary to burn the bodies of the Jews who were to be brought to Auschwitz to be gassed."
(from the judge's decision in Irving vs. Lipstadt). I guess these are all examples of stupidity, as well, particularly the letter from the contractor setting the capacity of the ovens. Whereas your superior intellect allows you to come to the correct conclusion, based on completely hypothetical considerations. You are to be congratulated. Gzuckier 17:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
no, as i said just before the excerpt - the mass killings were accelerated as the war was drawing to a close. Understand? It was written by the camp doctor - max rspct 21:51, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to add a legitimate Holocaust Controversy Page

Holocaust Controversy. I don't know why it's being deleted as vandalism. I posted a page to talk about the politics of the history of the Holocaust and put some links up. I did not post links to Holocaust denial, which I, as most, regard as an untenable position that is a form of anti-Semitism, and there is already an article for it. However, it is obvious from the article and the discussion and the disambiguation page that there is a lot to talk about regarding the histories of the Holocaust excluding denial.

There is legitimate debate about numbers of non-Jews who died during the Holocaust. There is also legitimate debate about the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Many evil genocides have occcurred. Nazis certainly talked about Jews rhetorically as inferior or some kind of disease, etc etc, but this is not a serious belief people can take on. A more likely explanation is to examine the nationalistic reasons for creating a scapegoat and looking at reasons for historical anti-Semitism. If this is true, then there is much more similarity between the motivations for Nazis to mass murder Poles and Russians as they did Jews.

The very fact that the wiki discussion is so controversial and the disambiguation page is so controversial seems to make it obvious to me that there should be a Holocaust Controversy page.

Why don't you work on that article, and get consensus for introducing changes to this article on the Talk: page. As for the Nazis, I don't know why you think they didn't believe their rhetoric, or think that it is "not a serious belief people can take on". Also, please review the Wikipedia:No original research policy before proceeding. Jayjg (talk) 04:51, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The author of that article seems to be pointing towards unresolved controversies. Not everything should be presented from one point of view since there may be no consensus among historians. Also, newer historical views that are up and coming may be deemed more accurate, but past historical views may still dominate. In the sense that these new views are revisions of the old, they should be talked about from multiple perspectives and some clarity should be given to what is the old and what is the new.

Could the anon IP provide a citation from a credible publication for the claim that the non-Jewish Poles were actively singled out? Many thanks, SlimVirgin 05:15, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but there was an early effort to target Poles. It was abandoned due to military exigencies, however, many millions of Poles were killed as a result. See, for instance, Richard C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust subtitled the Poles under German Occupation, 1939-1944 or something like that. The book is not challenged in contemporary scholarship, as far as I know. Danny 05:18, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My understanding was that the endeavour was to kill the Polish elites - educated middle and upper class people, and especially the clergy. john k 05:26, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
There were efforts to kill Poles in areas slated for German colonization as well. Danny 05:27, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The issue is whether non-Jewish Poles can correctly be added as one of the "groups that were actively singled out in Nazi ideology as being 'unfit for life' and were part of the Nazi's planned and systematic genocide." If someone wants to add that, they're going to have to provide a citation to a credible source who actually makes that claim. SlimVirgin 05:37, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Lukas does make that claim. See here [8] SlimVirgin 05:52, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
Does he? I think you mis-linked that, but I read the editorial reviews and I'm not sure that he does. To suggest that the Nazis considred Christian Poles as destined for a (perhaps especial, as Lukas seems to claim) genocide of pacification –intended to establish an Eastern slave labour population (there and elsewhere)– is very different from extermination, wiping Poles off of the face of the earth ala the Jews, the homosexuals, etc. It wasn't, then (to respond to the Anon), limited to rhetoric, but rather, (indeed) how rhetoric was put into practice. Fact is, though, that we don't see the Nazis seeking out any and all Polish nationals outside of Poland in other annexed, occupied, ally, and neutral countries. El_C
I agree. I thought I had linked to page three but it doesn't work with Amazon. Lukas refers to Hitler's speech of August 22, 1939, where Lukas said he "authorized killing", in Hitler's words, "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need." In the next sentence, Lukas says the German army and SS engaged in what Polish historians have described as a "merciless and systematic campaign of biological desctruction." At the end of page three, he writes: "The Nazi theory of colonial empire in Poland was based on the denial of humanity to Poles whom, next to the Jews, Hitler hated the most." There are footnotes throughout but they're not online. But the last point you made still stands, regardless. SlimVirgin 07:05, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. El_C 07:14, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Holocaust historian, Michael Marrus (The Holocaust in history) writes that:

Unlike the case with any other group, and unlike the massacres before or since, every single one of the millions of targeted Jews was to be murdered. Eradication was to be total. In principle, no Jew was to escape. In this important respect, the Nazis' assault upon Jewry differed from the campaign against other people's and groups——Gypsies, Jehova's Witnesses, homosexuals, Poles, Ukrainian, and so on. Assaults on those people could indeed be murderous; their victims number in the millions, and their ashes mingle with those of the Jews in Auschwitz and many other camps across Europe. But, Nazi ideology did not requiere their total dissaperence. In this respect, the fate of the Jews was unique. (p. 24, italics in the original)
El_C 07:44, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't feel happy about changing the thrust of the article as it now stands. SlimVirgin 07:47, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
Neither would I, on that front, I agree. But vast improvements are still warranted, I think. Perhaps, though, nothing short of a rewrite can meaningfuly accomplish this... El_C 08:00, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Someone has done a rewrite and a very good one, but hasn't put it up for some reason, and I don't know whether s/he intends to or not. SlimVirgin 08:34, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
S/he, how enigmatic of you, Slim (and how engimatic of me, too!). ;) Yes, I found part 2 of it via google, and though I only glanced at it, I agree. I'm sure the author is just puting the finishing touches on it, and not as you are otherwise implying. El_C 10:21, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Ha, didn't realize it was on the Web; part one is too, I've just found out. Perhaps we should just take it. ;-) SlimVirgin 10:31, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
Heh, legally, we can. As I said, I'm sure sh/e is just putting the finishing touches on it. :p El_C 10:36, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
He is not working on it, and has no plans to. In what I can frankly only describe as a fit of pique he decided to cease all work on topics not relating to Australia. Jayjg (talk) 15:29, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Now that the editors who triggered that withdrawal have been effectively banned, I wonder whether he could be persuaded to allow the rewrite to be used. SlimVirgin 23:43, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
I don't think the issue was over specific editors. Jayjg (talk) 00:30, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I see the Jewish Holocaust experience as unique. At the same time, the Poles according to these citations of Nazi rhetoric and ideology, were targeted for extermination as well. Was it done with the same thoroughness and efficiency? No. Might they have if they had more resources? Probably. Did 6 million Poles die, half-Jewish and half-non-Jewish, about 1/5 of their then population? Yes. Then on those grounds there are only two choices: 1) either completely exclude non-Jews from the Holocaust, which from the rest of the article, few would be willing to do or 2) include Poles along with Roma, gay men, people with disabilities, and Jehovah's witnesses. I'm going to go ahead and revert to Poles under the targeted list. There are plenty of citations here. If you don't think it is worth including them there, then please also rethink Roma, gays, disabled, and Jehovah's witnesses. Because the Jewish experience is distinct from them as well. 160.39.194.93

This is fallacious. Please review False dilemma. --Viriditas | Talk 12:21, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Haha, Viriditas, you cannot call fallacy without explaining why it is that particular fallacy. It is you whose logic is questionable. Recapping: 1) Evidence from authorities quote Hitler as stating that the complete destruction of Poles is necessary for Germans to have space to live. Other authorities are cited to support the assertion that Poles as a people were targeted for genocide. 2) People state discomfort and a different authority is cited claiming uniqueness to the Jewish experience but unique apart from Roma, gays, disabled, and Jehovah's witnesses. But no authority is cited disputing 1). 3) Given claims 1) and 2), then, according to the authorities provided here, we can either set Jews apart from everyone else that suffered under the Holocaust or we can include Poles as targeted since there is evidence that they were at least at first, but were later delayed in their destruction due to military exigency. In any case, 3 million non-Jewish Poles are killed. What evidence do you provide for their non-targetedness disputing the evidence that has already been provided? An argument can be made that Jews were most targeted given the evidence, but then they are unique apart from Roma, gays, etc. as well. Ball's in your court.

By the way this whole discussion is under the wrong topic.

Shooting

To the anon editor, I'm not sure what this means: "Initially they tried shooting them, putting them one after another (like Soviets did), so several people could be killed with one bullet, but they found it to be too slow and too expensive." I would copy edit this, but I can't see what you're getting at by "putting them one after another . . ." SlimVirgin 04:36, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

I think the editor is referring to putting one person in front of another, single file, a few people deep. I recall this being done in a specific mass execution by the Nazis, but can't recall the name. Some people survived to tell about it after their bodies were dumped in a mass grave and left for dead. --Viriditas | Talk 05:11, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What a terrible header I put on this section . . . I hope you don't mind, but I've had to change it. Viriditas, what would be a better way of saying "putting them one after another"? How about: "Initially they tried shooting them by having them stand one behind the other, so that several people could be killed with one bullet . . ." First, is that the right way of putting it; second, why would it be too expensive? SlimVirgin 05:47, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
It sounds fine. I believe the term is called a "paired column", but I could be wrong. I'm assuming that it would be "cheaper" to save bullets, using one bullet to kill two. This technique was allegedly used by the Iraqis during Saddam Hussein's regime when they murdered ~15,000 people and buried them in the mass graves at al-Hillah. --Viriditas | Talk 06:54, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I got rid of it being too expensive, because I can't see what's meant. I understand it would be cheaper to use one bullet for several people, but the sentence as it stood said it was too slow and too expensive to use one bullet; by which I suppose the editor meant too expensive because they had to use more bullets in the end anyway, but it's not clear, and as I don't know what was meant, I deleted it. SlimVirgin 07:10, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

"The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million, so much so that the phrase 'six million' is now almost universally interpreted as referring to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, though estimates by historians of the exact number range from five million to over six and a half million."

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