Why aren't other victims of the Holocaust as discussed as Jewish victims?
- Thread starter Nightingale
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- holocaust not just jews
Wimble Toot
Banned
I wonder why the 2 or 3 million Soviet prisoners of war starved to death rarely get a mention.
As far as I am concerned, the majority killed in the Vernichtungslagers, and destruction through labour camps, were Germans and Poles - their assigned religious or ethnic identity (as decided by the SS-Totenkopfverband) isn't that important.
The extermination of a Jewish watchmaker, or a Dutch schoolgirl, is no more or less important than that of Catholic priest or a Ukrainian Red Army Commissar.
As far as I am concerned, the majority killed in the Vernichtungslagers, and destruction through labour camps, were Germans and Poles - their assigned religious or ethnic identity (as decided by the SS-Totenkopfverband) isn't that important.
The extermination of a Jewish watchmaker, or a Dutch schoolgirl, is no more or less important than that of Catholic priest or a Ukrainian Red Army Commissar.
My guess, prisoners of war getting killed are often considered an extension of the war, while the Holocaust is more focused on the civilian deaths and systemic extermination.
Also only the Western Allies really treated most PoWs well. The Soviets and Japanese also treated PoWs pretty brutally. Granted Nazi Germany did tend to treat "western" soldiers better due to the Nazi's messed up racial theories and because Hitler wanted decent relations with Britain and the US (despite the fact it wasn't going to happen).
For me, the kind of meme that circulates that the Soviets were more brutal toward German POWs than the reverse (based mainly on the misleading conflation of the high casualties of the German 6th army following Stalingrad with the Germany army as a whole) is a fairly disturbing trend.
It links into the relative ignorance of the sufferings of Soviet civilians during the war as well. While as I understand it the killings of Soviet civilians by German forces are not included in the definition of the Holocaust, the amount of Soviet civilians who were killed during the war exceeded that of the Jews in most counts, though of course the Soviet population was much larger than Europe's Jewish population and weren't quite targeted in the same way.
The waters are further muddied by the Soviet's lack of regard for the humanity of theirs own population and the sheer numbers killed or allowed to die for the 'Greater Good' of the Soviet experiment. I personally am very disturbed by the claiming of the Holocaust as their own by the Israeli Nation. Most Young Israeli's I have met when visiting family in Israel are completely indifferent or at best unaware of the breadth of the Holocaust. Having Visited various Holocaust sites (including, Museums, memorials and camps) in a number of countries I will say that the local guardians of those locations appear to be doing their very best to preserve the full ethnic spectrum of the atrocities committed.
Anti-semitism HAD - thx to not only the Nazis - already prewar a very prominent press. At least much more prominent, than anit-slavism, "anti-gypsysm". "Racial" theories regarding inferiority or superiority of the "White", the "Yellow", the "Black" were seen as an absulotly viable, scintific discussion ... everywhere.
And post-war :
again the jews had the best and most prominent ... "press", though the planned genocid on the slavs was in its scope almost bigger, than what actually happened to the jews.
One of the issues is how many people seem to classify the Holocaust (this includes Wikipedia) as only being people with Jewish grandparents (I don't say Jews, as the Nazi classifications doesn't make something true.), which means there would be an obvious focus on people classified as Jews. I usually consider the eleven million or more people who were deliberately by the Nazis as being part of the Holocaust. I think the current classification might be in part out of respect for Jews (again, looking Wikipedia which refers to the Holocaust as also being known as the Shoah, despite that being exclusively referring to Jewish deaths) though I would say that people might see the mass starvations of Eastern Europeans as being something everyone in the world was doing and best not to dwell on, or that it was an accident that no one could be blamed for. I suppose we need to look to the historiography of things and how each country viewed the Holocaust as time went on. Actually, maybe we look to Austria. They denied being Nazis but their government early on was rather snooty about it, accusing Jews of trying to take advantage of Austria by asking for their property back. Plus they had a leader who was partially Jewish (according to another man, that leader was the ONLY one in Austria who didn't see him as a Jew) who had many former collaborators or Nazis in his cabinet. People say it might have been because he faced persecution early on but thought of it as being for political reasons, more than racial ones, and he seemed to have been somewhat anti-Semitic himself. I guess it kind of points to who you shouldn't classify people in one group without their say.
Still, Jews get one of the greatest focuses because they were a large group and the Nazis were deliberately goign out of their way to exterminate virtually every one o them in Europe. Including their allies and neutral countries, which they wrote up plans for. One of the issues may be how so many Jewish people were seen as pro-German in other countries.
Still, Jews get one of the greatest focuses because they were a large group and the Nazis were deliberately goign out of their way to exterminate virtually every one o them in Europe. Including their allies and neutral countries, which they wrote up plans for. One of the issues may be how so many Jewish people were seen as pro-German in other countries.
Weren’t the grand majority of those identified as “Jews” by the Nazis really Jews, religiously or ethnically? Opposite cases - people who didn’t see themselves as Jewish in any way being still classified as such - are usually discussed as single cases/curiosities, rather than as something that was happening en masse (especially when you consider Jewish masses of eastern Poland and the USSR).
And yeah, there was no mass persecution of Hungarians as Hungarians by the Nazis. This belongs to the same realm as listing Poles and Slavs as separate categories (in fact, this should be another question - why are they so often listed as separate in these discussions?)
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The Germans didn't HAVE Magyars within their borders, outside of perhaps Oldenburg. They would be expected to give Germans special privileges of course, as they had loads within their borders. They would likely be at the level of Slovaks and Romanians. No great fondness for them, but as long as they do what is told they stay around, squabbling with each other while trying to kiss the German jackboot.
in the case of the POWs, one of the main issues may be that the Soviets made the survivor series disappear. And yes, the majority of those killed in those camps would be from the borders of Poland or Germany. Both which were rather big countries. However those deliberty exterminated were classified as Jews. When the war was ending, Jews were the ones taken on forced marches, as they were above all those the Nazis wanted to murder. They went out of their way to do it, creating concentration camps to counter the high alcoholism and suicide rate of those taking part in filling mass graves. Eastern Europeans in general were to be slaves, so anyone in any position of authority was to be killed, with future generations getting the level of education you might get for the better educated slaves in the Antebellum South, at most.
The Germans did occupy Hungary in 1944, when they decided that their ally government there is unreliable, but they didn’t have any extermination plans for the (non-Jewish) populace of the country.
Toraach
Banned
I'm sorry, but I don't understand. But how was it possible that majority killed in the extermination camps were Germans? Even when we are talked about political prisoners, and T4action it is far too less than victims from Poland or the SU. Germans weren't a target of extermination policy by their own goverment.
I think it is partialy a matter of a leverage in media and popculture. Example in the US a few heard about the holodomor, but in Canada where is a lot of ukrainians much more people heard about it.
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Max Sinister
Banned
I guess there were many atheistic Jews, baptized Jews and people who didn't even consider themselves Jews among them. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
Wait, Magyars in Oldenburg?
I don't believe that either. Since about three million Polish Jews lost their lives...
Toraach
Banned
And three million of Poles, mass killing had started even earlier than with the Jews. During and immediately after the september campaing the Germans started to exterminate leading classes of the polish society.
Intelligenzaktion, Operation Tannenberg, AB-Aktion.
Probably because 'Slav' is often used as another way of saying 'Soviet' or even 'Russian.'
I think it’s just a more politically correct way of saying ‘Soviet,’ since most Ukrainians and quite a few Belarussians would balk at being associated with Muscovy more directly.
Hundreds of thousands sounds just barely plausible, but millions of people who didn't consider themselves Jews at all being exterminated as Jews? Is there any evidence of that? Everything I've read on the matter suggests that the grand majority of "Jewish" victims did, in fact, consider themselves to be Jews, of whatever sort.
If you consider German and Polish Jews to be Germans and Poles, then yep, most victims are Germans and Poles. However, it's certainly a strange approach to take when analysing the Shoah.
It also doesn't help that in USA, the word "Jew" is usually placed in the same category as "Muslim" or "Christian", while in ex-USSR it usually belongs to the same category as "Ukrainian" or "Tatar". This sometimes leads to some confusion. The ethnic aspect seems to increase as you go east from Seattle to Moscow.
In Russian, there's even a separate word for a religious Jew/follower of Judaism - iudey. It's used much rare than the common word for Jew - yevrey.
Max Sinister
Banned
All three categories I mentioned put together - not just the latter.
And of course there's the definition: Does "Jew" mean "adhering to the religion", "having a Jewish mother", both, or something else?
Sorry, Burgeland. I keep referring to it as Oldenburg despite the city I make the mistake for (Odenberg/Sopron) being in Hungary.