Holocaust: victim numbers could be up to 20 million.

[Tez3]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ice-as-big-as-previously-thought-8518407.html

"The network of camps and ghettos set up by the Nazis to conduct the Holocaust and persecute millions of victims across Europe was far larger and systematic than previously believed, according to new academic research.
Researchers conducting the bleak work of chronicling all the forced labour sites, ghettos and detention facilities run by Hitler’s regime alongside such centres of industrialised murder as Auschwitz have now catalogued more than 42,500 institutions used for persecution and death.
The figure has shocked academics and more than doubles an earlier finding by the same team that up to 20,000 sites were used. It casts a disturbing new light on the sheer scale of the machinery of imprisonment and oppression put in place by the Nazis throughout Europe, from Italy to Russia."

 

[oftheherd1]

I always thought 6 million was a staggering number.

15 to 20 million is beyond comprehension.

 

[CanuckMA]

It's always been more than 6 million. 6 million were just the Jews.

 

[celtic_crippler]

Stalin is responsible for approximately 20 million deaths... perhaps more by some estimates...

Mao Ze-Dong, some estimate as many as 78 million...

Pol Pot estimates are around 2 million...

All horrible and terrible acts. Other than that, they also share other things in common in the events that led up to allowing them to commit such attrocities.

 

[CanuckMA]

No arguments. The Shoah does not stand because of the numbers. It stands because it is the only one that had the stated goal of completely exterminating a people. With an infrastructure built for that purpose on a multi-national scale. We must still make sure we don't forget those other genocides.

 

[granfire]

I always thought 6 million was a staggering number.

15 to 20 million is beyond comprehension.

well, that was 6 out of an estimated 10 million Jews living in Europe. Yes, quiet staggering.

Then we add socialists, communists, unionists, protestants, homosexuals, handicapped, sinties and romas, or outright out spoken people to the mix....
Also Russians, Poles, and the various people from further south,

then we have in the last days of the war death squads roaming the streets, executing anybody who cannot muster the strength to believe in the Endsieg anymore....it's only 14 million more, that's done quiet easily.

Also, I am sure POWs can count in the number....The Russian chaps had it rather rough, and the story of the grand escape cost about 200 fellows their lives, much against anything the Geneva convention stood for....

It is said hat the Reich killed a good 20 million Russians alone....although, Stalin has been known to cull a few of his own people, giving his German counter the 'credit' for it. So Stalin's total could possibly be much higher!

 

[celtic_crippler]

From the Center on Law & Globalization:
http://clg.portalxm.com/library/keytext.cfm?keytext_id=187

The link provides the perspective of Historian Mark Levene. He compares the features of the three events most widely described as genocides: the Holocaust (or Shoah), the Armenian genocide and the Rwandan genocide.

Levene finds eight features shared by the three genocides.

1. In each case we see a government or regime in control of the state that is committed to eliminating one or more groups for political purposes. In each case, the regime had the resources and logistical capacity to carry out direct physical extermination.
2. There was no real threat of outside interference in these cases,
3. The government or regime believed it was in extreme danger and that crisis was looming,
4. The killing was extended over time and did not happen in one or a few episodes of mass murder,
5. Victims were killed regardless of gender or age,
6. The killing was spearheaded by the military and para-military organized by the state. Other elements of the dominant population participated.
7. The victim groups were in no position to protect themselves or fight back. They had no way to halt or impede the killing.
8. The government or regime had a palpable sense that the targeted group was a present and future threat to the state or dominant society regardless of whether the victim group was a cohesive or even coherent unity.

The two other instances of mass killing make clear one more common feature:

1. The targeted group was identified based on the perpetrator's perception of reality, not on any sort of essential feature of the targeted group.

I think the most poignant point made is this: genocide can only occur when the targeted group cannot defend itself.

 

[CanuckMA]

I think the most poignant point made is this: genocide can only occur when the targeted group cannot defend itself.

I am so sick and tired of hearing this. I suggest that while they're still around, you go spend some time with Survivors and listen to their stories. It had a lot less to do with the ability to defend yourself and a lot more with disbelief.

 

[granfire]

I am so sick and tired of hearing this. I suggest that while they're still around, you go spend some time with Survivors and listen to their stories. It had a lot less to do with the ability to defend yourself and a lot more with disbelief.

well, yes and no.

There was that disbelieve for sure, after all, what politician keeps his word.

but by then, when it all became clear, there was that element of helplessness.
I mean, it is quiet shocking to be retroactively stripped of all rights and benefits.

 

[arnisador]

Unbelievable.

 

[CanuckMA]

well, yes and no.

There was that disbelieve for sure, after all, what politician keeps his word.

but by then, when it all became clear, there was that element of helplessness.
I mean, it is quiet shocking to be retroactively stripped of all rights and benefits.

It was not about politicians keeping their words. It was about disbelief that their friends and neighbours would do that. Disbelief because they were well intergrated, well respected members of the community in the countries they lived in. Thos who did fight back were mowed down.

We could have done exactly the same with our Japanese citizens. They would not have imagined they were being led to slaughter either.

 

[celtic_crippler]

I am so sick and tired of hearing this. I suggest that while they're still around, you go spend some time with Survivors and listen to their stories. It had a lot less to do with the ability to defend yourself and a lot more with disbelief.

You assume much. As usual, that is the flaw in many of your "points".

It was not about politicians keeping their words. It was about disbelief that their friends and neighbours would do that. Disbelief because they were well intergrated, well respected members of the community in the countries they lived in. Thos who did fight back were mowed down.

We could have done exactly the same with our Japanese citizens. They would not have imagined they were being led to slaughter either.

Ignorance is a primary tool used by tyrants, agreed. But in every instance history shows that disarmament contributed to the slaughter. You can deny it all you like, but facts don't change because you don't like them. That is the fallacy of the idealist.

 

[Big Don]

Thos who did fight back were mowed down.

It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!
Emiliano Zapata.

 

[CanuckMA]

It's not about being an idealist. It's having lived with people who lived it. That glib line about if the Jews had weapons, those 6 million would not have died is quite frankly insulting to their memory.

 

[Big Don]

It's not about being an idealist. It's having lived with people who lived it. That glib line about if the Jews had weapons, those 6 million would not have died is quite frankly insulting to their memory.

I think I'd rather be mowed down than starved to death while tortured or tortured to death while being starved.

 

[arnisador]

I think I'd rather be mowed down than starved to death while tortured or tortured to death while being starved.

A lot of people who were there made a different decision and a number of them are still alive today.

 

[Makalakumu]

A lot of people who were there made a different decision and a number of them are still alive today.

Those are bad odds, but they may be better than holing for a last stand and going out Waco style. Still, I think it's obvious that when you get to either of those points, it's too late.

How about we work for a society based off of reason and peace, then we don't have to worry about these things.

I wonder how many people who live in countries that committed genocide supported every step of it's growth? How many cast votes that fed the beast that eventually broke the cage and ate them? How many people went to mass graves cursing their political delusions?

Government is a gang of people who have the right to initiate force within a given geographic area. If people think they can control this, they are deluded. No amount of reason will ever control it, because the initiation of force means that reason has ended. This is why liberty is the only real preventative medicine against genocide. Liberty is reason and peace. Liberty is tolerance.

Liberty is destroyed by the initiation of force. It is destroyed by government.

 

[Tez3]

I put up a thread about research showing that more died in the Holocaust than previous thought and people turn in into a political rant about guns, frankly it's disgusting.

People with an inadequate knowledge of history really shouldn't spout their mouths off, spewing forth words that are all wind and piss. All this faux machismo about going down shooting, don't make me laugh. None of you have any idea what it was like to live either in Nazi Germany or in one of the Occupied countries. When a unit of storm troopers turns up on your doorstep do you actually think you and your puny little weapons are going to stop or that they will let you shoot, really? When you neighbours are cheering said soldiers on, don't you think they would have told the troops already where your weapons were , yeah those neighbours you grew up with went to school with, fottie matches, you best mates at work? don't you think that when they turned you in as being Jews they'd know everything about you and the soldiers would be prepared for any arms you might have? think of police swat raids in your own country and now see the same thing rounding up Jews. did you just think the local cop went round the Jewish houses and politely asked them to give themselves up?
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/chap_12.asp

Jewish resistance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_resistance_under_Nazi_rule
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005213
http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/humenne/Resistance.htm

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/resource_center/item.asp?gate=1-7

You have fine sounding words people but you have absolutely no idea what the hell you are talking about, it sounds grand sat at the computer but really it just shows a tremendous amount of ignorance of the history of the Nazis. Your persistent right wing rhetoric about something you know so little about means you always sound as if you blame the Jews rather than the Nazis. Nazi Germany was nothing like the world you know, not even in most violent parts of America would you find a place like Nazi Germany. You have no idea at all of what it was like living in Europe pre war, during the war or even afterwards. All you can see is your own selfish political viewpoint and overbearing need to be right in all the senses of the word.

Where was America and your freedom lovers when the Jews reached out and asked for help in the 1930s?

Look to your own history before criticising others, look to your own efforts at genocide of native Americans before you criticise Jews for what you assume happened.

 

[Tez3]

“The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.” ― Terry Pratchett

 

[celtic_crippler]

It's not about being an idealist. It's having lived with people who lived it. That glib line about if the Jews had weapons, those 6 million would not have died is quite frankly insulting to their memory.

Let's just ignore the truth because you find it offensive. That's logical.

I never said that many Jews wouldn’t have died. For all I know they could all have been horrible shots. But we’ll never know what the outcome may have been because they were not afforded the opportunity due to the fact that they were disarmed. A fact you can not dispute.

More facts you can not dispute:



Government Dates Estimated Dead Gun Control
Ottoman Turkey 1915-1917 1-1.5 million 1886
Soviet Union 1929-1953 +20 million 1929
Nazi Germany 1933-1945 +13 million 1928
China 1949-1976 +20 million 1935
Guatemala 1960-1981 100,000 1871
Uganda 1971-1979 300,000 1955
Cambodia 1975-1979 +1 million 1956

Coincidence?

If you would like to see a complete translation of German Law specifically banning Jews from owning weapons I would suggest “Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny” by J.E. Simkin & A. Zelman.

Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it… at least that’s what I hear. I don’t suppose you’d dispute that philosophy; or perhaps you would?