The Ownership Of Holocaust Day

Articles

The Ownership Of Holocaust Day

By Eric George
Jan. 17, 2005

Thinking about this year's Holocaust Day, I was wondering as always - how could it have happened? How could Hilter's racist craziness have got so far out of hand that a civilised nation lent it name to a policy of exterminating anyone it felt like? It is still hard to imagine the mindset that allowed regular reporting from the Russian front of how many people had been exterminated every day.

Black thoughts, and I fell to wondering about exactly who and how many had perished. So - tell me what is wrong with this statement - "Yom HaShoah - This day, which was established to remember the Holocaust and the six million Jews who perished, is the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising."

Holocaust day is frequently thought as a day to remember the Jews who died. But look at these figures: Soldiers killed in WWII - 17,000,000

Civilians killed in the WWII - 38,000,000

Of these civilians approximately 11,000,000 of all nationalities and creeds were killed in the death camps or by extermination squads i.e. deliberately killed, not 'colateral damage'.

Number of Polish people killed - 6,000,000 and around half of these were Jewish

Number of Ukrainians killed - 4,000,000 including around 900,000 Jews

Of the 11,000,000 million people exterminated, about 55% were Jewish.

It is really difficult to get your head around statistics like these and realise that each unit represents a human tragedy. Saying anything in the face of it seems impossible.

So on a day when we remember the 6,000,000 Jews and their culture extinguished from Central Europe, spare a thought for the other 5,000,000 souls who should also have their place on Holocaust Day and on Holocaust memorials.

(Figures taken from http://www.jerseyheritagetrust.org/holocaust/exhibition.html)

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About the author: Eric lives in tropical Queensland and writes books - some naughty, some nice - that can be found through Renaissance eBooks (renebooks.com) He reads widely and when he is not thinking about lunch, worries about the state of the world.

Email: ericge@westnet.com.au

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