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I suggest you add the critism branch cataining critism from all sides for example the number are jus estimated and can not just be true as it is to large -- 76.68.25.174 ( talk) 21:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
NO ONE FREAK OUT. All the arguments have been made a couple times already. Post suggested photos, or create a collage and put it in this section so we can reach some kind of consensus on a particular picture. There is a better lead picture than the current one ( hopefully with context that can be put in a caption ). I wasn't able to find one myself and didn't think changing the picture just for the sake of changing it was worth it. Here is what is generally agreed upon
Pirate Argh!!1! 17:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
And yet again, crickets. One of our most important and highly visible articles, and one tendentious editor - and I'm sorry, Bus stop, but that's what you've been - overrides a clear consensus and stifles a productive conversation with canvasing, florid accusations of 'whitewashing', and walls of text about the 'beauty' of his preferred (not to mention contextless and copyrighted) image. That'll teach me to try to help bring yet another 'somebody should change that' Wikipedia discussion to a close. -- Vary | ( Talk) 06:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
So, terrible to know this actually happened... :( -- ConfusedPerson ( talk) 05:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether the definition is consistent throughout the article. I've always been puzzled by the Nazis' "puppet states" and their role in the genocide. If you measure only the Jews killed by Nazi Germany, the figure is only 5 million: you need to include Croatia, Romania and the other allies of Germany to get it up to 6 million. In the introduction to the article, it mentions only Nazi Germany and not its allies in Europe, but other parts of the article are written to include all the Nazis' allies.
What I don't get is why you never hear the Croatian genocide of Serbs as part of the Holocaust. Say that there is a Jew and a Serb in a Croatian death camp in WWII: is the Jew part of the Holocaust and the Serb not? The Jews killed in Croatia are always included in the Holocaust figures. Seems odd. Epa101 ( talk) 22:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
There is only one Ivangorod in Ukraine and it is a village. This article in Ukrainian about Ukrainian Ivangorod: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%86%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4_(%D0%A5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%96%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD
While in the article "The Holocaust" Ivangorod is linked to the town Ivangorod in Russia on the border with Estonia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pamerast ( talk • contribs) 00:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
where was the mention of the holocaust at the same time in Russia? Does anybody know that russia is responsible for more deaths than the Nazi Holocaust. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doe4155 ( talk • contribs) 19:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
1st photo MOST Likely shows nazi concentration cmps victims after allied forces liberated them in 1945. Most of the wictims gathered (there) died from starvation - not by systemtic killing. Most of that wictims were non jewish prisoners - as jews were exterminated earlier.
2. There is one photo named Warsaw Uprasing. Warsaw Uprasing burst in 1944 while Warsaw ghetto uprising burst in 1943 - one year earlier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.163.38.12 ( talk) 16:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Wrong pictures:
1st photo MOST Likely shows nazi concentration cmps victims after allied forces liberated them in 1945. Most of the wictims gathered (there) died from starvation - not by systemtic killing. Most of that wictims were non jewish prisoners - as jews were exterminated earlier.
2. There is one photo named Warsaw Uprasing. Warsaw Uprasing burst in 1944 while Warsaw ghetto uprising burst in 1943 - one year earlier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.163.38.12 ( talk) 16:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Something wrong with this, the way it is worded: "The figure most commonly used is the six million cited by Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS official."
Actually Eichmann cited 5 million victims. According to the Eichmann article, the quote is: "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction." Eichmann countered the claim saying that he was referring only to "enemies of the Reich". Markeilz ( talk) 03:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Good footnote. Thanks for clearing that up. Markeilz ( talk) 22:45, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
The number of six millions can be readily drawn from the various more detailed estimations, as any number of average that falls between 5.5 and 6.5 millions could be rounded towards 6 millions. Is there any reliable source about how the number actually became prominent in public discourse? I feel a bit uncomfortable about attributing this to a Nazi, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility either. Cs32en 23:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Evidence shows that as many as 6 million people were killed during the holocaust. However, most scholars estimate that only 3 million were killed for being Jewish. The rest were gypsies, homosexuals, mentally or physically challenged (retarded) people, and people who opposed Hitler and the 3rd Reich. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.202.224 ( talk) 06:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I have changed the victims and death toll section to better match the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. It does support scholars being divided on whether non-Jews should be included. It doesn't support that Romani are next, then everyone else but Poles, and finally Poles, the way the existing wording in the article implies. Page 45 simply included them all as a long list. Other pages challenge each group, e.g., page 50 states it is difficult to include political and religious dissenters. Therefore I have changed it to be a list as page 45, in order of the numbers killed. Jniech ( talk) 12:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
In connection with the above section, I have a question. Is anybody interested to join the ongoing discussion in the
Mass killings under Communist regimes talk page? The question is if the term "Red Holocaust" (mass killing of civilians by Communists) is notable enough to be included into the article, or that would be a trivialisation of the Holocaust?
--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 16:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The North African Territories occupied by Germany (e.g.Tunesia) are not mentioned. Please refer to the article [3] I'm writing on behalf of its editor Professor Shaked [edith.shaked(at)gmail.com]. I will communicate the evolution of this talk to Professor Shaked who certainly will respond and probably take it from there.
Some of the issues are:
1 - the various definitions of "holocaust" are discussed. However, the definition retained "for the purpose of the present article" have not been spelled out, e.g "All Jews" vs. "European Jews", knowing the parts of North Africa were as French colonies part of France.
2 - "occupied territories" are mentioned and certainly the easiest term to define. But there is no map. The partial map and the text are understood by the reader as the European occupied territories. Territories outside of Europe should be shown, listed and associated to Jewish population numbers, beginning, ending.
3 - side issue: the presented numbers are confusing, especially for Germany. I remember rough figures of 600,000 in 1933 with 200,000 emigrated/fled 200,000 died of natural causes and 200,000 murdered. It is evident that the people squeezed between Germany and Russia had no chance. It was different for French which acutally had a "zône libre" connected to Spain. According to Prof. Shaked's article, "A total of 2,575 Tunisian Jews died" as opposed to Denmark's 52.
4 - the text may be amended at appropriate locations with mentions about events in North Africa, e.g. Tunesia.
Please let me have your appreciation of principle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hwd23b ( talk • contribs) 21:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC) Hwd23b ( talk) 21:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I suggest this article is moved to Shoah or the Jewish Holocaust.
The title "The Holocaust" is unscholarly, POV and violates the naming conventions ("avoid definite and indefinite articles"). The word Holocaust has been used to describe a number of historical events, and Holocaust should be a disambiguation page or an article on the term which links to the various historical events described as holocausts.
The first modern genocide described as "The Holocaust" was the Armenian Holocaust (the term "The Holocaust" being used for the first time in 1922 - see Richard G. Horannisian, Armenian Holocaust: A Bibliography Relating to the Deportations, Massacres and Dispersion of the Armenian People, 1915-1923). The word Holocaust is also used by scholars to describe the Cambodian Holocaust, the American Holocaust (see for instance David Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press, 1992) and increasingly the Red Holocaust (see for instance Steven Rosefielde, Red Holocaust, Routledge, 2009) and the African Holocaust.
Scholars like Norman Finkelstein rejects the notion that one particular Holocaust can be described as "The" Holocaust. Virgil Lasis ( talk) 14:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Right now, most of the articles about WWII exterminations of ethnic/religious/sexual/social groups have mostly information specific to their group. This article mainly focuses on the genocide against the Jews, but it also serves as sort of a "main" article about the genocides because of the varying definitions of "The Holocaust". Other than this article, there is really no main article about all the genocides as a whole. This is really more of a proposal for a new article rather than a proposal for a split since most of the information in this article is specific to the Jews. Immakingthisaccounttohidemyipaddress ( talk) 20:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I think a selection Article should be created, and it's odd that it's missing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.177.105.73 ( talk) 03:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't believe that "Debate over the uniqueness of the Holocaust" belongs in the front of the article but near the end, if at all. I think the article should have a section with respect to Holocaust denial even though there is a complete wiki article on such. I think the discussion of this "debate over uniqueness" in this article is inappropriate and irrelevant. Are we better off for knowing this? How many people are involved in this "acrimonious debate"? And if we are going to put in the views of a handful of 'acrimonious' Jews, why not put in the views of many more Holocaust deniers? The "acrimonious debate" could go into the Holocaust denial section when we have it. I have not made any changes to the article, looking here for discussion first. Stellarkid ( talk) 16:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Regarding the section, I have moved the section to before 'See also', although I too think this section should be incorporated in another opinion-related article. There are numerous other subjects, not less important, that are mentioned only in ' See also' section and not in the body of the article (for example, memorials, such as Yad Vashem. OK to leave out, but the same principle should apply for the "debates").
As for Holocaust denial as a possible merge article, I don't think the debate section fits in that article, becuase the section is not about denial, it's about comparison with other genocides and/or trying to diminish the uniqueness of The Holocaust. Comparison is not denial, even though some deniers will use a comparison in order to deny. In any case, as long as this section will remain in The Holocaust article, I sense that the title may be a little misleading and startle some people, since it gives the impression that the mainstream meadia and politics are constantly debating this. It startled me at the first minute I read it, and it took me quite a while to really understand what Dr. Shimon Samuels was trying to say. So to make the section title more subtle for first-time readers, I suggest the following change:
Debate over the uniqueness of the Holocaust --> Attempts to diminish the uniqueness of the Holocaust
Opinions are welcome. John Hyams ( talk) 21:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Since, according to the article itself, the term "Holocaust" is not standardly understood to include the murder of homosexuals but is reserved for crimes against Jews, I have removed the homophobia category. UserVOBO ( talk) 21:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I will be adding the Anti-communism and Anti-Masonry categories for the sake of consistency, since no one has objected. Removing the Homophobia category would have been better, and I hope that that will be agreed upon eventually, though I can see it isn't going to happen soon. UserVOBO ( talk) 02:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Agree with the point made by Paul Barlow which I will quote: "Homosexuals were not targets for extermination, as Jews were, and as both Roma and many Soviet prisoners came to be, if more erratically; some homosexuals died from the effects of imprisonment or brutal treatment, but so did ordinary criminals, and the fact is that homosexuals could be imprisioned at this time in many other countries, including the UK; so there was nothing very unusual about Nazi law in this regard." This is very factual. I have seen a documentary on this by PBS(?) -- most were released after serving some time. I think the treatment of Gays by the hands of Nazis could be explored in its own article and it is best not to overburden this one with it. It is already very big. Stellarkid ( talk) 05:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Ref 271 "medoffJIH;" is broken. I'm leaving this message here so that someone with more knowledge of the article can fix the problem. UserVOBO ( talk) 02:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
3.6.2 General Government and Lublin reservation (Nisko plan)
3.7 Concentration and labor camps (1933–1945)
3.8 Ghettos (1940–1945)
3.9 Death squads (1941–1943)
3.10 Pogroms (1939–1942)
3.11 New methods of mass murder
3.12 Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution (1942–1945)
3.13 Extermination camps
3.13.1 Gas chambers
"Six death or extermination camps were constructed in Poland. These so-called death factories were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec , Sobibór, Lublin (also called Majdanek ), and Chelmno . The primary purpose of these camps was the methodical killing of millions of innocent people. The first, Chelmno, began operating in late 1941. The others began their operations in 1942." [4] Stellarkid ( talk) 05:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
In the subarticle 3.2.3 'South and East Slavs' there is hear-say statement of a former Nazi official which is taken as true, or at least trying to imply something for a fact. I LIKE DINGLEBERRIES! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.191.76.66 ( talk) 23:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Quote: Hitler's high plenipotentiary in South East Europe, Hermann Neubacher, later wrote: "When leading Ustaše state that one million Orthodox Serbs (including babies, children, women and old men) were slaughtered, this in my opinion is a boasting exaggeration. End quote:
The objective data is at the end of the subsection.
Quote: The USHMM reports between 56,000 and 97,000 persons were killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp[73][74] However, Yad Vashem reports 600,000 deaths at Jasenovac.[75]This is not the truth. You can see on Yad Vashem website in the article about Jasenovac ( http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206358.pdf) that it is quote: many thousands were murdered, most of them Serbians" The person who wrote this section is a lyer End quote:
Instead of the quote from Neubacher I suggest putting a list of WW2 casualties in Yugoslavia of all nationalities not just one.
The following link contains one such list. It is an online version of the paper number 69 in the quote list. Table 5 of the paper has a column named 'victims in camps' which should indicate victims in concentration camps. http://www.hic.hr/books/manipulations/p06.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mljk ( talk • contribs) 23:52, 31 July 2008
I believe that this article gives undue weight to the view that the Holocaust includes non-Jewish victims of the Nazis. The established view, as the article indicates, is that the Holocaust was a crime committed specifically against Jews. The broader definition of the Holocaust is a minority view, and that needs to be indicated more clearly. Two major changes should be made: first, the reference to the minority view that the Holocaust includes crimes committed against non-Jews should be removed from the lead (though it should continue, obviously, to be mentioned in other parts of the article), and second, the overly-long discussion of Nazi crimes against non-Jews (Slavs, Romani, the disabled, homosexuals, the mentally ill, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and political activists) should be removed from the article altogether. It contains too much material for this article, and violates the due weight policy. Establishing a separate article for it may be desirable. UserVOBO ( talk) 04:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
The "Political activists" section is plainly about communists, and the Nazis' attitude to them; I have tried to rename it accordingly, here [5] and here [6]. I do not accept the arguments being given for reversion. It is not about "the left in the broadest sense." Though the "political activists" section does refer to non-communists (trade unionist, they are secondary to its actual subject. Throughout the section communists are mentioned first, socialists and others second, and only in the context of the Nazis' attitude to communism. "Political activists" is therefore a euphemism. I am not sure what motivates its use here, but it can only mislead readers. UserVOBO ( talk) 05:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, even if the section were about "the left in the broadest sense", that couldn't justify such a hopelessly vague and misleading title as "political activists", which could refer to anything. UserVOBO ( talk) 05:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
This section should be deleted. It serves only to weigh two sides of a discussion in which the evidence that the subject has no connection to the topic of the article appears overwhelming. On this basis, penis, the only explanation for retaining this section can be a politically-motivated attempt to connect the Holocaust to Palestinians. This kind of unfounded bias highlights the embarrassing ability of wikipedia articles to be influenced by pressure groups. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.150.181 ( talk) 00:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Please can the Zionist-aligned editors in this debate kindly identify themselves? Otherwise it can be done for you here and here. Other than these two, all editors who have spoken so far are in agreement. As a case in point, an alternative to removing the section is to balance it with a new section referencing scholars who have suggested that the memory of the Holocaust has been misused by Zionists - see Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry or Chomsky here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.187.201 ( talk) 00:09, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
This sentence is misleading and probably OR. None of the citations contain actual arguments about what the word "Holocaust" should mean. The citations only mention the killing of Jews, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their authors don't consider Nazi killings of other people to be part of the Holocaust. It's not that useful to provide a list of historians who hold a particular view anyway--it's not a vote. Prezbo ( talk) 02:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I find the list by Lucy Davidowicz stating that 90% of "prewar German Jews" were killed is slightly misleading…in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Jews#The_Holocaust_.281940.E2.80.931945.29 it is stated that "Of the 522,000 Jews living in Germany in January 1933, only 214,000 were left by the eve of World War II"…in other words a *majority* had fled Germany since the seizure of power by Hitler. So while it's true that almost all German Jews who were still in Germany when the war broke out became victims the majority of people who in 1933 could have been described as German Jews were still alive in 1945. (I'm not sure what the best way to rectify this would be but I think it is important as it contravenes the commonly-held notion that they [German Jews] should have "seen the writing on the wall" and gotten out when they could have—because in fact most did.) Historian932 ( talk) 17:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Can anyone with more historical knowledge than me explain to me why the vast majority of mentions of the Holocaust in the mass media say 6 million deaths and just about add 'Oh by the way a few others died too'(i.e. almost 2/3 of the largest estimate)?. Im disabled from birth and wouldn't have even made it to a camp if it wasn't for the bravery of my ancestors who helped put an end to the war. Sorry if this is the wrong type of forum for asking this but I've been called a Neo.. in other places for asking this and as a newbie around here it seems civil questions get civil answers which is all I really want because sometimes it feels that disabled peoples lives are about as important to the media as they were in the 40s. Thanks 2winjustonce ( talk) 11:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply Lebob-BE 2winjustonce ( talk) 14:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for that Epa101, I thought that might have been a reason, I read somewhere that the term 'concentration camp' was used long before the Nazis, by the British in South Africa and the US in Cuba so these uses of the term 'disappeared' from the records when the Nazis gave the term new meaning 2winjustonce ( talk) 21:49, 31 March 2010 (UTC) in 97.82.57.208 ( talk) 22:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC) I had to remove article cuase discussion was for improving the article not explaining about the content mrthinky may 19 2010 Mrthinky ( talk) 22:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I give the original authors tremendous credit for assembling a lot of information and crafting it into a smooth flow on a macro level. On a micro level, however, there are many run-on sentences, and their clauses do not form complete sentences. I have tried to smooth out the sentences in this section and reorder them to improve the flow, but the section is still unclear. How, for example, does the inability to conquer Great Britain affect deportation of Jews to British colonies? "Although the Final Solution was already in place" - should this read "Since the Final Solution was already in place" - i.e., mass murder was underway, so deportations were unnecessary. The whole section is still unclear and needs additional rewriting. Chlyn ( talk) 04:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC) --- I kept working at it. I think I made it better, but someone who knows the subject should check it over. Chlyn ( talk) 05:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
This claim is not supported by its source:
"In 1935, Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which: ... annulled existing marriages between Jews and Aryans (the Law for the protection of German blood and German honor)...."
When you look at the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, what it says in Article I is this:
Article 1. 1) Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden. Marriages nevertheless concluded are invalid, even if concluded abroad to circumvent this law. 2) Annulment proceedings can be initialed only by the State Prosecutor.
It says that "marriages" between Jews and Germans are forbidden. It is impossible however to forbid what has already been done. It does not say that pre-existing marriages of Germans and Jews are ipso facto annulled. It mentions the possibility of annulling marriages between Jews and Germans, but only by way of defining who has the power to do it.
It is false to declare that the law per se "annulled existing marriages between Jews and Aryans." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.65.184.175 ( talk) 21:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The etymology section contains the following claim:
"During World War II, the word was used to describe Nazi atrocities regardless of whether the victims were Jews or non-Jews."
This is an extraordinarily vague claim: there is no mention of who is supposed to have used the word holocaust that way, nor on what occasion. It is also an unsourced claim.
Since there is no source cite, how do we know that the word holocaust, which properly means complete destruction through burning, was not used more often in reference to the fire-bombing of cities? This seems entirely likely.
Until 1978, and probably into the 1980s, the word was frequently encountered in the expression "nuclear holocaust," which retains the connotation of destruction through burning.
To the best of my knowledge it was the NBC miniseries Holocaust in the late 1970s that popularized the use of the word as a generic synonym for massacre and, when capitalized, as a proper noun referring to systematic massacre of Jews, without any connotation of burning as the cause of death.
The Mediaeval example of a "holocaust" of the Jews of London is not a precedent for such a loose use of the word. That "holocaust" involved death by burning, according to the Wikipedia article on Richard I:
"When a rumour spread that Richard had ordered all Jews to be killed, the people of London began a massacre.[46] Many Jews were beaten to death, robbed, and burned alive."
It seems to me that a general precedent for the current use of holocaust to mean some kind of massacre other than burning, and its specific association with crime imputed to the Germans, is being projected anachronistically into World War II.
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
98.65.184.175 (
talk) 21:02, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The paragraph attributed to Hitler that includes comments about hanging Jews from gallows is sourced as follows:
"Hell, Josef. "Aufzeichnung", 1922, ZS 640, p. 5, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, cited in Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the Final Solution."
I would point out that the Institut für Zeitgeschichte did not exist in 1922.
That is my understanding, and because Hell did not reveal this alleged bombshell of a statement until after the war, and because there is no independent confirmation of the statement, the credibility of the statement is justifiably questioned.
Why sit on something like that for more than 23 years?
It is also said that the style of the German is not typical of Hitler.
I think, at the very least, the sourcing should indicate the date at which the alleged quote was first published, so that people will understand that it does not have the credibility of a contemporary publication. As it is, people will assume that the statement was published in 1922 and that is not the case.
I have always understood the holocaust to refer to the extermination of people during World War II by the nazis in concentration camps. I have never understood it to be exclusively a reference to killing of Jews. The Wikipedia article references a single author and the Encylopedia Britannica entry to support its statement that this is the generally accepted usage of the term. However, if you check Merriam Webster and Free Dictionary they both refer to the extermination of Jews and other groups. Almost every source I have read during my lifetime has included Jews and other people as victims of the holocaust. The editors of this article are attempting to rewrite history and defy the vast majority of historical sources and scholarship with this unsupported assertion. Chidofu ( talk) 04:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Here is the best scholarship I could find on the meaning of the word, referencing the official definition given the term by the then President of the United States Jimmy Carter with the approval of Simon Wisenthal from Jon Petrie's article:
A few weeks after the screening of The Holocaust, partly as a gesture to the American Jewish community unhappy with the intended sale of American fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, President Carter announced the American government's intention to create a memorial "to the six million who were killed in the Holocaust." Following protests by Polish-Americans and Ukrainian-Americans, who demanded that the millions of their own killed by the Nazis be recognized in any American taxpayer supported memorial, and perhaps reflecting his own ecumenical humanism, Carter in his 1979 Executive Order creating the United States Holocaust Memorial Council adopted a version of Simon Wisenthal's formulation and defined "the Holocaust" as the "... extermination of six million Jews and some five million other peoples ..." [Wisenthal, in the late 1970s a well know hunter of Nazi criminals, had, since the late 1940s, spoken and written of "eleven million civilian dead, amongst them six million Jews."]
He also states:
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum avoids the "five million" formulation and defines the "the Holocaust" in at least one of its publications as the "murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II." (In other publications it is unclear whether non-Jews murdered are considered Holocaust victims.
He mentions that other statements from the Memorial Museum and the Simon Wisenthal Center avoid making any statement as to whether the non-Jews who died were Holocaust victims, thus avoiding the controversy that would surround this conclusion. Apparently the editors of this entry do not share their legitimate concerns and more thoughtful approach to this issue. 24.16.112.218 ( talk) 19:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Source for this?
Jews and Romani were confined in overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were systematically killed in gas chambers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KamikazePyro13 ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Not enough information is given regarding the causes of anti-semitism. In Germany, as elsewhere, Jews were vastly overrepresented in elite sectors of society relative to their actual share of the population and this bread resentment and envy all over Europe. Also, there was a perceived failure of Jews to assimilate, and as such they were viewed as foreigners who leeched off the host country. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 23:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, the Germans weren't targetting the Jews just because they heard some anti-semitic fairy tales. But regardless, the fact that the perception existed should be noted. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 23:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
That section just mentions past Christian persecutions and mentions that Hitler hated Jews. It does not mention that the Nazis seized on the high Jewish presence in elite sectors as evidence of a conspiracy against Germans.
Here are some statistics: Jews were 1% of the population yet they
69.133.126.117 ( talk) 01:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Wow... you think the idea that the Nazis and many ordinary Germans were very upset by Jewish dominance in elite sectors is "original research"? With all due respect I find it embarassing that you (and this article) believe that Martin Luther's utterances four centuries ago had more to do with with the Holocaust than the envy and resentment caused by Jewish over-representaion among the elites. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 12:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Again, I am embarassed that you are unaware of why the Nazis targetted Jews. But here are some quotes:
Seriously, this isn't that hard. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 15:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I never said it was the "sole" cause. It was the main cause. Regardless, it is disturbing that this information has been completely censored from this article. Regarding assimilation, I don't know whether or not they were assimilated, but the point is that the Nazis believed that the Jews were foreigners enroaching on the Germans. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 18:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
There is a section called "origins" and it completely fails to mention Jewish influence that was primarily responsible for the resentment existing (rightly or wrongly). As to your question, it led to the Holocaust because the Nazis believed that the Jews were by nature so successful that the only permanant and full-proof solution to the "Jewish Question" was the full implementation of the "Final Solution". 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 19:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The current language in "origins" does nothing to explain what was special about Germany's antisemitism that would result in mass extermination of Jews. Crum375's explanation, if it is true, does a much better job in this regard. So that criticism of his proposal has no merit. Also, I don't agree that you can discount the views of antisemites in trying to understand what drove the Nazis to commit mass extermination of Jews. I understand the desire to disregard and diminish the significance of thoughts expressed by people with abhorrent views, but in order to understand the behavior of criminals it is most important and most relevant to understand their perceptions and motivations. 24.16.112.218 ( talk) 20:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I have cited numerous sources proving that Jews were disliked by anti-semites because of their dispropotionate influence. At the bear minimum statistics demonstrating this should be added and it should be noted that Nazis used this as justification for their anti-semitic policies. On the other hand, no proof has been provided to show that Nazis were mainly motivated by religious teachings. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 21:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I cited quotes that came from secondary sources. But that seems like an awfully shallow excuse to censor highly relevant information from the article. Basically you're saying that we cannot mention the official, public position of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler because I don't happen to have a collection of Holocaust books right next to me. Meanwhile, blaming Christianity for the Holocaust, an explanation which is completely unexplained and was not adopted by any Third Reich officials, is okay because three historians allegedly said so. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 22:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Do you seriously believe that it is not a problem that no information is given regarding the Nazis publicly stated beliefs about disproportionate Jewish influence, while at the same time citing past Christian hostility that literally had nothing to do with the Nazis or 1930s Germany? Do you care for a second that this article has deceived millions of people into believing that the Holocaust was an entirely religiously motivated conflict? Anyone who has read Nazi speeches knows that they perceived Jews to be threatening Germans in the elite sectors of society. This is a claim frequently touted by anti-semites past and present. I cited some of them. And you are telling me that there is no conceivable way that this can be included? Your demand for secondary sources is technically reasonable but your utter lack of concern for the inclusion of (well known) basic information tells me you aren't very interested in the truth. Sadly, your position will only confirm the beliefs of anti-semites world-wide who believe that there is a conspiracy to suppress any and all information that would make the Nazis and other anti-semites look less than 100% irrational and Christianity less than 100% culpable for antisemitism, even if the said information came from members of a regime which is widely regarded as the worst in history. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 00:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Such strict protocol is almost never followed on other articles, but I managed to dig up one source which notes that
Anti-Semites never tired of citing these and other statistics [of Jewish influence] to ‘prove’ that Jews enjoyed an unfair and privileged status
Source: BF Pauley 1987: “Political anti-Semitism in interwar Vienna” in I Oxaal, M Pollack and G Botz (editors) Jews, anti-Semitism and culture in Vienna, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, pp.155.
Is that good enough? 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 01:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
But it's not a historian specializing in the Holocaust
The section in question is about the background situation of Jews, not the holocaust itself.
Just because antisemites cite statistics of Jews being successful, doesn't mean it's the real cause of that sociological phenomenon.
That is irrelevant to the fact that the charge was frequently made by antisemites.
And even if it were, the point here is not antisemitism in general, but specifically why did antisemitism in Germany, unlike the many other countries where it was prevalent, rise to the level of genocide.
The section currently makes no effort to address that anyway.
69.133.126.117 ( talk) 22:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The 'Origins' section is pretty poor, in my opinion; a quick, stereotyped, comic-book picture of what must have been a very complex situation. Clearly German society apparently wasn't simply "suffused with anti-Semitism" if German Jews were so successful in society, and a more informed and detailed picture ought to be presented. I also think 'Crum375' and others are acting as gatekeepers; but, given that the subject is complex, the Holocaust article is already long and a long and detailed 'Origins' section would distract from its main thrust, I think it would be informative and unobtrusive to see a separate article (for example: 'Origins of the Holocaust (German society before WWII)'), linked to from this one. How about it, 69.133.126.117 ? ( Farawaychris ( talk) 03:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC))
I have the feeling that if we were to go back to the archives we would find that we have been here before. The section is about the origins of the Holocaust, i.e. the genocide, and there is no doubt among historians that the central factor was anti-semitism. German history, culture and society was suffused with anti-semitism (references are clear). Why anti-semitism was so strong in German society during the 1930s is another issue and is treated elsewhere in Wikipedia, where I am sure it could be improved upon (i.e. Antisemitism and Antisemitism in Europe). Joel Mc ( talk) 11:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Links to Further Information on the Holocaust:
http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/auschwitz.shtml
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p-15_Berg.html
http://globalfire.tv/nj/03en/history/finalsolutions.htm
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p421_Weber.html
http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/thottc/index.html#toc
Most of these are very long, but give good information and various sources on the Holocust. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FireWaterAirEarth ( talk • contribs) 14:48, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
I have added a few sentences to section on news reporting on the Final Solution in the U.S., based on the NY Times 150th anniversary acknowlegement that they purposefully minimized and obfuscated the news, and the work of Laurel Leff and Deborah Lipstadt. i have linked to another wiki article, The New York Times and the Holocaust. That page is under severe attack by a couple of people who think this is not a mainstream topic, and keeps being gutted, so link at any time is not to the full article. Cimicifugia ( talk) 18:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)cimicifugia
“ | We see that in Germany Jewification progresses in literature, the theatre, music and film; that our medical world is Jewified, and the world of our lawyers too; that in our universities ever more Jews come to the fore | ” |
— From a speech by Hitler on August 31, 1928 [4] |
From the Middle Ages onward, German society and culture were suffused with anti-Semitism and some scholars maintain that there was a direct link from medieval pogroms to the Nazi death camps of the 1940s. [6] [7] [8]
Hans Küng has written that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it would not have been possible without the almost two thousand years' pre-history of 'Christian' anti-Judaism..." [9]
A more immediate reason for anti-Semitism in Germany was the resentment generated by the high profile status of Jews in German society. Although Jews were less than 1% of Germany’s population, Jews
Anti-semites persistently used this evidence to claim that the Jews “enjoyed an unfair and privileged status”. [15] In Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler had been open about his hatred of Jews, and gave ample warning of his intention to drive them from Germany's political, intellectual, and cultural life. He did not write that he would attempt to exterminate them, but he is reported to have been more explicit in private.
The Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany on January 30, 1933, and the persecution and exodus of Germany's 525,000 Jews began almost immediately. The Nuremberg Laws were justified by stating that “[a] self-respecting nation cannot, on a scale accepted up to now, leave its higher activities in the hands of people of racially foreign origin” [16]
I also think the speculative Hitler quote has to go. It is highly unlikely that Hitler would have admitted to planning the annihilation of Jews to anyone not in his inner circle. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 21:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Can someone please add Serbs to the list of minorities killed at the top? More Serbs were killed than Romani, so it doesn't make sense not to have them listed too. I think it would be only fair, since there are half a million Serb civilian deaths at least. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.111.242.152 ( talk) 13:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Please join the discussion in Talk:The New York Times and the Holocaust#Seeking Consensus. The only people working on the page right now are the original author and three people who wanted to delete the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cimicifugia ( talk • contribs) 15:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
The Holocaust is what it is, the planned, orchestrated and culminating fact of the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews. The term itself has been devised to show history what can be done with intolerance and what has been achieved by indifference. That the term is being diluted by overuse should not allow for its meaning to be other that the intended Catastrophe for the Jews of Europe. If we cannot articulate for ourselves, the destruction of the Jews in the midst of war, then we should not deny the Jews the term that has been given them! There is the Parrajmos for the Gypsies, 'genocide', gifted by Raphael Lemkin to define mass destruction, but why steal further from the Jews of The Holocaust? What cannot be undone is our duplicity, allow the Jews the right to their place in history. After all, we denied them their right to life! As for the tem 'Shoah', the Jews who would seek to use this term to define the Jews of the Holocaust, seek to halt the slide of denial which seeks to deprive them further of what was 'Their Holocaust.' see PATRICK DEMPSEY's:-
Testimony and Fading Memory in the Holocaust. ISBN:-1-904115-00-4
I am puzzled by this statement which appears at the end of the subject section:
Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, as a Greek pagan custom.
This appears to assert a startling confusion of fact.
Walter Burkert, the usual authority, directly contradicts the belief that Holocaust was a Greek, and not Jewish practice. He points out that the pair of lambs at the heart of their Jewish sacred ritual were completely consumed by fire. Based on Burkert's comments, the Greeks were surprised at this generosity to the [G]od because their own practice was to reserve the edible portions for their own consumption, except in some rare funerary traditions. So, it would appear that it was the Jews, and much less frequently the Hellenes, who practiced Holocaust in ancient times. Please see Burkert's Greek Religion, 1985, Harvard Page 63.
I propose a small change to the sentence cited above.
Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, which they believe to be Greek pagan custom.
This version preserves the report that some object and their reason, but does not itself assert that Holocaust was a Greek pagan custom foreign to the Jews.
Eisangelia ( talk) 20:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
No! see preceding piece on uniqueness for the Holocaust term, if not for the 6,000,000 interred within. Patrick Dempsey.
I would like to add a section concerning the " Rhineland Bastards"
Several thousand blacks in Europe, especially in Germany were victims of the Holocaust as well but there is no mention of them in this article.
The U.S. National Holocaust memorial museum has documented this in their exhibits, so I feel it should be added.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005479
Quotes from the above link:
"Following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the victorious Allies occupied the Rhineland in western Germany. The use of French colonial troops, some of whom were black, in these occupation forces exacerbated anti-black racism in Germany. Racist propaganda against black soldiers depicted them as rapists of German women and carriers of venereal and other diseases. The children of black soldiers and German women were called “Rhineland Bastards.” The Nazis, at the time a small political movement, viewed them as a threat to the purity of the Germanic race. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler charged that “the Jews had brought the Negroes into the Rhineland with the clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily-resulting bastardization.”
African German mulatto children were marginalized in German society, isolated socially and economically, and not allowed to attend university. Racial discrimination prohibited them from seeking most jobs, including service in the military. With the Nazi rise to power they became a target of racial and population policy. By 1937, the Gestapo (German secret state police) had secretly rounded up and forcibly sterilized many of them. Some were subjected to medical experiments; others mysteriously “disappeared.”
The racist nature of Adolf Hitler's regime was disguised briefly during the Olympic Games in Berlin in August 1936, when Hitler allowed 18 African American athletes to compete for the U.S. team. However, permission to compete was granted by the International Olympic Committee and not by the host country.
Adult African Germans were also victims. Both before and after World War I, many Africans came to Germany as students, artisans, entertainers, former soldiers, or low-level colonial officials, such as tax collectors, who had worked for the imperial colonial government. Hilarius (Lari) Gilges, a dancer by profession, was murdered by the SS in 1933, probably because he was black. Gilges' German wife later received restitution from a postwar German government for his murder by the Nazis. "
further:
"Black prisoners of war faced illegal incarceration and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who did not uphold the regulations imposed by the Geneva Convention (international agreement on the conduct of war and the treatment of wounded and captured soldiers). Lieutenant Darwin Nichols, an African American pilot, was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison in Butzbach. Black soldiers of the American, French, and British armies were worked to death on construction projects or died as a result of mistreatment in concentration or prisoner-of-war camps. Others were never even incarcerated, but were instead immediately killed by the SS or Gestapo. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by JakeKnightstick ( talk • contribs) 12:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Please remove from article – The source was misrepresented by your editor
From a Chinese perspective, the Japanese occupation of parts of China from 1931 to 1945 which occasioned the killings of 30 million Chinese, has been called a "Super Holocaust".
The source given was
The super holocaust (in China): remember : 9/18 and the Rape of Nanking By Dan Winn,
This book was NOT published by Peking University Press- It was self published by a Vanity press and does not belong on Wikipedia
See details at Amazon [10]
Please read your rules: Wikipedia:Verifiability# Self-published sources (online and paper)
Thank you-- Ojos de Lince ( talk) 17:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
For some reason there seems to be no mention of the number of dead among the political left. I remember hearing a number of 2 million dead, but that was a long time ago. Anyone who knows a source for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.61.234.225 ( talk) 16:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Why is this a proper noun? The term "Holocaust," if that is what is being inferred, has been used for other "genocides" (naturally as the definition doesn't preclude non-Nazi events). Certainly the other uses should be mentioned, perhaps under a subsection of "etymology" termed "Other uses" or something of the sort. Lihaas ( talk) 07:33, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Barlow I have seen your page and judge you to be an educated person. The changes that were made today earlier today were a blatant ploy to open the door allowing the inclusion of all killing in World War II from the rape of Nanking to the Atomic Bombings of Japan. I ask the Wikipedia administrators review this case and prevent the Holocaust article being taken over by persons with an obvious hidden agenda. -- Ojos de Lince ( talk) 17:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 22 | Archive 23 | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | → | Archive 30 |
I suggest you add the critism branch cataining critism from all sides for example the number are jus estimated and can not just be true as it is to large -- 76.68.25.174 ( talk) 21:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
NO ONE FREAK OUT. All the arguments have been made a couple times already. Post suggested photos, or create a collage and put it in this section so we can reach some kind of consensus on a particular picture. There is a better lead picture than the current one ( hopefully with context that can be put in a caption ). I wasn't able to find one myself and didn't think changing the picture just for the sake of changing it was worth it. Here is what is generally agreed upon
Pirate Argh!!1! 17:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
And yet again, crickets. One of our most important and highly visible articles, and one tendentious editor - and I'm sorry, Bus stop, but that's what you've been - overrides a clear consensus and stifles a productive conversation with canvasing, florid accusations of 'whitewashing', and walls of text about the 'beauty' of his preferred (not to mention contextless and copyrighted) image. That'll teach me to try to help bring yet another 'somebody should change that' Wikipedia discussion to a close. -- Vary | ( Talk) 06:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
So, terrible to know this actually happened... :( -- ConfusedPerson ( talk) 05:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether the definition is consistent throughout the article. I've always been puzzled by the Nazis' "puppet states" and their role in the genocide. If you measure only the Jews killed by Nazi Germany, the figure is only 5 million: you need to include Croatia, Romania and the other allies of Germany to get it up to 6 million. In the introduction to the article, it mentions only Nazi Germany and not its allies in Europe, but other parts of the article are written to include all the Nazis' allies.
What I don't get is why you never hear the Croatian genocide of Serbs as part of the Holocaust. Say that there is a Jew and a Serb in a Croatian death camp in WWII: is the Jew part of the Holocaust and the Serb not? The Jews killed in Croatia are always included in the Holocaust figures. Seems odd. Epa101 ( talk) 22:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
There is only one Ivangorod in Ukraine and it is a village. This article in Ukrainian about Ukrainian Ivangorod: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%86%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4_(%D0%A5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%96%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD
While in the article "The Holocaust" Ivangorod is linked to the town Ivangorod in Russia on the border with Estonia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pamerast ( talk • contribs) 00:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
where was the mention of the holocaust at the same time in Russia? Does anybody know that russia is responsible for more deaths than the Nazi Holocaust. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doe4155 ( talk • contribs) 19:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
1st photo MOST Likely shows nazi concentration cmps victims after allied forces liberated them in 1945. Most of the wictims gathered (there) died from starvation - not by systemtic killing. Most of that wictims were non jewish prisoners - as jews were exterminated earlier.
2. There is one photo named Warsaw Uprasing. Warsaw Uprasing burst in 1944 while Warsaw ghetto uprising burst in 1943 - one year earlier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.163.38.12 ( talk) 16:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Wrong pictures:
1st photo MOST Likely shows nazi concentration cmps victims after allied forces liberated them in 1945. Most of the wictims gathered (there) died from starvation - not by systemtic killing. Most of that wictims were non jewish prisoners - as jews were exterminated earlier.
2. There is one photo named Warsaw Uprasing. Warsaw Uprasing burst in 1944 while Warsaw ghetto uprising burst in 1943 - one year earlier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.163.38.12 ( talk) 16:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Something wrong with this, the way it is worded: "The figure most commonly used is the six million cited by Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS official."
Actually Eichmann cited 5 million victims. According to the Eichmann article, the quote is: "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction." Eichmann countered the claim saying that he was referring only to "enemies of the Reich". Markeilz ( talk) 03:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Good footnote. Thanks for clearing that up. Markeilz ( talk) 22:45, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
The number of six millions can be readily drawn from the various more detailed estimations, as any number of average that falls between 5.5 and 6.5 millions could be rounded towards 6 millions. Is there any reliable source about how the number actually became prominent in public discourse? I feel a bit uncomfortable about attributing this to a Nazi, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility either. Cs32en 23:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Evidence shows that as many as 6 million people were killed during the holocaust. However, most scholars estimate that only 3 million were killed for being Jewish. The rest were gypsies, homosexuals, mentally or physically challenged (retarded) people, and people who opposed Hitler and the 3rd Reich. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.202.224 ( talk) 06:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I have changed the victims and death toll section to better match the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. It does support scholars being divided on whether non-Jews should be included. It doesn't support that Romani are next, then everyone else but Poles, and finally Poles, the way the existing wording in the article implies. Page 45 simply included them all as a long list. Other pages challenge each group, e.g., page 50 states it is difficult to include political and religious dissenters. Therefore I have changed it to be a list as page 45, in order of the numbers killed. Jniech ( talk) 12:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
In connection with the above section, I have a question. Is anybody interested to join the ongoing discussion in the
Mass killings under Communist regimes talk page? The question is if the term "Red Holocaust" (mass killing of civilians by Communists) is notable enough to be included into the article, or that would be a trivialisation of the Holocaust?
--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 16:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The North African Territories occupied by Germany (e.g.Tunesia) are not mentioned. Please refer to the article [3] I'm writing on behalf of its editor Professor Shaked [edith.shaked(at)gmail.com]. I will communicate the evolution of this talk to Professor Shaked who certainly will respond and probably take it from there.
Some of the issues are:
1 - the various definitions of "holocaust" are discussed. However, the definition retained "for the purpose of the present article" have not been spelled out, e.g "All Jews" vs. "European Jews", knowing the parts of North Africa were as French colonies part of France.
2 - "occupied territories" are mentioned and certainly the easiest term to define. But there is no map. The partial map and the text are understood by the reader as the European occupied territories. Territories outside of Europe should be shown, listed and associated to Jewish population numbers, beginning, ending.
3 - side issue: the presented numbers are confusing, especially for Germany. I remember rough figures of 600,000 in 1933 with 200,000 emigrated/fled 200,000 died of natural causes and 200,000 murdered. It is evident that the people squeezed between Germany and Russia had no chance. It was different for French which acutally had a "zône libre" connected to Spain. According to Prof. Shaked's article, "A total of 2,575 Tunisian Jews died" as opposed to Denmark's 52.
4 - the text may be amended at appropriate locations with mentions about events in North Africa, e.g. Tunesia.
Please let me have your appreciation of principle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hwd23b ( talk • contribs) 21:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC) Hwd23b ( talk) 21:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I suggest this article is moved to Shoah or the Jewish Holocaust.
The title "The Holocaust" is unscholarly, POV and violates the naming conventions ("avoid definite and indefinite articles"). The word Holocaust has been used to describe a number of historical events, and Holocaust should be a disambiguation page or an article on the term which links to the various historical events described as holocausts.
The first modern genocide described as "The Holocaust" was the Armenian Holocaust (the term "The Holocaust" being used for the first time in 1922 - see Richard G. Horannisian, Armenian Holocaust: A Bibliography Relating to the Deportations, Massacres and Dispersion of the Armenian People, 1915-1923). The word Holocaust is also used by scholars to describe the Cambodian Holocaust, the American Holocaust (see for instance David Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press, 1992) and increasingly the Red Holocaust (see for instance Steven Rosefielde, Red Holocaust, Routledge, 2009) and the African Holocaust.
Scholars like Norman Finkelstein rejects the notion that one particular Holocaust can be described as "The" Holocaust. Virgil Lasis ( talk) 14:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Right now, most of the articles about WWII exterminations of ethnic/religious/sexual/social groups have mostly information specific to their group. This article mainly focuses on the genocide against the Jews, but it also serves as sort of a "main" article about the genocides because of the varying definitions of "The Holocaust". Other than this article, there is really no main article about all the genocides as a whole. This is really more of a proposal for a new article rather than a proposal for a split since most of the information in this article is specific to the Jews. Immakingthisaccounttohidemyipaddress ( talk) 20:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I think a selection Article should be created, and it's odd that it's missing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.177.105.73 ( talk) 03:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't believe that "Debate over the uniqueness of the Holocaust" belongs in the front of the article but near the end, if at all. I think the article should have a section with respect to Holocaust denial even though there is a complete wiki article on such. I think the discussion of this "debate over uniqueness" in this article is inappropriate and irrelevant. Are we better off for knowing this? How many people are involved in this "acrimonious debate"? And if we are going to put in the views of a handful of 'acrimonious' Jews, why not put in the views of many more Holocaust deniers? The "acrimonious debate" could go into the Holocaust denial section when we have it. I have not made any changes to the article, looking here for discussion first. Stellarkid ( talk) 16:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Regarding the section, I have moved the section to before 'See also', although I too think this section should be incorporated in another opinion-related article. There are numerous other subjects, not less important, that are mentioned only in ' See also' section and not in the body of the article (for example, memorials, such as Yad Vashem. OK to leave out, but the same principle should apply for the "debates").
As for Holocaust denial as a possible merge article, I don't think the debate section fits in that article, becuase the section is not about denial, it's about comparison with other genocides and/or trying to diminish the uniqueness of The Holocaust. Comparison is not denial, even though some deniers will use a comparison in order to deny. In any case, as long as this section will remain in The Holocaust article, I sense that the title may be a little misleading and startle some people, since it gives the impression that the mainstream meadia and politics are constantly debating this. It startled me at the first minute I read it, and it took me quite a while to really understand what Dr. Shimon Samuels was trying to say. So to make the section title more subtle for first-time readers, I suggest the following change:
Debate over the uniqueness of the Holocaust --> Attempts to diminish the uniqueness of the Holocaust
Opinions are welcome. John Hyams ( talk) 21:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Since, according to the article itself, the term "Holocaust" is not standardly understood to include the murder of homosexuals but is reserved for crimes against Jews, I have removed the homophobia category. UserVOBO ( talk) 21:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I will be adding the Anti-communism and Anti-Masonry categories for the sake of consistency, since no one has objected. Removing the Homophobia category would have been better, and I hope that that will be agreed upon eventually, though I can see it isn't going to happen soon. UserVOBO ( talk) 02:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Agree with the point made by Paul Barlow which I will quote: "Homosexuals were not targets for extermination, as Jews were, and as both Roma and many Soviet prisoners came to be, if more erratically; some homosexuals died from the effects of imprisonment or brutal treatment, but so did ordinary criminals, and the fact is that homosexuals could be imprisioned at this time in many other countries, including the UK; so there was nothing very unusual about Nazi law in this regard." This is very factual. I have seen a documentary on this by PBS(?) -- most were released after serving some time. I think the treatment of Gays by the hands of Nazis could be explored in its own article and it is best not to overburden this one with it. It is already very big. Stellarkid ( talk) 05:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Ref 271 "medoffJIH;" is broken. I'm leaving this message here so that someone with more knowledge of the article can fix the problem. UserVOBO ( talk) 02:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
3.6.2 General Government and Lublin reservation (Nisko plan)
3.7 Concentration and labor camps (1933–1945)
3.8 Ghettos (1940–1945)
3.9 Death squads (1941–1943)
3.10 Pogroms (1939–1942)
3.11 New methods of mass murder
3.12 Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution (1942–1945)
3.13 Extermination camps
3.13.1 Gas chambers
"Six death or extermination camps were constructed in Poland. These so-called death factories were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec , Sobibór, Lublin (also called Majdanek ), and Chelmno . The primary purpose of these camps was the methodical killing of millions of innocent people. The first, Chelmno, began operating in late 1941. The others began their operations in 1942." [4] Stellarkid ( talk) 05:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
In the subarticle 3.2.3 'South and East Slavs' there is hear-say statement of a former Nazi official which is taken as true, or at least trying to imply something for a fact. I LIKE DINGLEBERRIES! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.191.76.66 ( talk) 23:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Quote: Hitler's high plenipotentiary in South East Europe, Hermann Neubacher, later wrote: "When leading Ustaše state that one million Orthodox Serbs (including babies, children, women and old men) were slaughtered, this in my opinion is a boasting exaggeration. End quote:
The objective data is at the end of the subsection.
Quote: The USHMM reports between 56,000 and 97,000 persons were killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp[73][74] However, Yad Vashem reports 600,000 deaths at Jasenovac.[75]This is not the truth. You can see on Yad Vashem website in the article about Jasenovac ( http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206358.pdf) that it is quote: many thousands were murdered, most of them Serbians" The person who wrote this section is a lyer End quote:
Instead of the quote from Neubacher I suggest putting a list of WW2 casualties in Yugoslavia of all nationalities not just one.
The following link contains one such list. It is an online version of the paper number 69 in the quote list. Table 5 of the paper has a column named 'victims in camps' which should indicate victims in concentration camps. http://www.hic.hr/books/manipulations/p06.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mljk ( talk • contribs) 23:52, 31 July 2008
I believe that this article gives undue weight to the view that the Holocaust includes non-Jewish victims of the Nazis. The established view, as the article indicates, is that the Holocaust was a crime committed specifically against Jews. The broader definition of the Holocaust is a minority view, and that needs to be indicated more clearly. Two major changes should be made: first, the reference to the minority view that the Holocaust includes crimes committed against non-Jews should be removed from the lead (though it should continue, obviously, to be mentioned in other parts of the article), and second, the overly-long discussion of Nazi crimes against non-Jews (Slavs, Romani, the disabled, homosexuals, the mentally ill, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and political activists) should be removed from the article altogether. It contains too much material for this article, and violates the due weight policy. Establishing a separate article for it may be desirable. UserVOBO ( talk) 04:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
The "Political activists" section is plainly about communists, and the Nazis' attitude to them; I have tried to rename it accordingly, here [5] and here [6]. I do not accept the arguments being given for reversion. It is not about "the left in the broadest sense." Though the "political activists" section does refer to non-communists (trade unionist, they are secondary to its actual subject. Throughout the section communists are mentioned first, socialists and others second, and only in the context of the Nazis' attitude to communism. "Political activists" is therefore a euphemism. I am not sure what motivates its use here, but it can only mislead readers. UserVOBO ( talk) 05:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, even if the section were about "the left in the broadest sense", that couldn't justify such a hopelessly vague and misleading title as "political activists", which could refer to anything. UserVOBO ( talk) 05:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
This section should be deleted. It serves only to weigh two sides of a discussion in which the evidence that the subject has no connection to the topic of the article appears overwhelming. On this basis, penis, the only explanation for retaining this section can be a politically-motivated attempt to connect the Holocaust to Palestinians. This kind of unfounded bias highlights the embarrassing ability of wikipedia articles to be influenced by pressure groups. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.150.181 ( talk) 00:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Please can the Zionist-aligned editors in this debate kindly identify themselves? Otherwise it can be done for you here and here. Other than these two, all editors who have spoken so far are in agreement. As a case in point, an alternative to removing the section is to balance it with a new section referencing scholars who have suggested that the memory of the Holocaust has been misused by Zionists - see Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry or Chomsky here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.187.201 ( talk) 00:09, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
This sentence is misleading and probably OR. None of the citations contain actual arguments about what the word "Holocaust" should mean. The citations only mention the killing of Jews, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their authors don't consider Nazi killings of other people to be part of the Holocaust. It's not that useful to provide a list of historians who hold a particular view anyway--it's not a vote. Prezbo ( talk) 02:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I find the list by Lucy Davidowicz stating that 90% of "prewar German Jews" were killed is slightly misleading…in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Jews#The_Holocaust_.281940.E2.80.931945.29 it is stated that "Of the 522,000 Jews living in Germany in January 1933, only 214,000 were left by the eve of World War II"…in other words a *majority* had fled Germany since the seizure of power by Hitler. So while it's true that almost all German Jews who were still in Germany when the war broke out became victims the majority of people who in 1933 could have been described as German Jews were still alive in 1945. (I'm not sure what the best way to rectify this would be but I think it is important as it contravenes the commonly-held notion that they [German Jews] should have "seen the writing on the wall" and gotten out when they could have—because in fact most did.) Historian932 ( talk) 17:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Can anyone with more historical knowledge than me explain to me why the vast majority of mentions of the Holocaust in the mass media say 6 million deaths and just about add 'Oh by the way a few others died too'(i.e. almost 2/3 of the largest estimate)?. Im disabled from birth and wouldn't have even made it to a camp if it wasn't for the bravery of my ancestors who helped put an end to the war. Sorry if this is the wrong type of forum for asking this but I've been called a Neo.. in other places for asking this and as a newbie around here it seems civil questions get civil answers which is all I really want because sometimes it feels that disabled peoples lives are about as important to the media as they were in the 40s. Thanks 2winjustonce ( talk) 11:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply Lebob-BE 2winjustonce ( talk) 14:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for that Epa101, I thought that might have been a reason, I read somewhere that the term 'concentration camp' was used long before the Nazis, by the British in South Africa and the US in Cuba so these uses of the term 'disappeared' from the records when the Nazis gave the term new meaning 2winjustonce ( talk) 21:49, 31 March 2010 (UTC) in 97.82.57.208 ( talk) 22:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC) I had to remove article cuase discussion was for improving the article not explaining about the content mrthinky may 19 2010 Mrthinky ( talk) 22:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I give the original authors tremendous credit for assembling a lot of information and crafting it into a smooth flow on a macro level. On a micro level, however, there are many run-on sentences, and their clauses do not form complete sentences. I have tried to smooth out the sentences in this section and reorder them to improve the flow, but the section is still unclear. How, for example, does the inability to conquer Great Britain affect deportation of Jews to British colonies? "Although the Final Solution was already in place" - should this read "Since the Final Solution was already in place" - i.e., mass murder was underway, so deportations were unnecessary. The whole section is still unclear and needs additional rewriting. Chlyn ( talk) 04:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC) --- I kept working at it. I think I made it better, but someone who knows the subject should check it over. Chlyn ( talk) 05:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
This claim is not supported by its source:
"In 1935, Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which: ... annulled existing marriages between Jews and Aryans (the Law for the protection of German blood and German honor)...."
When you look at the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, what it says in Article I is this:
Article 1. 1) Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden. Marriages nevertheless concluded are invalid, even if concluded abroad to circumvent this law. 2) Annulment proceedings can be initialed only by the State Prosecutor.
It says that "marriages" between Jews and Germans are forbidden. It is impossible however to forbid what has already been done. It does not say that pre-existing marriages of Germans and Jews are ipso facto annulled. It mentions the possibility of annulling marriages between Jews and Germans, but only by way of defining who has the power to do it.
It is false to declare that the law per se "annulled existing marriages between Jews and Aryans." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.65.184.175 ( talk) 21:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The etymology section contains the following claim:
"During World War II, the word was used to describe Nazi atrocities regardless of whether the victims were Jews or non-Jews."
This is an extraordinarily vague claim: there is no mention of who is supposed to have used the word holocaust that way, nor on what occasion. It is also an unsourced claim.
Since there is no source cite, how do we know that the word holocaust, which properly means complete destruction through burning, was not used more often in reference to the fire-bombing of cities? This seems entirely likely.
Until 1978, and probably into the 1980s, the word was frequently encountered in the expression "nuclear holocaust," which retains the connotation of destruction through burning.
To the best of my knowledge it was the NBC miniseries Holocaust in the late 1970s that popularized the use of the word as a generic synonym for massacre and, when capitalized, as a proper noun referring to systematic massacre of Jews, without any connotation of burning as the cause of death.
The Mediaeval example of a "holocaust" of the Jews of London is not a precedent for such a loose use of the word. That "holocaust" involved death by burning, according to the Wikipedia article on Richard I:
"When a rumour spread that Richard had ordered all Jews to be killed, the people of London began a massacre.[46] Many Jews were beaten to death, robbed, and burned alive."
It seems to me that a general precedent for the current use of holocaust to mean some kind of massacre other than burning, and its specific association with crime imputed to the Germans, is being projected anachronistically into World War II.
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
98.65.184.175 (
talk) 21:02, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The paragraph attributed to Hitler that includes comments about hanging Jews from gallows is sourced as follows:
"Hell, Josef. "Aufzeichnung", 1922, ZS 640, p. 5, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, cited in Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the Final Solution."
I would point out that the Institut für Zeitgeschichte did not exist in 1922.
That is my understanding, and because Hell did not reveal this alleged bombshell of a statement until after the war, and because there is no independent confirmation of the statement, the credibility of the statement is justifiably questioned.
Why sit on something like that for more than 23 years?
It is also said that the style of the German is not typical of Hitler.
I think, at the very least, the sourcing should indicate the date at which the alleged quote was first published, so that people will understand that it does not have the credibility of a contemporary publication. As it is, people will assume that the statement was published in 1922 and that is not the case.
I have always understood the holocaust to refer to the extermination of people during World War II by the nazis in concentration camps. I have never understood it to be exclusively a reference to killing of Jews. The Wikipedia article references a single author and the Encylopedia Britannica entry to support its statement that this is the generally accepted usage of the term. However, if you check Merriam Webster and Free Dictionary they both refer to the extermination of Jews and other groups. Almost every source I have read during my lifetime has included Jews and other people as victims of the holocaust. The editors of this article are attempting to rewrite history and defy the vast majority of historical sources and scholarship with this unsupported assertion. Chidofu ( talk) 04:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Here is the best scholarship I could find on the meaning of the word, referencing the official definition given the term by the then President of the United States Jimmy Carter with the approval of Simon Wisenthal from Jon Petrie's article:
A few weeks after the screening of The Holocaust, partly as a gesture to the American Jewish community unhappy with the intended sale of American fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, President Carter announced the American government's intention to create a memorial "to the six million who were killed in the Holocaust." Following protests by Polish-Americans and Ukrainian-Americans, who demanded that the millions of their own killed by the Nazis be recognized in any American taxpayer supported memorial, and perhaps reflecting his own ecumenical humanism, Carter in his 1979 Executive Order creating the United States Holocaust Memorial Council adopted a version of Simon Wisenthal's formulation and defined "the Holocaust" as the "... extermination of six million Jews and some five million other peoples ..." [Wisenthal, in the late 1970s a well know hunter of Nazi criminals, had, since the late 1940s, spoken and written of "eleven million civilian dead, amongst them six million Jews."]
He also states:
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum avoids the "five million" formulation and defines the "the Holocaust" in at least one of its publications as the "murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II." (In other publications it is unclear whether non-Jews murdered are considered Holocaust victims.
He mentions that other statements from the Memorial Museum and the Simon Wisenthal Center avoid making any statement as to whether the non-Jews who died were Holocaust victims, thus avoiding the controversy that would surround this conclusion. Apparently the editors of this entry do not share their legitimate concerns and more thoughtful approach to this issue. 24.16.112.218 ( talk) 19:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Source for this?
Jews and Romani were confined in overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were systematically killed in gas chambers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KamikazePyro13 ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Not enough information is given regarding the causes of anti-semitism. In Germany, as elsewhere, Jews were vastly overrepresented in elite sectors of society relative to their actual share of the population and this bread resentment and envy all over Europe. Also, there was a perceived failure of Jews to assimilate, and as such they were viewed as foreigners who leeched off the host country. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 23:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, the Germans weren't targetting the Jews just because they heard some anti-semitic fairy tales. But regardless, the fact that the perception existed should be noted. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 23:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
That section just mentions past Christian persecutions and mentions that Hitler hated Jews. It does not mention that the Nazis seized on the high Jewish presence in elite sectors as evidence of a conspiracy against Germans.
Here are some statistics: Jews were 1% of the population yet they
69.133.126.117 ( talk) 01:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Wow... you think the idea that the Nazis and many ordinary Germans were very upset by Jewish dominance in elite sectors is "original research"? With all due respect I find it embarassing that you (and this article) believe that Martin Luther's utterances four centuries ago had more to do with with the Holocaust than the envy and resentment caused by Jewish over-representaion among the elites. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 12:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Again, I am embarassed that you are unaware of why the Nazis targetted Jews. But here are some quotes:
Seriously, this isn't that hard. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 15:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I never said it was the "sole" cause. It was the main cause. Regardless, it is disturbing that this information has been completely censored from this article. Regarding assimilation, I don't know whether or not they were assimilated, but the point is that the Nazis believed that the Jews were foreigners enroaching on the Germans. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 18:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
There is a section called "origins" and it completely fails to mention Jewish influence that was primarily responsible for the resentment existing (rightly or wrongly). As to your question, it led to the Holocaust because the Nazis believed that the Jews were by nature so successful that the only permanant and full-proof solution to the "Jewish Question" was the full implementation of the "Final Solution". 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 19:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The current language in "origins" does nothing to explain what was special about Germany's antisemitism that would result in mass extermination of Jews. Crum375's explanation, if it is true, does a much better job in this regard. So that criticism of his proposal has no merit. Also, I don't agree that you can discount the views of antisemites in trying to understand what drove the Nazis to commit mass extermination of Jews. I understand the desire to disregard and diminish the significance of thoughts expressed by people with abhorrent views, but in order to understand the behavior of criminals it is most important and most relevant to understand their perceptions and motivations. 24.16.112.218 ( talk) 20:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I have cited numerous sources proving that Jews were disliked by anti-semites because of their dispropotionate influence. At the bear minimum statistics demonstrating this should be added and it should be noted that Nazis used this as justification for their anti-semitic policies. On the other hand, no proof has been provided to show that Nazis were mainly motivated by religious teachings. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 21:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I cited quotes that came from secondary sources. But that seems like an awfully shallow excuse to censor highly relevant information from the article. Basically you're saying that we cannot mention the official, public position of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler because I don't happen to have a collection of Holocaust books right next to me. Meanwhile, blaming Christianity for the Holocaust, an explanation which is completely unexplained and was not adopted by any Third Reich officials, is okay because three historians allegedly said so. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 22:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Do you seriously believe that it is not a problem that no information is given regarding the Nazis publicly stated beliefs about disproportionate Jewish influence, while at the same time citing past Christian hostility that literally had nothing to do with the Nazis or 1930s Germany? Do you care for a second that this article has deceived millions of people into believing that the Holocaust was an entirely religiously motivated conflict? Anyone who has read Nazi speeches knows that they perceived Jews to be threatening Germans in the elite sectors of society. This is a claim frequently touted by anti-semites past and present. I cited some of them. And you are telling me that there is no conceivable way that this can be included? Your demand for secondary sources is technically reasonable but your utter lack of concern for the inclusion of (well known) basic information tells me you aren't very interested in the truth. Sadly, your position will only confirm the beliefs of anti-semites world-wide who believe that there is a conspiracy to suppress any and all information that would make the Nazis and other anti-semites look less than 100% irrational and Christianity less than 100% culpable for antisemitism, even if the said information came from members of a regime which is widely regarded as the worst in history. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 00:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Such strict protocol is almost never followed on other articles, but I managed to dig up one source which notes that
Anti-Semites never tired of citing these and other statistics [of Jewish influence] to ‘prove’ that Jews enjoyed an unfair and privileged status
Source: BF Pauley 1987: “Political anti-Semitism in interwar Vienna” in I Oxaal, M Pollack and G Botz (editors) Jews, anti-Semitism and culture in Vienna, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, pp.155.
Is that good enough? 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 01:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
But it's not a historian specializing in the Holocaust
The section in question is about the background situation of Jews, not the holocaust itself.
Just because antisemites cite statistics of Jews being successful, doesn't mean it's the real cause of that sociological phenomenon.
That is irrelevant to the fact that the charge was frequently made by antisemites.
And even if it were, the point here is not antisemitism in general, but specifically why did antisemitism in Germany, unlike the many other countries where it was prevalent, rise to the level of genocide.
The section currently makes no effort to address that anyway.
69.133.126.117 ( talk) 22:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The 'Origins' section is pretty poor, in my opinion; a quick, stereotyped, comic-book picture of what must have been a very complex situation. Clearly German society apparently wasn't simply "suffused with anti-Semitism" if German Jews were so successful in society, and a more informed and detailed picture ought to be presented. I also think 'Crum375' and others are acting as gatekeepers; but, given that the subject is complex, the Holocaust article is already long and a long and detailed 'Origins' section would distract from its main thrust, I think it would be informative and unobtrusive to see a separate article (for example: 'Origins of the Holocaust (German society before WWII)'), linked to from this one. How about it, 69.133.126.117 ? ( Farawaychris ( talk) 03:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC))
I have the feeling that if we were to go back to the archives we would find that we have been here before. The section is about the origins of the Holocaust, i.e. the genocide, and there is no doubt among historians that the central factor was anti-semitism. German history, culture and society was suffused with anti-semitism (references are clear). Why anti-semitism was so strong in German society during the 1930s is another issue and is treated elsewhere in Wikipedia, where I am sure it could be improved upon (i.e. Antisemitism and Antisemitism in Europe). Joel Mc ( talk) 11:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Links to Further Information on the Holocaust:
http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/auschwitz.shtml
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p-15_Berg.html
http://globalfire.tv/nj/03en/history/finalsolutions.htm
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p421_Weber.html
http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/thottc/index.html#toc
Most of these are very long, but give good information and various sources on the Holocust. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FireWaterAirEarth ( talk • contribs) 14:48, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
I have added a few sentences to section on news reporting on the Final Solution in the U.S., based on the NY Times 150th anniversary acknowlegement that they purposefully minimized and obfuscated the news, and the work of Laurel Leff and Deborah Lipstadt. i have linked to another wiki article, The New York Times and the Holocaust. That page is under severe attack by a couple of people who think this is not a mainstream topic, and keeps being gutted, so link at any time is not to the full article. Cimicifugia ( talk) 18:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)cimicifugia
“ | We see that in Germany Jewification progresses in literature, the theatre, music and film; that our medical world is Jewified, and the world of our lawyers too; that in our universities ever more Jews come to the fore | ” |
— From a speech by Hitler on August 31, 1928 [4] |
From the Middle Ages onward, German society and culture were suffused with anti-Semitism and some scholars maintain that there was a direct link from medieval pogroms to the Nazi death camps of the 1940s. [6] [7] [8]
Hans Küng has written that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it would not have been possible without the almost two thousand years' pre-history of 'Christian' anti-Judaism..." [9]
A more immediate reason for anti-Semitism in Germany was the resentment generated by the high profile status of Jews in German society. Although Jews were less than 1% of Germany’s population, Jews
Anti-semites persistently used this evidence to claim that the Jews “enjoyed an unfair and privileged status”. [15] In Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler had been open about his hatred of Jews, and gave ample warning of his intention to drive them from Germany's political, intellectual, and cultural life. He did not write that he would attempt to exterminate them, but he is reported to have been more explicit in private.
The Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany on January 30, 1933, and the persecution and exodus of Germany's 525,000 Jews began almost immediately. The Nuremberg Laws were justified by stating that “[a] self-respecting nation cannot, on a scale accepted up to now, leave its higher activities in the hands of people of racially foreign origin” [16]
I also think the speculative Hitler quote has to go. It is highly unlikely that Hitler would have admitted to planning the annihilation of Jews to anyone not in his inner circle. 69.133.126.117 ( talk) 21:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Can someone please add Serbs to the list of minorities killed at the top? More Serbs were killed than Romani, so it doesn't make sense not to have them listed too. I think it would be only fair, since there are half a million Serb civilian deaths at least. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.111.242.152 ( talk) 13:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Please join the discussion in Talk:The New York Times and the Holocaust#Seeking Consensus. The only people working on the page right now are the original author and three people who wanted to delete the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cimicifugia ( talk • contribs) 15:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
The Holocaust is what it is, the planned, orchestrated and culminating fact of the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews. The term itself has been devised to show history what can be done with intolerance and what has been achieved by indifference. That the term is being diluted by overuse should not allow for its meaning to be other that the intended Catastrophe for the Jews of Europe. If we cannot articulate for ourselves, the destruction of the Jews in the midst of war, then we should not deny the Jews the term that has been given them! There is the Parrajmos for the Gypsies, 'genocide', gifted by Raphael Lemkin to define mass destruction, but why steal further from the Jews of The Holocaust? What cannot be undone is our duplicity, allow the Jews the right to their place in history. After all, we denied them their right to life! As for the tem 'Shoah', the Jews who would seek to use this term to define the Jews of the Holocaust, seek to halt the slide of denial which seeks to deprive them further of what was 'Their Holocaust.' see PATRICK DEMPSEY's:-
Testimony and Fading Memory in the Holocaust. ISBN:-1-904115-00-4
I am puzzled by this statement which appears at the end of the subject section:
Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, as a Greek pagan custom.
This appears to assert a startling confusion of fact.
Walter Burkert, the usual authority, directly contradicts the belief that Holocaust was a Greek, and not Jewish practice. He points out that the pair of lambs at the heart of their Jewish sacred ritual were completely consumed by fire. Based on Burkert's comments, the Greeks were surprised at this generosity to the [G]od because their own practice was to reserve the edible portions for their own consumption, except in some rare funerary traditions. So, it would appear that it was the Jews, and much less frequently the Hellenes, who practiced Holocaust in ancient times. Please see Burkert's Greek Religion, 1985, Harvard Page 63.
I propose a small change to the sentence cited above.
Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, which they believe to be Greek pagan custom.
This version preserves the report that some object and their reason, but does not itself assert that Holocaust was a Greek pagan custom foreign to the Jews.
Eisangelia ( talk) 20:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
No! see preceding piece on uniqueness for the Holocaust term, if not for the 6,000,000 interred within. Patrick Dempsey.
I would like to add a section concerning the " Rhineland Bastards"
Several thousand blacks in Europe, especially in Germany were victims of the Holocaust as well but there is no mention of them in this article.
The U.S. National Holocaust memorial museum has documented this in their exhibits, so I feel it should be added.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005479
Quotes from the above link:
"Following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the victorious Allies occupied the Rhineland in western Germany. The use of French colonial troops, some of whom were black, in these occupation forces exacerbated anti-black racism in Germany. Racist propaganda against black soldiers depicted them as rapists of German women and carriers of venereal and other diseases. The children of black soldiers and German women were called “Rhineland Bastards.” The Nazis, at the time a small political movement, viewed them as a threat to the purity of the Germanic race. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler charged that “the Jews had brought the Negroes into the Rhineland with the clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily-resulting bastardization.”
African German mulatto children were marginalized in German society, isolated socially and economically, and not allowed to attend university. Racial discrimination prohibited them from seeking most jobs, including service in the military. With the Nazi rise to power they became a target of racial and population policy. By 1937, the Gestapo (German secret state police) had secretly rounded up and forcibly sterilized many of them. Some were subjected to medical experiments; others mysteriously “disappeared.”
The racist nature of Adolf Hitler's regime was disguised briefly during the Olympic Games in Berlin in August 1936, when Hitler allowed 18 African American athletes to compete for the U.S. team. However, permission to compete was granted by the International Olympic Committee and not by the host country.
Adult African Germans were also victims. Both before and after World War I, many Africans came to Germany as students, artisans, entertainers, former soldiers, or low-level colonial officials, such as tax collectors, who had worked for the imperial colonial government. Hilarius (Lari) Gilges, a dancer by profession, was murdered by the SS in 1933, probably because he was black. Gilges' German wife later received restitution from a postwar German government for his murder by the Nazis. "
further:
"Black prisoners of war faced illegal incarceration and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who did not uphold the regulations imposed by the Geneva Convention (international agreement on the conduct of war and the treatment of wounded and captured soldiers). Lieutenant Darwin Nichols, an African American pilot, was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison in Butzbach. Black soldiers of the American, French, and British armies were worked to death on construction projects or died as a result of mistreatment in concentration or prisoner-of-war camps. Others were never even incarcerated, but were instead immediately killed by the SS or Gestapo. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by JakeKnightstick ( talk • contribs) 12:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Please remove from article – The source was misrepresented by your editor
From a Chinese perspective, the Japanese occupation of parts of China from 1931 to 1945 which occasioned the killings of 30 million Chinese, has been called a "Super Holocaust".
The source given was
The super holocaust (in China): remember : 9/18 and the Rape of Nanking By Dan Winn,
This book was NOT published by Peking University Press- It was self published by a Vanity press and does not belong on Wikipedia
See details at Amazon [10]
Please read your rules: Wikipedia:Verifiability# Self-published sources (online and paper)
Thank you-- Ojos de Lince ( talk) 17:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
For some reason there seems to be no mention of the number of dead among the political left. I remember hearing a number of 2 million dead, but that was a long time ago. Anyone who knows a source for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.61.234.225 ( talk) 16:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Why is this a proper noun? The term "Holocaust," if that is what is being inferred, has been used for other "genocides" (naturally as the definition doesn't preclude non-Nazi events). Certainly the other uses should be mentioned, perhaps under a subsection of "etymology" termed "Other uses" or something of the sort. Lihaas ( talk) 07:33, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Mr. Barlow I have seen your page and judge you to be an educated person. The changes that were made today earlier today were a blatant ploy to open the door allowing the inclusion of all killing in World War II from the rape of Nanking to the Atomic Bombings of Japan. I ask the Wikipedia administrators review this case and prevent the Holocaust article being taken over by persons with an obvious hidden agenda. -- Ojos de Lince ( talk) 17:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)