Holocaust Memorial Day

Are we not going to remember the non jewish people that died in the holocaust too?

What? the coverage of jewish deaths in the holocaust is very well covered and I think it is also very important to remember that there were millions of non jews killed during the holocaust and if you add the killing of non combatant slavic people in their drive eastward then the death toll looks even more disgusting.

There was no Nazi plan as such for genocide against the Slavic peoples at that time
Blatantly false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

"the plan for Poland was drawn up at the end of November 1939 and is probably responsible for much of the World War II expulsion of Poles by Germany (first to colonial district of the General Government and, from 1942 also to Polenlager).[29] After the war, under the "Big Plan", Generalplan Ost foresaw the removal of 45 million non-Germanizable people from Central and Eastern Europe, of whom 31 million were "racially undesirable", 100% of Jews, Poles (85%), Lithuanians (85%) [11][24], Belorussians (75%) and Ukrainians (65%), to West Siberia,[15] and about 14 million were to remain, but were to be treated as slaves."

Thankfully this plan was never put into full effect but... "The plan was partially realized during the war, resulting directly and indirectly in the death of 9.4 to 11.4 million ethnic Slavs by starvation, disease, execution or extermination through labor"

THANK YOU for creating this post! It is truly important we remember those who were impacted by such atrocities so they don't happen again. This is the only post I've seen on holocaust memorial day this year across social media😥 and apart from one news article nothing...

The problem is that the argument that the holocaust included Nazi atrocities in the Soviet and E. European territories against Slavs is frequently used by the far right to imply that there is some sort of conspiracy to 'exaggerate' the mass murder or suffering of the Jews, as part of a covert holocaust denial campaign. Basically the outright approach to holocaust denial has been so completely disproven and ridiculed that the far right have moved to a more sophisticated operation of rubbishing Jewish involvement and making it sound as if the Jews are just complaining, or as if somehow the Holocaust memorial movement is a Jewish conspiracy. This kind of anti-semitic politics goes down particularly well in Russia and E. Europe, where they have long anti-semitic traditions but it was largely fabricated in the US and German alt-right.

On the basic facts, the Nazis may have had long term goals to destroy the Slavic peoples but they were not able to put them into effect with the same genocidal fervour and ambition with which they exterminated Jewish people. Many of the deaths in Russia were forced starvations of captured prisoners and civilians living in conquered areas for example, rather than actual mass murder, although that is not to in any way denigrate their suffering or apologise for Nazi crimes against Slavs. Simply put, the holocaust happened and it mainly concerned the Jews. The Nazis also killed millions of other people in war, by starvation and by random killing.

and it starts

Ok well you first paragraph isnt really an argument as the holocaust is described thusly "Holocaust victims were people who were targeted by the government of Nazi Germany for various discriminatory practices due to their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation. These institutionalized practices" So they fit.

On the basic facts, the Nazis may have had long term goals to destroy the Slavic peoples but they were not able to put them into effect with the same genocidal fervour and ambition with which they exterminated Jewish people.


Lets pretend that you are correct here, does the life of a jewish man mean more than that of a slav? does it matter how much "fevour and ambition" were put into each murder as long as each one of them was for the same express reason of 'racial purity'


Let me just get a few quotes that might show you that the Germans did indeed do so with the same fevour as they did with jews

"Between 1941 and 1945, approximately three million Ukrainian and other gentiles were killed as part of Nazi extermination policies in present-day Ukraine"

"Estimates of the Romani death toll in World War II range from 220,000 to 1,500,000"

"civilian deaths in the occupied USSR, including Jews, at the hands of the Germans totaled 13.7 million dead (20 percent of the population of 68 million). The figure includes 7.4 million victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals, 2.2 million deaths of persons deported to Germany as forced labour, and 4.1 million famine and disease deaths. An estimated three million people also died of starvation in unoccupied territory."


"Hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Poles were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other concentration camps, and the intelligentsia were the first targets of the Einsatzgruppen death squads"


"Many of the deaths in Russia were forced starvations of captured prisoners and civilians living in conquered areas for example, rather than actual mass murder,"
Good to hear that these people were 'only' forcefully starved, shot and put into ditches tortured worked to death because you know doing that on a mass scale apparently isnt "actual mass murder"

Who are the 5 million you are talking about?

Whilst I don't necessarily agree with the user's subsequent comments, their first post I don't disagree with. This is a human tragedy, from multiple ethnic and religious groups.

The Roma Gypsies faced the worst treatment imaginable, and disabled people who arrived at Death camps were exterminated immediately, rather than being set to work like many prisoners were.

Persecution ought not to be a subject of debate on this day. If you wish to pursue nuance in your opinions and present them to others then choose another time for this, it's an important field of historical study so that events of this nature are not repeated: but today is for reflection and remembrance, not debate.

Persecution ought not to be a subject of debate on this day. If you wish to pursue nuance in your opinions and present them to others then choose another time for this, it's an important field of historical study so that events of this nature are not repeated: but today is for reflection and remembrance, not debate.

I agree with this. The fate of the Roma Gypsies in WW2 directly parallels that of the Jews. The number of deaths was much lower but it was still a significant percentage of the population.

I do find it sad though that on this day of rememberance, the majority of posts on TSR are debates about who we should remember more. There can be a fine line between some of these posts and anti-semitic posts that are frequent on this site.

Also Jehovah's Witnesses. It's important to note that it was only really the Jews and Roma Gypsies that were systematically murdered by the regime, although many of the other prisoners did die from starvation and disease etc.

I am not the one trying to pursue nuance, I am the one complaining about the abhorrent comments from Fullofsurprises who has tried to downplay the millions of non jewish deaths yet they fail to see the unimaginable cruelty of the Nazis to many non jewish minorities, I have many times stated that we need to remember these too but repeatedly these people use unimagineable amounts of mental gymnastics to get out of this simple facr

What better way to reflect and remember is there than delving into the history.

I am not the one trying to pursue nuance, I am the one complaining about the abhorrent comments from Fullofsurprises who has tried to downplay the millions of non jewish deaths yet they fail to see the unimaginable cruelty of the Nazis to many non jewish minorities, I have many times stated that we need to remember these too but repeatedly these people use unimagineable amounts of mental gymnastics to get out of this simple facr

Simply put, the holocaust happened and it mainly concerned the Jews. The Nazis also killed millions of other people in war, by starvation and by random killing.

The trouble, these exact same arguments are put forward by the new far right, seeking to distort the Holocaust and demean Jewish people by suggesting that somehow they have sought to lie about it and exaggerate it. This smear is extremely widespread, so you will forgive me for not being concerned that it might be spread here under the guise of factual comparison with the other Nazi death campaigns.

The Jews were the morority victims of the holocaust but they were not the only ones. To attribute the other millions of none jews who were exterminated and/or placed into camps or displaced to simple "war dead" is a kind of holocaust denial in and of itself. For example the treatment of roma (second largest group death toll) by the Nazis went largely ignored until the 1980s. The acceptable prejudice against roma is insane. It is also something that is still rearing its ugly head.

Once again this isnt an argument, facts are being spread under the guise of being facts

Perhaps casual visitors to this thread would not be as used to your posts as we are and your relentless pushing of far right ideological positions thinly dressed up as factual pseudo-reasoning.

I do find it sad though that on this day of rememberance, the majority of posts on TSR are debates about who we should remember more.