What Is So Special About The Holocaust?

[Theodarzna]

I'm kind of curious as well. More people suffered through more inhumane conditions in the Soviet Gulags yet they barely get half the attention the of the holocaust.

Stalin has the advantage of being on the winning side of a major world war.

[muto]

You can ask the same about 9/11 - It's not the biggest, it's not the worst, it's not the latest. People just keep talking about them.

Except 9/11 was the biggest terrorist attack in history.

[Ornerybear]

also, i'll remind again, people dont remember you as much when you genocide your own people.

[Independent voter]

A lot of German Jews were rich or well off at least. The Nazis harvested them, shipping them off to prison camps while confiscating their property and money. The Nazis used Jewish money to pay people and fund their projects.

Hatred of Jews had something to do with the Holocaust, but economics did too.

[Hexian]

It happened in a world Superpower..... ?

That is the best explanation I can find.

Yet the US wasn't even considered a great power at the time. It wasn't until the early 1920s the US was labeled as a great power and not until the 1940s the concept of super powers (UK, Soviet Union, and USA) came about.

[Deleted]

The Jews have been making sure that nobody ever forgets. They spend considerable money to make sure everyone hears about it.

[Kurioxan]

It was not the biggest, nor the most horrendous genocide. The reason is because of how industrialized it was. It has been the most well planned-out genocide in history. I do, however, agree that it is in some occasions given disproportionate amounts of attention.

Indeed, and it never stops being used, it gets annoying actually.
Being very recent, and in the west makes this an especially big deal. Western nations were, and still are to an extent, looked up to and are the most prevalent cultural influences especially at that time.
The same way Bob from the local tavern punching someone in the face is meh, but if a celebrity does it gets a lot of attention.

[Deleted]

Except 9/11 was the biggest terrorist attack in history.

The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as: The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

Attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were against non-combatants to force the government into surrender. I think they hold the first place.

[Sliske]

- Recent
- Death count
- Number of countries involved
- Manner a lot of the deaths were accumulated (not merely fighting, but rounding up and slaughtering of humans)

If there was no death camps, WW2 would probably be remembered more like an honorable battle rather than the fight against evil that it is now. Of course theres war crimes and crimes against humanity in any war, but WW2 takes the cake on the amount of just unfiltered heinous shit that went on. It makes you think what would happen if a modern day dictator in a 3rd world country got their hands on machinery of the first world.

WW2 and how it ended (with the alliance of a shit ton of countries + nuking of japan) is likely one of the few reasons we haven't seen WW3. The threat of the UN + nukes is too great.

[Deleted]

It's the industrial revolution of genocide, thats how big the leap forward in terms on effectivity. Never before has it happened on such a massive scale and in such an industrial fashion.

[zenkai]

There have been numerous genocides in history and recent times too, but we seem to only concentrate on the Jewish holocaust. Why is this? What makes the holocaust so remarkable?

Researching what happened and looking at all the pictures of the mass graves, not to mention this was in recent history would answer your question

[bison91]

Because of the scope and general level of horror and inhuman acts. On top of that, some 40,000,000+ people died during the corresponding war, the highest war death toll...ever.

this this this. coz it was a horror for 6 milion jews who were dying in stoves.
3 million of them were in europe and other half was in ussr territory who got 27 million loses. including these same 3 million.

[JohnBrown1917]

I mean the average person will not be as aware of it as they are now the more time passes

I'd wager the average person is already pretty unaware of it compared to your average Joe in the 50's

It gets taugth in primary school here, I even think that kids of the ones in this city still visit the concentration camp this city had.

[Deleted]

If there was no death camps, WW2 would probably be remembered more like an honorable battle rather than the fight against evil that it is now.

Civilians were used as target practice for experimental weapons. Japanese experimental biological warheads produced at Unit 731 killed more than 500 000 chinese. Experimental fission bombs killed more than 300 000 japanese.

http://factsanddetails.com/asian/ca6.../item2516.html

Somebody who is more knowledgeable in WW2 than me could point to countless raids performed by both sides of conflict, with aim for civilian targets. I don't think the war would be honorable even without german or soviet labor camps.

[THE Bigzoman]

The death toll is not unparalleled, but in addition to being very, very interesting and scary in the way it came to be, it was also fairly recent and by a western country.

Too bad most holocaust education stops at "this was bad" and doesn't try to explain the context behind Hitler's rise to power and how he wooed the German people into empowering him.

The Holocaust and WW2 are textbook examples of what happens when a group of people are in horrid economic conditions. If you read The Economic consequences of Peace by John Maynard Keynes (who pretty much warned everyone that something like WW2 was going to happen), it adds more to the scary aspect that you're talking about. Keynes was pretty much the hobo in the street saying that the end is near that nobody listened to.

The Weimer Republic's hyperinflation crisis is an economist's horror story, beaten only by the great depression in scale and scope.


The following is how he closed his book. IMO, he called it spot on.

"But who can say how much is endurable, or in what direction men will seek at last to escape from their misfortunes?"

[StayTuned]

relatively speaking the mongols caused the largest genocide under Genghis Khan. Not in total numbers, but considering the total population of the planet during that time, they pretty much wiped out about 11 (!!!) percent of earth's total population. Estimates range around 40 million deaths in total