I have been hesitant about writing this article and have been putting it off for the better part of a year now because I know what sort of a reaction it is going to get from the general population.
Having listened to historical accounts of past war atrocities for the better part of my life I gradually came to suspect that some of the stories floating around were being exaggerated a bit depending on just who it was that was doing the telling.
I should start off by saying that I call this theory my "Factor of Ten" rule!
NOTE: This article means to suggest that misdeeds by the winners of any conflict are minimized by UP TO a factor of ten and atrocities by the losers exaggerated by UP TO a factor of ten. Just to clear up any confusion..... I did not mean to imply that it was always by that amount! Allan Janssen
We could get into all sorts of debates and facts and charts and graphs and quotes and claims and proclamations about historical "facts," but when everything is reduced to the bottom line it seems that any atrocity or bad deed perpetrated by the victors is diminished by a factor of "TEN" while anything naughty done by the losers is exaggerated by a factor of "TEN!"
(I'm sure everyone one has heard of, and will agree with the old expression; "History is written by the victors.")
I am going to give you some historical examples of this "Factor of ten" rule and urge you to give it a fair and comprehensive test to check it's validity.
Why not start with every bodies favorite whipping boy, Christianity!
And what have we got against Christianity, you may ask?
Why, The Inquisition!
From the mid 1400's c.e. till the mid 1700's c.e. the Church claimed to have killed 50,000 to 100,000 heretics and witches, while the actual count was in the half a million to one million mark! (Factor of Ten)
From 1500 c.e. till now the Western countries will tell you that millions of Aboriginals (Indians) were killed when the real figure is in the TENS of millions!
(This includes a million Aboriginals in Australia who had been peacefully living there for the past 50,000 years!)
From 1885 to the 1900's the Belgian Congo lost an official million people to genocide while the actual figure was about 10 million.
Starting in 1915 in Turkey, the government exterminated an official 150,000 Armenians while outside sources put the casualties at more like one and a half million! (1,500,000)
From 1920 to 1950 the Russian government claimed they lost 2 million people when the Communist government systematically exterminated millions of its citizens.
Some died from being worked to death in the camps of the gulag additional methods such as: terrorizing the public by random executions, purges, show trials, and artificially induced famines.
The death toll was eventually established at around 20 million, not 2 million!
In 1937 during the war between Japan and China, the Japanese invading army launched a massive attack on the city of Nanking -- then the capital of China.
Three days later, the Chinese defense forces retreated across the Yangtze River.
Then began a Japanese orgy of looting and mass execution where Japan claimed that 50,000 people were killed, but the actual figure was closer to 500,000. (Including 50,000 women who were also raped.)
(At this point, I need to point out that although I am a Canadian, I was born German and have had quite a few conversations with my relatives about what happened there during the Second World War, and this is what got me started down this whole road in the first place!)
I am talking about things that are done during wartime that no one wants to acknowledge and would rather forget about. But none the less they are historical facts and have to be looked at.
Especially if the facts are played lose and fast to hide guilt or remorse.
Most of these events you will likely agree with, or at least put in the realm of possibility, and one might cause quite a bit of outrage.
But, they must all be put under a microscope and seen for what they are!
Let's begin with Dresden in the second world war.
Before we go any further, most of my information was supplied by my great grandfather who was witness to most of the major events of the first half of the twentieth century!
(And by the way, he absolutely HATED the NAZI'S so don't think there was any biased reporting on his part!)
We will start with Dresden.
Dresden was a university town with absolutely no military significance whatsoever and towards the end of the war it became a refugee camp for between one half to three quarters of a million women and children fleeing the advancing Russian army.
There were no real concentrations of German troops in the city except what was needed to keep the women and kids moving westward.
(Everyone knew that the war was lost and millions of people were attempting to stay ahead of the Russians so that they could surrender to they Allies - Britain, U.S. Canada.)
Exactly fifty three years ago TODAY, the firebombing of Dresden was in full swing and I will let this article from Wikipedia tell the modern version of what happened!
The Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between 13 February and 15 February 1945, 12 weeks before the surrender of the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) of Nazi Germany, remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War.
The raids saw 1,300 heavy bombers drop over 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices in four raids, destroying 13 square miles (34 km2) of the city, the baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, and then causing a firestorm that consumed the entire city.
Estimates of civilian casualties vary greatly, but recent publications place the figure between 40,000 and 50,000.
The fact of the matter is folks, that shortly after the war the figure was placed at about a half a million women and children refugees (500,000+) who were incinerated in the firestorm, but that figure has been steadily revised downwards over the years.
Why it was revised could be due to many factors but one of the most compelling would be a sense of guilt over what was done.
Be that as it may, it was a long time ago and for better or worse, it is over and done with and we should move on. I only bring it up because this is by far not the only atrocity that has been distorted by the hands of time.
Just as the casualties of Dresden were minimized by a factor of ten, so were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Pacific campaign of the second world war. (AND BY THE WAY KIDS, BOMBING JAPAN WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS WAS NOT EVEN NECESSARY. THE WAR WAS ALREADY WON AND JAPAN WAS DRAFTING A PEACE TREATY... BUT THE U.S. NEEDED TO TEST THEIR BOMBS SO.................!)
Initial reports of the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima put the death toll at about fifty thousand, although to the credit of the U.S. this was later revised to 80- 100,000 people killed.
The reality of the matter was that on top of the casualties from the bomb itself, over half a million (500,000) perished from the firestorms that came after.
Once again the "Factor of Ten" comes into play!
Now, if we stick to the same general time period and look a bit further to the East, the root cause of the Holodomor (Genocide of The Ukraine) is a subject of scholarly debate.
Some scholars have argued that the Soviet policies that caused the famine may have been designed as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, and therefore fall under the legal definition of genocide.
Others, however, conclude that the Holodomor was a consequence of the economic problems associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialization.
But, since last year, (March 2008) the parliament of Ukraine and many governments of other countries have recognized the actions of the Soviet government as an act of genocide.
Whatever you want to call it, this extinction was originally pegged at about 250,000 to half a million people by the Russians but further study brought out a figure of 2-5 million people. (Once again the "Factor of Ten" rule!)
Now, my friends, we come to the part that is going to cause a lot of trouble and outrage, and yet to be true to myself I have to present what I believe, and let the dice fall where they may.
The subject that I have been agonizing over is the "Holocaust!"
That's right kids, that "big bad bogey man" that just won't go away as long as there is still one living breathing Jew walking around on this planet!
You see, that's where the German's made one of their biggest mistakes. They took on a group OF PEOPLE WHO developed the where-with-all to fight back!
And you can bet that the Jews ain't gonna let anyone forget what was done to them!
No sir!
And why,you ask? That's easy, because they now have the economic might, coupled with a long memory, and they are going to take this and USE IT! (And remember bunky, revenge is sweet so who can blame them!)
The "fact" of the Holocaust has never been an issue for me, but I feel that this ("Factor of Ten") rule should be applied here as well, and this is where we might have a few problems!
This mass genocide perpetrated by Germany during World War 11 has been called the Shoah in Hebrew, the Holocaust in English, and the Devouring among the Roma.(Gypsies)
According to popular lore some 10 million people were first declared sub-human and then murdered.
Some were killed when the towns and cities in which they lived were captured by German troops.
Others were rounded up, and transported to extermination camps, where the gas ovens waited.
Jews: Officially about 6 million were killed, mostly in death camps. Hitler's stated goal was to completely clear all Europe of Jews.
Poles: They said that about 3 million were killed.
Then about a million Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and disabled persons. (Germans who were crippled or mentally ill.)
O.K. Pay attention now. According to official estimates that should total about 10 million, but I learned something different growing up German and hearing first hand accounts from friends and relatives.
First of all the part about the crippled and mentally ill. WRONG, Germany had a welfare state and people with severe physical or mental problems were sheltered and taken care of in State run hospitals. They were considered the most vulnerable part of the population and had to be sheltered. Not killed in death camps.
Got that!
There was no official policy on Gypsies, Homosexuals or Jehovah's Witnesses and outside of any personal feelings or discrimination, they were left alone.
Here comes the big one! The Jews and the Poles.
Did the Holocaust happen? OF COURSE IT DID!
Was it exaggerated by the winners? Of course it was!
Sorry to say it Folks, but I have to believe my Great Grandfather, (Who hated the Nazi's) when he told me straight out that "there weren't anywhere near 6 million Jews in all of Europe before the war, and it would have been impossible to gas that many in the time they had anyway!"
Taking in the "factor of Ten" rule and other information I have dug up, I can make a rough guess that there were about 500,000 to 600,000 thousand Jews killed, a quarter of a million Poles, and a bunch of criminals and low-life's as well, since Germany was very "law and order" at the time!
That's about a million people killed ............, or 999,999 too many!
Now please, do not call me a Holocaust denier because that is far from the truth.
The only claim I make here is that in this case the winners have once again employed the "Factor of Ten" rule!
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E ! and as a paperback H E R E !
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://allans-perspective.blogspot.com
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Comments: 56
I dont think we will ever know the actual total.
But on the other hand...... even one person is one too many!
Chuck you are the one who should be ashamed. I would have thought that from the tone of my article there is no way I would suggest denial.
For you to imply that there is, is one of the reasons I was hesitant to write this piece.
Reactionary people like yourself should think a little longer before firing off a letter..
Allan W Janssen
Is there even a shadow of a doubt that your Great grandfather may have been mistaken somehow?
There are many things my father has said that turned out to be wrong, just by conducting simple research and basic mathematics. Now, I'm not saying that you're ill-informed; just merely suggesting that something about the statistical nature, as stated here, of the Holocaust may have been under-researched.
Now, on the subject of the gardening I've been doing today. Since this is my day off from work, I have been busying myself planting 2 Fig trees. That went very well. I also managed to plant the Hawthorn Bush, as well as, the Blackberry Bush.
I'm taking a break, at the moment, and have read your article, which I do find very interesting, and rated you a 10, and it is a controverial article, but I do see your point.
upon returning to my gardening. I'll be planting the onons, and the seed potatoes, next. It's a warm , breezey, sunny day, today, and I'll be enjoying the outdoors, for most of it.
"They took on a group OF PEOPLE WHO developed the where-with-all to fight back!"
How did they fight back? By hiding and starving to death?
"That's right kids, that "big bad bogey man" that just won't go away as long as there is still one living breathing Jew walking around on this planet!"
"And you can bet that the Jews ain't gonna let anyone forget what was done to them!"
Why should they let the world forget? If anything we need to be worried about not getting all of the first hand accounts from survivors that we can before they die. Even if there were some mass Jewish death the rest of us should make sure to never forget. Anymore than we should forget what we did to the Japanese.
As for Christianity, there is more death to lay at their feet then just the inquisition.
It is rather sad that the one thing that has kept them alive as a people and race over the centuries (Their steadfast resolve to hold onto their "Jewishness" and not be assimilated) is also the very thing that has that has caused them the most anguish.
I'll bet even the Borg could not assimilate them!
I doubt we can every know the total and real numbers of persons killed in this horrible time. But, as you also said, one was too many.
Likewise population of Hiroshima should be relatively easy to fjnd in pre-war sources, or credible references to same.
Before I picked up this topic, I'd do a little real research on European population and demographics. Probably take an hour or two at any decent library.
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/homosexuals_02/
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/disabilities_02/
There is information and there are photos concerning Jehovah's Witnesses and the Roma, too.
My sister-in-law's husband is German. He came to America as a college student, and now has a dual citizenship. He is one of my favorite people. He was never taught that the Holocaust did not happen, and, while the numbers may not be known, it truly does not matter. Your great grandfather would be right that if they did not kill as many as reported it was just because they did not have enough time.
How bigoted we tend to be, when we cannot step out of our own situation, strip away current politics and see this from a more humanistic and spiritual perspective.
Since we cannot do that, lets take a look from a more realistic angle, the perspective of pay back.
The perpetrators and the victims of the Holocaust may be dead and dying off, but they leave behind families that are still, after all these years, negatively impacted. This will never be over, the human toll is too high to be forgivable. Fudging about numbers, and diminishing this human tragedy in order to wipe away a collective guilt - is futile. These horrific events took place in our own life time - it is still a current event. It shaped everything and still impacts all of us today. These atrocities will not be forgotten or forgiven, and will breed pay back and many more wars in the future.
The Holocaust isn't all about the six million Jews that were killed. The estimated human toll of that war was 47,661,800 civilian deaths, and 25,280,100 military deaths. That is a total of 72,941,900 families ruined - all around the world. Add to that WWI and all the other numbers you crunch and tallied and you have an entire century of people and families - devoured! How can this possibly be set aside by the people who suffered, or forgotten. No amount of number crunching or wishful thinking is going to wipe that slate clean.
The victims and their families lost EVERYTHING one can possibly imagine! A family can't come back from that in a few years, or even a few decades. Never mind that they lost all their money, any and all of their lands and property, along with their birth right to live in the countries where their families have lived and died, and have been established for centuries. This will not be forgotten, and one day the descendants of these people will come back and take back what has been stolen from them.
No amount of number crunching will wash away the collective guilt, of those descended from the perpetrators. Land and property losses are marginal when compared to the fact that the Holocaust victims lost their loved ones. They lost their children, their fathers and their mothers, and countless children had to grow up as orphans. Many had to grow up in single parent households without the contributions of help, love and support a father, mother, uncle, aunt or grandparents would normally offer. The Holocaust will not be over for those families - for many more generations to come. And their descendants will never forget - no matter where they have been driven off to. The day of pay back - will come.
The Holocaust isn't just all about the Jews or the Gypsies. Countless people from all over Europe were displaced. Those people who have been driven from their home land - will be back to claim what is rightfully theirs. As is, the mass migration of humanity that was caused by the Holocaust has had a far reaching impact on our planet. It has displaced other people all around the globe and has shaped the negative politics that plague us today. And will cause more of the same - for centuries to come.
All the feverish number crunching and yammering in the world will not make this unforgivable autrocity go away. The cataclysmic catastrophe of the Holocaust is still unfolding, pay back will come, and there isn't a thing you can do about it.
I'd have to disagree with you on the necessity of bombing Japan in WW II. Though the Emperor wanted peace, the generals had sworn and were still swearing that they would fight to the last man or woman!
My brother was in the islands as a seebee and he was scheduled to be in the invasion of Japan. Harry Truman surely saved his life! In all probability, the number of Japanese that died was less than would have been killed in an invasion, especially if the generals held to their intent.
I was a kid but I remember the contention of most of the adults, that we would win over the Germans but that the Japanese would be extremely difficult to beat. I'm not at all sure on what that was based but do know I herd it frequently.
The truth is. mp one knows whether the Japanese would have surrendered without massive losses in their homeland or not, we can only speculate. But even if the y were going to surrender the next day, we had no way of being sure of that. We had demanded their surrender just before the bombing and it was rebuffed. They could have released information pertaining to a surrender simply to mislead their enemy.
Germany certainly didn't surrender utill they had taken massive losses in their homeland. And I'm sure the US would have been in the same state if it came down to surrender or be invaded, we'd take a chance on the invasion. However, a new and devastating weapon was introduced to Japan that was simply overwhelming and gave the Emperor the leverage he needed to order the surrender.
War is hell and that is giving it way too much credit!
But, then I took Pelagius Hereticus advice and did some research on earlier histories of Jews in Europe since "recent estimates might be suspect" and found this............
In the year 1764 the WORLDWIDE Jewish population was 1.2 million people and had been pretty stable at that figure for quite some time.
Then in the next one hundred and seventy years the population miraculously went up to 11.7 million (because over two million Jews also emmigrated to the United states by 1924) to give Europe it's 9.5 million population.
No, I don't think my great grandfather was that far off!
The revisionists need to be looked at!
Don't forget, every war the U.S. has been in during the past two hundred years has been mainly used as a testing ground for new weapons.
Eisehhower didn' issue his warning about the "Military Industrial Complex" for nothing but too many people either didn't take him seriously or just outright ignored him!
Allan Janssen,
I am confused (and it is late and I am tired) in every other case you cited the number of casualties increased by your factor of 10, in the case of the Holocaust you are dividing by 10. Are you implying that since the allies won WWII that they increased by factor of 10 and in when in bombings, crusades etc. that if the person giving the estimate of those killed/injured was divided by 10 because they won?
2 With due respect to your great grandfather not all concentration camps were in Germany. Not all deaths were from gassing, but also shooting, medical experimentation, starvationg, etc.
3 - you said the Jews "ain't gonna forget what was done to them" I say they shouldn't. And when the last Holocaust, concentration camp survivor passes away may we as a human race remember. Because learning History is vital to the future.
4 - Many camps kept books as to who came in, towns kept lists of people taken, etc. etc. There were trails to act as evidence. I grant you are not denying the Holocaust, however it is trivilazing it. I hope I am wrong on that one.
5. I have heard the numbers of those killed in Concentration Camps to be at 6 million. However (and this is where the lateness of the night comes back into play) I am uncertain if it is 6 million Jews or 6 million of those imprisoned in concentration camps since there were non-Jews there also. However the vast majority were Jewish.
6. If your lesser number of those who died in the camps has any truth to it, then it implies that some 5 million people walked away from everything and everyone and never spoke of it again. Now I have no doubt that some people may have chosen to get out of dodge and hide their identity but 5million?
7. At the start of WWII the majority of the worlds Jews were living in Europe, mainly eastern Europe, (Poland and the Soviet Union) and that number was 9.5 million. Many did not even make it to gas chambers or even camps but were shot by Mobile Kiling Units. At the end of the war NEARLY 6 million jews and millions of others.
8 I can understand your belief in your great grandfather and what he witnessed in WWII but did he go to Poland after it's occupation where the larger camps were? I have heard talks given to students from survivors and I believe them. Pre war Jewish population in Wurope was 9.5 million post was 3.5 million
9= (one over oops) Regardless of it is 1 million or 6 million (which records indicate closer to 6 million) we have found Hitler's plans which was the final solution which clearly showed that they would have murdered all Jews of full blood and then there were special clauses for those who were half, fourth, eighth, and how they looked. So even if you take the numbers out, if shows that there was a great travesty from the Nazi party (Like your great grandfather I too despise their role in history) that was already in action and that they planned on exterminating all of them.
This article was not really about the holocaust at all but I knew that's where it would go.
The point I was making was addressed in Deborah's 1st paragraph. In war the winner usually diminishes their own atrocities by a factor of up to ten and exaggerates the losers sins by a factor of ten.
And I still have to stand by my estimates of how the Jewish populationj in Europe was about 1.2 million for hundreds of years until 1764 and then in 170 years suddelnly jumped to more than twelve million! And by the way tht 1.2 million jews was a Worldwide estimate. Not just europe.
I am not trying to diminish the holocaust in any way, I just think someone is playing with the figures.
Allan, I do agree that the holocaust was just one example of genocide. There have been countless others, and they continue to occur. What's happening in Zimbabwe right now resembles genocide; Robert Mugabe is starving his own people and subjecting them to a cholera epidemic for no reason beyond his power hunger.
Numbers do matter, very much. holocaust denial is a pointless activity which seems to represent an intent to minimize the importance of the jewish people. Pope Benedict just removed the excommunication order against a bishop Williamson who to this day insists that only 300,000 jews were killed by the nazis. That's absurd. The nazis would have had to have been incompetent to post paltry numbers like 300k. They were far from incompetent, they were very very good at whatever they put their hands to.
War is proof that as a species we haven't evolved all that much !
By the way the Inquisition was the Catholic Church and the Pope not all of Christianity. In fact not all Catholics as far as that goes, most who died there were of that faith.
Oh and my very Beloved Daughter-in law is descended from Russian Jews as are my grand children.
While searching the available Nazi death lists for any of my family that may be on them, I input random family surnames of people that I know in my day to day life, right here in the good old USA. Well, guess what? The results were astounding! I was SHOCKED to find more than a few listed on it. I found that just about every kind of surname is on that list - from the most common German names, of course Jewish, English, French, every kind of Slavic and Russian, and even common Spanish surnames. And that was just from one camp!
Try it for yourself.
http://en.mauthausen-memorial.at/index_open.php
The results might amaze you. Be warned, it could be a very enlightening, sad and sobering experience.
You write on your blog re response to your article,"What I do know is that I didn't get a peep about all the other stuff I mentioned except the Holocaust, and this brought letters by the score. (90% negative of course.)"
I don't know how accurate your sources on the Holocaust but the reliability of many accounts is questionable. Hitler didn't manufacture the stories of the "Jews" (whom many claim were not real "Jews" but Khazar tribes).The Jews have been used as scapegoats for interests seeking global domination for centuries. It is a question whether Israel has not become a sacrifical lamb to serve the interests of players in the Great Game. This can be viewed in the broader perspective of the contest for global domination among European powers.
Your comments on the use of the atomic bomb are questionable. The US had firebombed Japanese cities many times before. Perhaps 100,000 died in 30 minutes in Tokyo, for example. The decision to surrender may have been taken by those leaders who weren't even aware of the two atom bombs. It may not have impressed them if they were. They had sought peace for some time. Whatever Truman knew or thought, the use of the atomic bombs could be seen as a message to Russia.
You discuss the bombing of Dresden. There is also evidence that Eisenhower was directly responsibile for the death of a million German POWs after the German surrender.
Throughout history every power has its "Jews." The Palestinians are Israel's Jews. It is part of what Stroupe calls (http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KB05Dj03.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/KB06Aa01.html) "The contest for global domination".
The Great Game between East and West is many centuries long . World Wars I and II and the post-war confrontation are decribed differently by many historians.
Germany lost two world wars by being denied oil from the Middle East and the Caspian. Perhaps Hitler knew in 1942 that his supply was cut off and Germany couldn't win - and so did Churchill and he prevented the invasion of Europe for several years? 80% percent of the German army never fought the Western allies. Perhaps over 25 million Russians died. (The US lost 400,000 in Europe and Asia.) Was Britain's (Neville Chamberlain's ) game to encourage Hitler make war? Obviously, Hitler had to be defeated, but he was a player in the Great Game.
Describing the current confrontation Stroupe writes , " The fact that many of the most prominent and powerful world leaders likely imbibe their own spin and deceive themselves into thinking the motives for their policies and actions are nobler than they are greedy doesn't fundamentally change the true picture one iota. It only conveniently masks the true picture for the imbiber of ideology-inspired spin and propaganda, whether it is that spewed by the East or else by the West.
This is the person who doesn't want, or is unable to admit to himself, that our world order, at the governmental levels at least, is all about the insatiable greed for wealth, power and dominance by almost any means, notwithstanding the occasional and brief appearance of genuine men and women of peace who are certainly notable, but nonetheless ineffective, exceptions to the rule."
Stroupe puts in perspective our current situation:"The drunken greed for global dominance, only reinforced by colossal mutual distrust, has run so deep on both sides for so long, and has so influenced and complicated the thinking and policies on both sides, that sufficiently setting these obstacles aside now in favor of real progress toward compromise and accommodation is an enormous and incredibly complex undertaking which is probably next to impossible, if not literally impossible, for the grossly imperfect humans that head up the major powers in our global order.
On both sides, the culture of the epic contest for domination of the globe has long since become an inseparable thread that is intertwined throughout almost every level of government, policy-making, and analysis, notwithstanding the frequent but hollow assurances to the contrary from our leaders.
Perhaps US President Barack Obama is genuine in his desire to move the global order from contest to compromise and accommodation. I'm reasonably sure he is genuine in his desire to do so. But the historical record is not encouraging with respect to the ability of such individual leaders of peace to bring real change to a longstanding world order fundamentally characterized by rivalry between its major and minor factions, greed for power, bloodshed and war.
Throughout that record, such men and women of peace were all too often themselves ultimately corrupted by power, or else their voices were drowned out or marginalized by the majority, or they were literally snuffed out to make room for someone else who would carry on in the ignoble way of the long line of predecessors."
You should have continued to put off this article, it says nothing but to provoke and it is useless at that. The Germans kept very good records, the first major use of data processing on this scale in the world. What is the point of writing a light article on such a subject?
Clarke
> Throughout history every power has its "Jews." The Palestinians are
> Israel's Jews.
What a pile of crap. Not every great power decides to murder millions of people for no reason. You and many other's constant ability to speak in terms like this show the kind of callousness and ignorance that allows it to happen.
This kind of thinking and these kind of articles and comments puts the usefulness of Gather in question. What is the point in it? Whoring for points and attention is a waste of time.
That "the victors write the history books" is an observation as old as history itself. That said, there are good numbers on several of the recent events mentioned. They may take a little digging, but that is the difference between scholarship and blather.
Dresden - Population about 650,000. Possibly increased to 900,000 by refugees and military. 500,000 dead would require the destruction of the entire city and serious wounds to the entire population. Damage in Dresden primarily limited to downtown. Suburbs and outlying industrial areas largely untouched. Post-raid aerial photography exists.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki - again actual populations of cities and known number of survivors preclude death estimates being off by more than 100% at most. There simply weren't enough people there. There are dependable numbers from pre-war documents.
Nanking - The Japanese at the time (and some few today) tried to deny the Nanking massacre, but the current accepted estimates of 200,000 to 500,000 vary primarily based on where one defines the event in time and space. (How much of the surrounding area to include, and when to define the beginning and end of the casualty count for that 'event'.) The consensus is around 300,000. That the Imperial Japanese made a (pathetic) attempt to cook the numbers is irrelevant.
Dresden, Nanking, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were all events occurring in limited time and space. Numbers are easily checked and hard to spin. Neither Germany, China nor Japan ceased to exist as nations or are currently occupied or dominated by the victors. The Romans could say whatever they wished to about Carthage, because there was no Carthage left to dispute them. This does not apply to these events. (Unless one wishes to invoke an Illuminati plot to rewrite all resources back over 100 years.)
The Holocaust and Jewish population of Europe:
While not as defined as the previous events, reasonable estimates are possible for a lay researcher willing to burn a few hours. It will probably require a good library and a friendly reference librarian. There exist encyclopedias, atlases and similar reference works from pre-WW II Europe. The population numbers should be fairly dependable. The Jewish population numbers may be less trustworthy, but one can look at the total population and make a judgment as to the reasonableness of the 9.5M estimate commonly used. Numbers found for "Population of Europe" vary in their definitions of Europe. Main point is, make the effort to do the numbers or just shut up. Your Great grandfather is not a suitable reference. I have no idea how many Jews there are in the USA, much less all of North America. There's no particular reason he would know how many Jews were in Europe.
Again, the "take-home message" is:
If you plan to pick up an historical Hot Horseshoe without the tongs of serious research, expect to get burned and don't cry about the blisters. Quit sniveling and hit the books.
The Inquisition, Stalinist Soviet purges, and Turkish-Armenian conflict are all harder to quantify due to the extended time frame and lack of reliable census data for the times and places involved. None of these are really comparable to the Holocaust in terms of the reliable data available. These are the sorts of events that keep historians in business! The 'truth' of the Inquisition is lost in time. The other two are addressable, but require an investment of resources and expertise beyond that available to the casual researcher.
The thoughtless and sloppy conclusions expressed in your posts on this topic are an insult to the victims, the survivors, the community of serious historians, and the concept of scholarship.
Do you really imagine the Jews have suffered "more" than many other groups in history? The powers-that-be always have "reasons."
A Jew is always very quick to point out that he is a Jew.
If a Catholic did this with the same zeal it would look and sound funny. (Of course the Jehovah's Witnesses are just as quick as the Jews to point out their religion but nobody likes them anyway so it doesn't matter!)
For the Jews, the claim to be seperate and apart from the main population has been both their greatest blessing and biggest curse, all at the same time.
> Do you really imagine the Jews have suffered "more" than many other
> groups in history?
Huh?, that is a point that I did not comment on here or anywhere else. What are you talking about. The powers that be always have reasons ... so Clarke, explain what would be the reason for killing 6 million people? Is there a reason there you would agree with?
Allan, you really do not know what you are talking about. Most Jews in Nazi Germany were secular and even fought for Germany in WWI. In fact, without IBM's data processing technology they would not even have been able to be distinguished from "purebred" Aryan Germans, of which there are not really that many anyway.
The way it was done was through a census in about 1930 I think it was, but could be wrong. They used IBM punch cards to run filter programs finding relatives and inferring Jewishness by computer program. That is how they knew who they wanted to call a Jew, who to just terrorize the holy hell out of, and who to ship off to the camps.
Anyway, I guess I have stumbled into a meeting of the 4th Reich here with comments like this:
> Jew is always very quick to point out that he is a Jew.
This is plain ignorant, and to say that in Italy, Spain of elsewhere that Jews lived in their own neighborhoods by choice when in many cases they were relegated to ghettos by the majority is another lie.
In fact, the Jews have been very intelligent about leveraging their positions, such as to invent modern banking by going past the rules of not loaning money for interest and many other things.
The fact is the "nazis" of the world are angry that despite their attempts to make certain people subhuman, and I include slavery and disenfranchisement in that, that all people are intelligent and adaptable enough to eventually survive and prosper - witness the Jews and the blacks in America.
When will you people learn that there is no basis in science or politics for racism and hate.
They did not leave to go to Israel ... Israel did not exist at the time.
What time?
June 2 1941, 100 Jews were murdered and terrorize in a pogram that
wounded several hundred others and made homeless many more.
Their homes and property were looted.
So, when I hear crying the Palestinians now, this kind of thing went
on all over the Middle East before and during WWII kicking the Jews
out of the Middle East, basically forcing them to go to the area
of what was trans-Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
The idea was that the Arab countries, and Iran, would be allied with
Germany and the Jews would already be in a ghetto in Israel, easy
to exterminate.
Now that the table turned, and the Jews survived and created Israel,
the Muslims simply cannot stand it. They have the shame and horror
of being even worse than Nazis ... and their present behaviors are
pretty understandable and denial and self-contempt.
Right, and that's why he went on a rant for a page and a half !
As in if you don't agree with my point of view you're an idiot!
Another quality I seem to have that you lack, is brevity!
Verily I say, well done chaps, and now on to the next injustice!
"Clarke, you are maybe lying or ignorant about the Iraqi Jews.
They did not leave to go to Israel ... Israel did not exist at the time.
What time?
June 2 1941, 100 Jews were murdered and terrorize in a pogram that
wounded several hundred others and made homeless many more.
Their homes and property were looted.
So, when I hear crying the Palestinians now, this kind of thing went
on all over the Middle East before and during WWII kicking the Jews
out of the Middle East, basically forcing them to go to the area
of what was trans-Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
The idea was that the Arab countries, and Iran, would be allied with
Germany and the Jews would already be in a ghetto in Israel, easy
to exterminate.
Now that the table turned, and the Jews survived and created Israel,
the Muslims simply cannot stand it. They have the shame and horror
of being even worse than Nazis ... and their present behaviors are
pretty understandable and denial and self-contempt. "
>>>>
Bruce,
You don't know about the history of the Middle East or Israel, except from unreliable "pro-Zionist" stuff. The population of Baghdad was about one fifth Jewish in 1948. When Israel became a state, they started to emigrate. (The Zionists in Israel sent agents to bomb Synagogues etc to "assist" the process, as they did in Egypt and elsewhere.)
The 1941 "Farhud" in Baghdad you mention in which approximately 180 Jews (you say 100) were killed and about 240 were wounded was part of Rashid Ali's anti- British, pro-Axis coup ( which led to his exile to Germany) was not typical of the the Iraqi Jewish situation.
Hitler sponsored the Grand Mufti, but he was then adopted by the British to oppose the Jews in Palestine under their Mandate until 1948.
Ben Gurion's plan to transfer the Palestinians and expand "Israel" through "perpetual war" is the Zionist agenda, creating wars to achieve this from day one and deceiving the people in the name of "security," as Ben Gurion's successor as Prime Minister, Moshe Sharett, has well described.
The next thing ya know I've got enough stuff here to write another book!
I wouldn't for a minute argue concerning the Generals being happy to test, those few who even knew about the nuclear bombs. You know, that the crew who dropped the first bomb was not fully advised what they were carrying and dropping. That project was a closely held secret so not many generals actually knew.
And I agree, that we need to take seriously, Eisenhower's warning!
The myths created by the Zionists developed from the 19th century.
A good source is When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, a book by Tel Aviv University scholar Shlomo Zand ? He covers the hintory of Palestine very well.Zand estimates that perhaps 10,000 ancient Judeans were vanquished during the Roman wars, and the remaining inhabitants of ancient Judea remained, converting to Islam and assimilating with their conquerors when Arabs subjugated the area. They became the progenitors of today's Palestinian Arabs, many of whom now live as refugees who were exiled from their homeland during the 20th century. There were of course many Arabs who were Christians and remained so.
In other parts of Islam ,Jewish communities flourished , however , and had high status for centuries. As I have noted, I have friends from Iraq who emigrated from Baghdad after 1948. Part of their education when young was to live with the Arab tribes. Baghdad was perhaps one fifth Jewish until 1948, and theirs was one of the largest and most influential factions in the complex Iraqi society. The Zionists sent agents to Baghdad, Cairo and other countries to bomb synagogues to "assist" the expelling of the Jews. Jews of Middle Eastern heritage are discriminated against in Israel. Ehud Barak was Iraqi and distinguished himself in the military before becoming Prime Minister. But many Iraqi and other Middle Eastern Jews are not treated as equal to European settlers.