From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties)
The Holocaust took the lives of between 5.1 to 6.0 million Jews.
Other groups persecuted and killed by the Nazis included
- Gypsies: 130,000 to 500,000
- Handicapped: 150,000 to 200,000
- Soviet POWs: 2.6 to 3 million
- Poles: 1.8 to 1.9 million
- Soviet civilians: 4.5 to 8.2 million
- Gay males: about 10,000
- Jehovah's Witnesses: 1,000
- Roman Catholics: 1,000 to 2,000
- Freemasons: unknown number
"The fate of black people from 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany and in German-occupied territories ranged from isolation to persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder."
From 1933-1939 the number of German deaths in Nazi concentration camps were 165,415, primarily Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, and trade union leaders.
The above is NOT to denigrate our loss.
It is an attempt to make a point that we were not the only group that the Germans - with plenty of help from their Eastern European friends - slaughtered "just because."
As long as we continue to remind the world that 6 million Jews were murdered and as long as we fail to also tell the world that these same "civilized" Germans, and their friends, killed others as well, the holocaust will remain a "Jewish event."
"Jewish events" only get our attention; the rest of the world already is forgetting.
It was not just a "Jewish event" and both we and the world need to acknowledge that and remember that.
There is no denying that 6 million (6,000,000) is a large number of lives lost - how many survived with lives destroyed, how many generations were lost - but we were not the only group to be singled out.
If truth be known, the Gypsies probably suffered, if not a greater proportional loss than we, then a similar loss. According to Modern History Sourcebook: Gypsies in the Holocaust (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/gypsy-holo.html), "It is known that perhaps 250,000 Gypsies were killed, and that proportionately they suffered losses greater than any other group of victims except Jews."
Like us, the Gypsies have a long history of persecution at the hands of the Germans, a history that precedes German unification. Indeed, some of the anti-Gypsy actions mirror anti-Jewish actions.
By the by, let's stop talking about "anti-Semitism." Our cousins, the Arabs, also are Semites. What we face is not "anti-Semitism"; what we face is either "anti-Jewish" or "anti-Israel" - there are no other options. True enough, there are those who are "anti-Arab" or "anti-Moslem" - which depends on (a) the price of oil (anti-Arab) or (b) the latest Islamic-sponsored terror attack, unless of course if the attack is against Jews in Israel or, it seems, any place on the globe.
A pretty good book about the Gypsies and the Germans is The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies by Guenter Lewy. My copy was borrowed from the local lending library.
Most sources I've seen suggest that the Gypsies lack the capacity to tell their story. Add that to a reluctance to share anything with the "world outside the Roma world" and it is understandable that, compared to knowledge of the slaughter of our people, the Gypsy holocaust is unknown.
We, Jews, need to tell their story as best as we are able.
We, Jews, also need to remind the world that the Germans and their friends made it Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to torture and murder anyone who was "not like" them, even if, as in the case of the Gypsies, the persecuted truly were "Aryans."
We may not agree with the philosophy or sexual or political preferences of the people the Germans and their friends sent to their deaths, but we must - must - tell the world again and again and again that while we lost 6 million, a number that excludes Jews serving in the armies and navies facing the Axis, many, many more millions also were persecuted - tortured and murdered - by the Germans and their friends.
We were not alone. It was not a "Jewish only" event and we all - humanity - must both remember and be vigilant to assure it doesn't happen again.
Not to us.
Not to any group.
yohanon
yohanon.glenn @ gmail.com
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