Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't see it as a problem because I don't think the Nazi holocaust has been elevated to "THE Holocaust." I think it's just a matter of that term having evolved to refer to those particular circumstances.
I don't really see the distinction. The word has essentially been hijacked so that it can only be applied to the Nazi holocaust. This special connotation suggests that other holocausts are not comparable or equally significant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marlow
The question of why school children aren't taught about the Armenian genocide is a different one. My guess is because it happened 100 years ago and no one alive today was alive then. Also, the United States was directly involved in liberating the camps and many survivors immigrated here. Israel was established as a new nation subsequent to the Holocaust and the U.S. has close ties to Israel.
I was using the Armenians just as an example. That it was many years ago or included direct US participation seems largely irrelevant. Moreover, our involvement was not in response to the genocide taking place.
None of the others were aimed at destroying an entire people. Also there are some such as the Holodomer that are capitalized.
But the Holocaust (or Shoah) wsa aimed at the permanent obliteration of the Jewish people, consigning their artifacts to museums. My synagogue has a Torah scroll rescued from one such Czech "museum."
Even nowadays there are many that would rather that the Jewish people go out of existence. They mask it as "anti-Zionism" or domestically "affirmative action." The end purpose for all of those is to degrade or destroy the Jews as a people.
That's just not so. As I mentioned before, "THE Holocaust" is hardly unique in that it included ethnic cleansing.
I've read through a number of the responses and congratulated some on theirs, but frankly I don't think they've touched on why I believe it should be now and always referred to as "THE Holocaust," and the annihilation of so many Jews is only part of it TO ME.
Yes, Hitler DID target Jews. In fact, he tromped through countries with his jack boots to seek them out and send them to their deaths, killing others in his wake. That alone was an atrocity -- maybe not THE ATROCITY, but definitely an atrocity. But that was only the beginning.
What makes it THE HOLOCAUST to me is that it didn't stop there. The action brought to bear the anti-Semitic racism of non-Jews everywhere, which in itself was heinous. It went FURTHER. Because the Japanese "piggy backed" onto the effort to attempt their own initiatives while the rest of the world was up in arms (literally) about Hitler's invasion -- and not REALLY about the Jews, it brought out the US big guns, the atom bomb. For me in my post WWII generation, the view of the Holocaust was more about THE BOMB than it was about the Jews.
This emphasizes to me that it is now "THE Holocaust" because it was the point when not only did the depth of anti-Semiticism in the world literally get thrown in our faces, forcing us to take a stand with or against the Jews (and btw the US was one of the last to offer them refuge), but it also showed clearly what extent mankind was willing to go in war. (Much, much TOO far IMO.)
For that reason, it is not just about the destruction of a particular race, but a total and complete black mark on the depths of human depravity in the face of conflict. It is an embarrassment that has left what I hope is a permanent mark against racism and war.
A mark that far too many now have chosen to ignore.
This would be a valid point if the term was used to connote the totality of destruction seen from WWII. The level of destruction on all sides could probably be fairly labeled unparalleled. So would it be fair then to consider the Japanese civilians killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki "Holocaust victims"? Should they be memorialized in the Holocaust Museum as well? What about the ethnic Germans slaughtered following the war? The other victims of Hitler's regime, which likely included ~3 million Soviets, have always been largely a footnote to the "6 million Jews".
So while that may be your personal view, "THE Holocaust" has never been in reference to the cumulative tragedy of the war.
This would be a valid point if the term was used to connote the totality of destruction seen from WWII. The level of destruction on all sides could probably be fairly labeled unparalleled. So would it be fair then to consider the Japanese civilians killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki "Holocaust victims"? Should they be memorialized in the Holocaust Museum as well? What about the ethnic Germans slaughtered following the war? The other victims of Hitler's regime, which likely included ~3 million Soviets, have always been largely a footnote to the "6 million Jews".
So while that may be your personal view, "THE Holocaust" has never been in reference to the cumulative tragedy of the war.
As far as I know, the question asked was for a personal view, since no one is authorized to speak for us all.
As for the question of the Japanese, when I was in what was then known as junior highschool, there was much discussion about the Japanese victims of the bomb as victims of "THE Holocaust." It wasn't until I read this thread that I realized that we now see it as only a Nazi-Jew topic. I can only attribute that to the elevation in US world dominance and our allied status with Japan. I imagine if Japan had not become a trade partner, or if the US had not become the last power standing (so to speak), the victims of THE BOMB would still be considered Holocaust victims. Bottom line: we've "re-written" history by underplaying our role in the deaths and suffering of millions because we are the ones that now carry the big guns.
I suspect that is a status that is not going to continue indefinitely, but that is another topic for another thread.
1) It wasn't the "jewish Holocaust" and while you may cite jewish deaths there were millions of others as well.
2) It coincided with and was part of WW2 which brings obvious global acknowledgment. Many other genocides were vastly more limited in global scope and associated warfare. (It also spread over much of Europe instead of being limited to one or two countries)
3) Documentation, film crews around at the time of actual camp liberations and then the sheer number of living breathing survivors and their accounts which found their way into culture with books like the Diary of Anne Frank etc. Pictures are wayyyyy more powerful than reading some dusty book about some genocide 150 years ago somewhere.
4) Controversial to this day you have the state of Israel created after the war and that has it's roots in the Holocaust. Opponents of Israel often like to claim it never even happened to try to weaken their legitimacy and of course it's used as a rallying cry there as well.
So, to recap. It was part of WW2, extremely well documented and filmed and has a bearing to this day on geo-politics involving a nuclear armed nation in the middle of the oil rich middle-east.
If it had just been a purge within Nazi Germany killing 2 million jews away from film crews and WW2 hadn't happened and there was no Israel then it would be of much much lesser historical note and much of the public would hardly know about it.
As far as I know, the question asked was for a personal view, since no one is authorized to speak for us all.
As for the question of the Japanese, when I was in what was then known as junior highschool, there was much discussion about the Japanese victims of the bomb as victims of "THE Holocaust." It wasn't until I read this thread that I realized that we now see it as only a Nazi-Jew topic. I can only attribute that to the elevation in US world dominance and our allied status with Japan. I imagine if Japan had not become a trade partner, or if the US had not become the last power standing (so to speak), the victims of THE BOMB would still be considered Holocaust victims. Bottom line: we've "re-written" history by underplaying our role in the deaths and suffering of millions because we are the ones that now carry the big guns.
I suspect that is a status that is not going to continue indefinitely, but that is another topic for another thread.
I regret to tell ya friend, if you haven't realized until 2015, by way of a thread on CD, that "THE Holocaust" is viewed largely(almost exclusively) as a Jewish issue, then you've been living under a very large rock. Never, never have the Japanese been, even remotely, considered "Holocaust victims".
As far as I know, the question asked was for a personal view, since no one is authorized to speak for us all.
As for the question of the Japanese, when I was in what was then known as junior highschool, there was much discussion about the Japanese victims of the bomb as victims of "THE Holocaust." It wasn't until I read this thread that I realized that we now see it as only a Nazi-Jew topic. I can only attribute that to the elevation in US world dominance and our allied status with Japan. I imagine if Japan had not become a trade partner, or if the US had not become the last power standing (so to speak), the victims of THE BOMB would still be considered Holocaust victims. Bottom line: we've "re-written" history by underplaying our role in the deaths and suffering of millions because we are the ones that now carry the big guns.
I suspect that is a status that is not going to continue indefinitely, but that is another topic for another thread.
Woh woh woh!
Japan started the war as far as the U.S. goes by striking Pearl Harbor. Unless we had to fight the war with both hands tied behind our back, we had the right to defend ourselves. As far as Japan, "in for a penny, in for a dollar." The fact that the Japanese by and large don't hate us shows they understand this bit of history.
As far as I know, the question asked was for a personal view, since no one is authorized to speak for us all.
As for the question of the Japanese, when I was in what was then known as junior highschool, there was much discussion about the Japanese victims of the bomb as victims of "THE Holocaust." It wasn't until I read this thread that I realized that we now see it as only a Nazi-Jew topic. I can only attribute that to the elevation in US world dominance and our allied status with Japan. I imagine if Japan had not become a trade partner, or if the US had not become the last power standing (so to speak), the victims of THE BOMB would still be considered Holocaust victims. Bottom line: we've "re-written" history by underplaying our role in the deaths and suffering of millions because we are the ones that now carry the big guns.
I suspect that is a status that is not going to continue indefinitely, but that is another topic for another thread.
And here goes the topic spin. You aren't comparing apples to apples, you aren't even comparing apples to oranges, you are comparing apples to plastic-ware. You have an agenda, since I have never in even the most extreme anti-US blog, even in those that condemn the bombing, seen the atomic bombings in WW2 refered to as "the Holocaust". Never.
The differences between the Nazi genocide and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan during World War II, when you compare the two, are so numerous I don't even know where to begin. But the most notable difference is below:
1.) The Nazi genocide, "the holocaust", was committed against people that have surrendered Relalatively speaking - these were in occupied territories at PEACE.
2.) The dropping of the atomic bomb occurred against people that were at WAR.
Once you understand that critical difference, then you can understand a few other facts - Japan executive more civilians in Nanking with bullet and bayonet (again, during occupation) then were killed with the two atomic bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima (we won't even get into the fact that the J.I.A. murders possibly exceeded Nazi Germany during there 10+ years of Chinese war), the invasion of Japan was being planned - an event that would have taken an estimated half a million allied casualties had the atomic bombs not been dropped, Hiroshima were military targets (having significant JIA military presence and infrastructure)...and, simply enough, the terrible concept of Total War was in play - every citizen was an enemy UNTIL they surrendered because they contributed to the war efforts. Horrible as it is - that was the way the war was faught by both sides. The fire bombings of Tokyo by the way also created more casualties then the two atomic bombs (the "bomb(s)" by the way did not cause "millions of deaths", that is an extreme exaggeration - I think that is more telling then anything on your ignorance on the subject).
Now let's break this down:
What happened when Poland surrendered and portions of Russia were occupied?
Germany - Killed everyone, starting with Jews, moved on to the Slavs.
What happened when portion of China were occupied
Japan - Killed everyone, raped women and children.
What happened when Germany and Japan surrendered?
US - Rebuilt. Offered Aid.
I regret to tell ya friend, if you haven't realized until 2015, by way of a thread on CD, that "THE Holocaust" is viewed largely(almost exclusively) as a Jewish issue, then you've been living under a very large rock. Never, never have the Japanese been, even remotely, considered "Holocaust victims".
Wow. You ignored my post and picked others to respond to?
Your last sentence in particular is incredibly offensive and ignores the rape of nanking just for starters WHICH is pretty widely known for anyone with an education.
I got 13.8 million hits on Japanese holocaust in google.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
