# Need help with Holocaust question **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417 "2010-09-29T00:45:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/21 "2010-09-29T11:50:16Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > It’s curious that the people who most fervently downplay the Holocaust as a conspiracy theory (as opposed to academic nitpicking) are the same ones who would most wish for such an event to occur. It’d be like if the KKK claimed slavery never happened. In fact, racists do tend to downplay the evils of slavery as much as they can manage. They don’t generally carry it to the absurd extreme of outright denial, probably because slavery, having occurred over a couple centuries under well-documented peacetime conditions, is less susceptible to obfuscation that the Holocaust, which took place within a decade under conditions where deaths can be handwaved under the Irvingoid “this crap happens in war” rationalization. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/22 "2010-09-29T13:03:39Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > So killing only one million people is less bad? [QUOTE=Sarah Silverman] She called me up and she’s like, “Aunt Sarah, did you know that Hitler killed sixty million Jews.” And I corrected her and I said, “You know, I think he’s responsible for killing six million Jews.” And she said, “Oh yeah! Six million! I knew that but seriously, I mean, what’s the difference?” “Uh, the difference is sixty million is unforgivable, young lady!” [/QUOTE] From _Jesus Is Magic_ ---
**Author:** ![Abe\_Babe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Abe\_Babe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe_Babe)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/23 "2010-09-29T13:04:07Z")
I’ve heard an awful lot of “The blacks had it much better here, even as slaves then they would have in the jungles of Africa” from too many sources. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/24 "2010-09-29T13:24:34Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I have an acquaintance Personally, I would consider him an ex-acquaintance. A friend/relative/lover/ I can see making an attempt to change his/her view, but I would not waste any of my time on an acquaintance. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/25 "2010-09-29T13:49:38Z")
Okay, let’s accept your friend’s argument that the Holocaust “only” killed one million Jews. In 1942 the U.S. government sent 110,000-120,000 Japanese-Americans to internment camps for the rest of the war. The last of them weren’t released until March 1946. [The death toll in the 11 camps totaled 1,862](http://usswashington.com/worldwar2plus55/dl26ap42.htm). That’s about 1.7%. Your friend is arguing that Nazi practices were so poor that ONE MILLION Europeans died in their camps while the U.S. could keep the mortality rate in its camps below 2%? And that’s supposed to be proof of their innocence? So if the Nazis weren’t deliberately trying to kill the Jews, they were really, really, really bad at housekeeping. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/26 "2010-09-29T13:55:30Z")
> [@Abe\_Babe](#): > > I’ve heard an awful lot of “The blacks had it much better here, even as slaves then they would have in the jungles of Africa” from too many sources. Africa does kinda suck… and They got to ride Jefferson ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/27 "2010-09-29T14:44:03Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > So if the Nazis weren’t deliberately trying to kill the Jews, they were really, really, really bad at housekeeping. My favorite dichotomy - evil or incompetent. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/28 "2010-09-29T15:09:49Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > My favorite dichotomy - evil or incompetent. Yeah, Germans are well renouned for their incompetence. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/29 "2010-09-29T15:13:13Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > It’s curious that the people who most fervently downplay the Holocaust as a conspiracy theory (as opposed to academic nitpicking) are the same ones who would most wish for such an event to occur. It’d be like if the KKK claimed slavery never happened. They also twist themself up into real knots over the Middle East. If my enemy’s friend is my friend and all, then hating on the Jews puts them in bed with the Arabs. But they are dangerously non-white and all. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/30 "2010-09-29T15:16:43Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > > [@Chakra Nadmara](#): > > > > I’ve never heard of someone denying 5/6ths of the Holocaust. > > I have. David Irving in particular downplays the number of Jews killed, at various times claiming a million or so casualties as a result of disease, starvation, allied bombing, etc. i.e. the expected hardships of war itself, and not a systematic effort by Germany at extermination. They always manage to throw in here as well the idea that “international Jewry” declared war on Germany, and so internment was legitimate. And for the Jews own good. And I the effort at shifting things onto allied bombing/blockades is nauseating too - when you look at the photos of well fed Germans being made to carry emaciated bodies to mass graves post-liberation. Looking down the thread, there is an estimate of 12 million victims - well, if we use the Deniers’ mathematics, because Allied actions were supposedly partially responsible for these deaths, we can put Hitler’s death toll much higher - surely we have to include the 20 million Soviet citizens killed in the Great Patriotic War. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/31 "2010-09-29T15:17:46Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Killing 1 million is hardly _less_ evil than killing 6 million. Was he using this as some kind of justification for “Hitler not being as evil as people say” or something? Pretty much what Little Nemo said above. The claim is that a large number of Jews did die, but it was mostly due to the chaos at the end of the war, as well as isolated instances of persecution, not due to a program of extermination. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/32 "2010-09-29T16:01:39Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > BTW, is there an antisemetic strain in Libertarianism? On the one hand he is one of those Ayn Randians and on the other hand I thought Ayn Rand was Jewish. This hasn’t been addressed. Ayn Rand wasn’t a Libertarian. She considered herself to be an Objectivist. The Libertarian Party founded themselves largely on her philosophy but she didn’t care for them very much. She was from Russia and was ethnically Jewish but didn’t practice the religion. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/33 "2010-09-29T16:33:02Z")
I have dealt with this one before. “Look dad (or FIL in some cases), 1 million or 6 million - they rounded up anyone they considered “undesirable,” and either actively or passively killed them all. That makes them the bad guys.” Quibbling about numbers is just a way to ignore the horrors, and it lets your debate opponent play on their home field. Don’t step into the trap, just ask whether 1 million vs. 6 million takes them from Totally Fucking Evil Bastards to only Totally Evil Bastards. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/34 "2010-09-29T16:40:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > BTW, is there an antisemetic strain in Libertarianism? On the one hand he is one of those Ayn Randians and on the other hand I thought Ayn Rand was Jewish. If you’re talking about an actual Objectivist, there’s nothing in the philosophy that is anti-semitic. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/35 "2010-09-29T19:08:33Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Africa does kinda suck… > > and > > They got to ride Jefferson Jefferson Bus Lines? Now that’s movin’ on up! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/36 "2010-09-29T20:24:50Z")
I’ve seen a few misconceptions among non-deniers over the years, like assuming the six million were killed at Auschwitz and similar camps. Rather than some ultra-secret industrial process controlled and executed by a handful of fanatics making people disappear without a trace, most of the killings were done openly with the compliance (if not the eager assistance) of collaborators wherever the Nazis invaded, typically by force-marching the Jews out of the town they were living (or had been relocated to) to a nearby pit or ravine and shooting them. The Holocaust, I figure, doesn’t represent some aberration in European history - pogroms and abuses and murders of Jews had been going on for centuries. The Holocaust was only unusual in that it was coupled with then-modern communication and then-modern (but by no means cutting-edge) technology, and recorded with then-modern cameras to leave evidence that deniers can’t simply wish away. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/37 "2010-09-30T23:39:10Z")
Thanks for all the responses. So from what I can gather, we came up with the 6 million number based on how many Jews were around before the Holocaust compared to how many Jews were around after the Holocaust and you get something like 6 million. He’s not a friend, he’s someone I run into at barbecues and stuff because he works with a friend of a friend. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/38 "2010-09-30T23:46:23Z")
In the words of another mass murderer: [QUOTE=Stalin] Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![AutumnLeaves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/45deac/32.png) [@AutumnLeaves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AutumnLeaves)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/39 "2010-10-03T12:37:57Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Thanks for all the responses. So from what I can gather, we came up with the 6 million number based on how many Jews were around before the Holocaust compared to how many Jews were around after the Holocaust and you get something like 6 million. > > He’s not a friend, he’s someone I run into at barbecues and stuff because he works with a friend of a friend. I’m not suggesting baiting the guy at your next barbecue, but one of the more terrible, hilarious statements I’ve ever heard from someone with a similar opinion to your acquaintance is that “Only one million were killed by the Nazis, the rest moved to New York”, said completely seriously. So if you feel like it, ask him where the other four to five million Jews went and see if you get something like that out of him. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417/40 "2010-10-03T18:37:59Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Thanks for all the responses. So from what I can gather, we came up with the 6 million number based on how many Jews were around before the Holocaust compared to how many Jews were around after the Holocaust and you get something like 6 million. The six million figure originally came from Adolf Eichmann (Mr. “Final Solution”) himself. And there’s a lot of documentation besides population estimates pre- and post Nazism, using death camp records (about 3.5 million killed) and investigation by Soviet authorities of those murdered by SS squads after the invasion of the Soviet Union. According to [this article](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6346012.ece), the commonly accepted death figure for the Holocaust may well be too low. People who deny major aspects of the Holocaust including presenting ludicrously low estimates of casualties do this for one reason only - to advance their anti-Semitic beliefs. Look at any major figure in the Holocaust denial movement from David Irving on through all the other top bozos, and it’s easy to find examples of obvious bigotry. A casual acquaintance who’s glommed on to this stuff and has already reached adulthood is probably a lost cause. Facts will be handwaved away as part of a conspiracy by Them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-holocaust-question/555417.md?page=3)