# What qualifies someone as a Holocaust survivor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 14, 2010, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605 "2010-11-14T01:01:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/21 "2010-11-24T20:31:52Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > The Holocaust is scarier than other genocides because it was mechanized and took place in an industrial, workmanlike, matter-of-fact fashion. It wasn’t just a bunch of people rounded up and shot to death and villages bombed and burned. It was gas chambers designed to kill people, designed by engineers and scientists; insane medical experiments on Jews and prisoners of war which were carried out by doctors who earnestly believed in the value of their ‘work’, nonchalantly testing out pressure chambers and bizzaro surgeries on living victims; a whole elaborate pseudoscience created to justify what was being done. > > This kind of shit just didn’t happen in the Armenian Genocide or other historical acts of mass murder. It was horrifying on a surreal level. It seems a litle silly to argue whose genocide is “better”, but at the very least genocide can’t be measured simply in terms of the number of dead. **Argent Towers** is absolutely correct; with the Nazis, we aren’t talking about the ruthlessness of a few individuals or the expression of group brutality, we are talking about a genocide that was planned, organized, and executed to a level which, IMO, has never been and should never be duplicated. This is not at all an attempt to minimize other genocides–which, sadly, seem to occur regularly enough in our history that talk of ranking them isn’t completely preposterous. But if we must rank them, the Nazi holocaust is in a completely different league. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/22 "2010-11-24T20:43:42Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > (Wholesale, not wholesome.) And no, expulsion was what they did initially. Their goal for the last several years was definitely murdering all the Jews and other undesirables they could get their hands on. Sorry, I couldnt remember it for you wholesale. Expulsions and mass killings with guns alternated before they started going for the Final solution, depending on which part of Europe you’re talking about. There was a point where Hitler was contemplating sending all of European Jews to Madagascar, in exchange from some money from either Jewish organizations or the Allies. As I said, the Rwandan genocide was definitely organized and methodical. Sounds just like the common trope of judging all other genocides by the exact criterions of the Holocaust, and then dismissing them as not being on par with it. All genocides are different, and the Holocaust doesnt constitute either the end nor the peak of history. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/23 "2010-11-24T21:02:48Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Expulsions and mass killings with guns alternated before they started going for the Final solution, depending on which part of Europe you’re talking about. Right. So I don’t think you can say expulsion was the objective and not murder. And by late 1941 or early 1942, they were moving toward the mass murder option. > [@](#): > > Sounds just like the common trope of judging all other genocides by the exact criterions of the Holocaust, and then dismissing them as not being on par with it. All genocides are different, and the Holocaust doesnt constitute either the end nor the peak of history. Eh. I didn’t say anything about other mass murders not being “on par” - the whole concept bothers me. There are reasons the Holocaust in particular sticks in people’s minds. Some of those reasons are based on history, like its scope, and some of them are more cultural. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/24 "2010-11-24T22:26:12Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > BTW, what an incredible penchant for navel gazing and ethnocentrism not to see anything comparable in history. Rwanda has offered us quite recently the spectacle of almost a million people killed in weeks, with just machetes. > I am always a bit nauseous when I hear people talk about the Holocaust like they want it to be a protected trademark. and > [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > As I said, the Rwandan genocide was definitely organized and methodical. Sounds just like the common trope of judging all other genocides by the exact criterions of the Holocaust, and then dismissing them as not being on par with it. All genocides are different, and the Holocaust doesnt constitute either the end nor the peak of history. Agreed. However, for those of us in the US (can’t speak for the rest of the world), we have had the WWII Holocaust jammed down our throats through mass media (movies, tv, printed media, etc) since basically the end of the war. Personally, for volume, speed, and method, I think what happened in Rwanda deserves as much attention as the WWII holocaust for the shear speed in which the victims were dispatched. I guess the Rwandan victims don’t have a very good press agent here in the good old USA. What has always bothered me about “The Holocaust” is that it has turned into a Jewish-only tragedy, where no other group is really even considered. You never hear a number like “11 million killed during the WWII holocaust”, you hear" 6 million Jews killed during the holocaust". That’s insulting to any other group who suffered, and trivializes the tragedy for other groups, cultures, whatever. \*\*ANY \*\*life snuffed out during the Nazi reign was wrong, and should be considered on the same level of “tragedy” regardless of whether the victim was Jewish or not. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/25 "2010-11-24T22:31:33Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > I guess the Rwandan victims don’t have a very good press agent here in the good old USA. No, they don’t. That’s usually how it goes in Africa and that’s why most of the world did nothing while the genocide was going on. > [@](#): > > What has always bothered me about “The Holocaust” is that it has turned into a Jewish-only tragedy, where no other group is really even considered. Never considered by whom? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/26 "2010-11-25T00:43:56Z")
Is this inspired by the [Glenn Beck controversy](http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-11-12-glenn-beck-george-soros_N.htm)? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/27 "2010-11-25T03:29:10Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > What has always bothered me about “The Holocaust” is that it has turned into a Jewish-only tragedy, where no other group is really even considered. You never hear a number like “11 million killed during the WWII holocaust”, you hear" 6 million Jews killed during the holocaust". That’s insulting to any other group who suffered, and trivializes the tragedy for other groups, cultures, whatever. \*\*ANY \*\*life snuffed out during the Nazi reign was wrong, and should be considered on the same level of “tragedy” regardless of whether the victim was Jewish or not. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. This just isn’t true. There is a great deal of information publicly available and commonly discussed about the other victims (and the other victims are one of the reasons the Holocaust is more shocking than the Rwandan genocide - among many other reasons which are largely common sense to anyone but a contrarian trying to make a point.) The Rwanda genocide was a tribal conflict between two tribes. Nazi Germany was a colossal killing machine that swallowed up everything in its path and attempted to take over half of Europe. No, it didn’t just go after Jews. It went after a very long list of people considered undesirable, as well as any German who was remotely against Nazism and about whom this was known. I have to repeat **Marley23** ’s question: just _who_ is forgetting about these other victims of the Holocaust? Nobody I have ever spoken to is unaware of them. And all the Holocaust memorial museums and organizations that I have seen have acknowledged all of the Nazis’ victims, not just Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/28 "2010-11-25T04:05:25Z")
It’s sad that two weeks after November 11th that such statements can be heard. I have to echo **Marley23** and **Argent Tower** question. Who is forgetting about the other victims? Certainly not Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, and France to name a few. And definitely, not gay men who have reclaimed the pink triangle as international recognizable symbol for gay pride and gay rights. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/29 "2010-11-25T12:20:24Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > It’s sad that two weeks after November 11th that such statements can be heard. > I have to echo **Marley23** and **Argent Tower** question. Who is forgetting about the other victims? > Certainly not Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, and France to name a few. > And definitely, not gay men who have reclaimed the pink triangle as international recognizable symbol for gay pride and gay rights. You’re kidding? Police crackdowns on Rom communities just took a meteoric rise. People only vaguely acknowledge that Roms were as badly treated as Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe. If Roms truly enjoyed the "Holocaust protection status " (that is, “they suffered enough during the war, let’s not lower ourselves down to Nazi level and add any more hurt”), that would never have been politically possible. And we’re talking about the Roms, the second biggest group to suffer from the Nazis, imagine for those lower down the list. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/30 "2010-11-25T12:34:38Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > You’re kidding? Notice the question was “who has forgotten” (which was in answer to the specious argument that because the 6 million(ish) Jews generally get more press than the 5-8(ish) million gentiles, nobody remembers them). Saying that groups in Europe are still mistreated doesn’t answer that question, at all. Hyperbolic nonsense about “Holocaust protection status” is silly enough, but alleging that anybody involved today is being treated with “Nazi level” anything is vacuous bombast. You’ve committed the fallacy of equivocation, like a parent changing the definition of “listening” to “obeying my instructions”. The population of the United States hadn’t “forgotten” that blacks were slaves or that the civil war was over slavery, even when people were still racist bastards. And people haven’t forgotten that the Nazis systematically butchered people from a great many groups. Also, you’re wrong. The Romani were _not_ the second largest group to suffer under the Nazis. The second largest death toll would be soviet POW’s. After that Polish gentiles. Then the Romani. Not that that has anything to do with anything, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/31 "2010-11-25T12:46:22Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Hyperbolic nonsense about “Holocaust protection status” is silly enough, but alleging that anybody involved today is being treated with “Nazi level” anything is vacuous bombast. The only vacuum I see here is in your argumentation, as I’ve never ever said that people were treated with Nazi like brutality this day in Europe. As it is written in simple and plain English, it wouldnt be that hard to get at first reading. And neither the Poles nor the Soviets have ever been considered Holocaust victims. And since we were discussing about the Holocaust, another pseudo argument down the drain… ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/32 "2010-11-25T13:01:13Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > Personally I hope it never, ever dies out. I hope in the year 3000 we can still refer to someone as the “descendant of a holocaust survivor”. The holocaust is something that should never be forgotten by civilized humanity, and considering the Nazi’s ultimate aim was to wipe an entire race off the face of the earth, it would be a triumph to have a daily reminder of the extent to which the persecuted survived. What is it with the American obsession with the holocaust? The Holocaust was just one of a number of mass deaths, democides and genocides. And not at all the worst. Or the most recent. I for instance am a Black Death survivor descendent, I am also a descendent survivor of a semi-genocide perpetrated by Denmark against Faroese population and a descendent of slaves (& slave raiders) and a descendent of a Soviet genocide survivor and a descendent of a thousand wars. My wife is a survivor descendent of the Spanish inquisition and the Spanish civil war (on both sides) and concentration camp survivor (communist) descendent. Anyway in the year 3000 almost everybody will be descendent of a holocaust survivor (as well as a descendent of holocaust perpetrators), just as everybody today is a descendent of a survivor of the Mongol genocide. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/33 "2010-11-25T13:18:59Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > I’ve never ever said that people were treated with Nazi like brutality this day in Europe. > [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Police crackdowns on Rom communities just took a meteoric rise. People only vaguely acknowledge that Roms were as badly treated as Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe. If Roms truly enjoyed the "Holocaust protection status " (that is, “they suffered enough during the war, let’s not lower ourselves down to Nazi level and add any more hurt”), that would never have been politically possible. Yep, that’d be you talking about “Nazi level” conduct. > [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > And neither the Poles nor the Soviets have ever been considered Holocaust victims. Wrong. And flagrantly wrong. A massive number of soviet POW’s were sent to the death camps or died in concentration camps and were, in short, part of the organized and systematic brutality of the Holocaust. Same with Polish gentiles. Perhaps what you meant to say is that _you_ never realized that they were part of the Holocaust. They most certainly are counted among the victims of the Holocaust. Feel free to call history a “pseudo argument” however, if that helps. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/34 "2010-11-25T13:20:26Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > The only vacuum I see here is in your argumentation, as I’ve never ever said that people were treated with Nazi like brutality this day in Europe. As it is written in simple and plain English, it wouldnt be that hard to get at first reading. > > And neither the Poles nor the Soviets have ever been considered Holocaust victims. And since we were discussing about the Holocaust, another pseudo argument down the drain… Okay, now you’re being vacuous, Poles and Soviets are considered two of the largest [Holocaust victims](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims) groups. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/35 "2010-11-25T13:23:02Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Yep, that’d be you talking about “Nazi level” conduct. You’re good at not getting it, I’ll grant you that. Starship Troopers yesterday, today, this. I’m sure in a specific timeline, in a specific dimension, at a specific moment, this skill could come in handy, here it is just totally useless. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/36 "2010-11-25T13:27:06Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > Okay, now you’re being vacuous, Poles and Soviets are considered two of the largest [Holocaust victims](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims) groups. Depends on what you qualify Holocaust I guess, there’s more than low level controversy on whether Soviet and Polish victims should be included in. As what’s usually used to define the Holocaust is the systematic extermination of races considered noxious by the Nazis. Were the Soviets and Polish victims killed for that, that’s debatable (their suffering isnt, their belonging to the Holocaust is). ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/37 "2010-11-25T13:36:13Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > You’re good Yep, I am. Of course, as we have in black and white your statement that if the Romani had “Holocaust protection status” then we wouldn’t “lower ourselves down to Nazi level and add any more hurt” and the police crackdowns would “never have been politically possible.” Those are all your own comments, in context, in order, on topic. Bombastic nonsense equating modern day policies against the Romani with “Nazi level” anything at all. > [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Depends on what you qualify Holocaust I guess We’re fighting ignorance, not spreading it. I should also point out that, now, you’ve gone from a claim that neither the Polish victims of the Holocaust nor the Soviet victims of the Holocaust “have ever been considered Holocaust victims” to that it “depends”. You’re still wrong. [ > [@](#): > > Yet for Nazi Germany this attack was not an “ordinary” military operation. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation between German fascism and Soviet communism; a racial war between German “Aryans” and subhuman Slavs and Jews. From the very beginning this war of annihilation against the Soviet Union included the killing of prisoners of war (POWs) on a massive scale. German authorities viewed Soviet POWs as a particular threat, regarding them not only as Slavic subhumans but as part of the “Bolshevik menace” linked in their minds to a Jewish conspiracy. ]([Holocaust Encyclopedia | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007178)) [ > [@](#): > > The German occupation of Poland was exceptionally brutal. The Nazis considered Poles to be racially inferior. Following the military defeat of Poland by Germany in September 1939, the Germans launched a campaign of terror. German police units shot thousands of Polish civilians and required all Polish males to perform forced labor. The Nazis sought to destroy Polish culture by eliminating the Polish political, religious, and intellectual leadership. This was done in part because of German contempt for Polish culture and in part to prevent resistance against the occupation. > > In May 1940, the German occupation authorities launched AB-Aktion, a plan to eliminate the Polish intelligentsia and leadership class. The aim was to kill Polish leaders with great speed, thus instilling fear in the general population and discouraging resistance. The Germans shot thousands of teachers, priests, and other intellectuals in mass killings in and around Warsaw, especially in the city’s Pawiak prison. The Nazis sent thousands more to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp, to Stutthof, and to other concentration camps in Germany where non-Jewish Poles constituted the majority of inmates until March 1942. > […] > It is estimated that the Germans killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians during World War II. In addition, the Germans murdered at least 3 million Jewish citizens of Poland. ]([Holocaust Encyclopedia | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005473)) ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/38 "2010-11-25T13:46:30Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Yep, I am. > Of course, as we have in black and white your statement that if the Romani had “Holocaust protection status” then we wouldn’t “lower ourselves down to Nazi level and add any more hurt” and the police crackdowns would “never have been politically possible.” > > Those are all your own comments, in context, in order, on topic. > Bombastic nonsense equating modern day policies against the Romani with “Nazi level” anything at all. Sorry dude, I’m not paid here to babysit mentally deficient people, you’ll excuse me if I skip your next rants. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/39 "2010-11-25T13:52:39Z")
Brilliant factual rebuttal. (Particularly enjoyed your cite) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605/40 "2010-11-25T15:51:24Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Sorry dude, I’m not paid here to babysit mentally deficient people, you’ll excuse me if I skip your next rants. I told you the other day to stop the personal attacks. Now I’m giving you a formal warning. Take it to the Pit or find a better way to argue. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-qualifies-someone-as-a-holocaust-survivor/560605.md?page=3)