The “Golden Age” was in 15th centruy Spain under the Moors.
Ferdinand and Isabela ran the Moors out in 1492, and the Inquisition followed. One must wonder how the Jews of Spain thought things were going in 1480.
Back to the OP. WW2 is still within living memory. Many people know people who survived or escaped the atrocities. Equally, people had relatives ‘back in the old country’. And they were people like you and me. So when they wouldn’t talk about it, we read up on it. In my case, they were the old couple living on the next street who always had a kind word; the husband of one of my mother’s friends spent years in Changi.
Never again. Never.
Jews who died were educated and articulate. They MADE themselves heard through storytelling and literature, again and again and again.
Russians exterminated in the gulags were peasants. Nobody really heard or cared much about them once they died in horrific ways.
Do you know of Dmitir Leshikov?
Not to play the cite police, but only 100K Polish non-jews? I have heard the same numbers as the OP for decades: 11 million killed in concentration and death camps of which 6 million were Jewish - leaving 5 million non-Jews killed. Some ethnic groups virtually wiped out such as Gypsies and Bohemians. Non-ethic based cleansing programs such as against people with disabilities (meaning my daughter would have been killed) and homosexuals.
I’m surprise no one has mentioned General Eisenhower in this, although his results have been talked about. He ordered major documentation of the camps so that no one could deny the Holocaust. Other holocausts have little if any documents, photos, etc. that bring them to our awareness.
Actually, this gets into the issue of defining terms and pointing to events.
The 11 miilion figure and the 6 million figure represent deaths of people who were not combatants who died as the result of particular actions (usually as opposed to “collateral damage” in battles). The 100K Poles figure represents the number of non-Jewish Poles who were actually sent to death (or labor) camps and may represent Communists, outspoken religious people, or others.
For example, no reputable authority claims that 6 million (or 5.85 million) Jews were sent to death camps. Many Jews were shot outright during sweeps through Eastern European countries or in retaliation atrocities such as at Babi Yar and others were killed by the pre-death camp Einsatzgruppen.
The 5 million deaths in addition to the Jews also occurred in many ways other than at the death camps.
I never mind being called for a cite. And my figure was slightly off, but the number is still not millions. The reasons are not only those listed by Tom. My memory of 100,00 was those who died in the main Polish death camp, Auschwitz. According to this Wikipedia article I overestimated the deaths there (75K is more like it), but failed to account for other deaths - tens of thousands in various other camps and as a consequence of deportations - totalling probably 200 to 250K non-Jewish Poles who died in camps and as a direct result of deportations inclusive of the Auschwitz deaths.
The mentally ill, the disabled, opposition be it intellectual political or religious, the Romani, and Polish culture were all targets. And Poles were considered racially inferior to Germans. But there was no campaign to exterminated all Poles as there was for Jews.
Across all of Europe millions of others died as well as Jews. And the Romani shared the distinction of being targetted for complete extermination and the pattern of historic “otherness” Their and the deaths of others should also be not forgotten.
And again it must be remembered most of all that these atrocities were not committed by an evil outside of history but by people who loved their kids and probably got up for old ladies on the bus. Basically normal people. That is what makes it even more scary and horrible.
I think non-Jewish Poles killed during the war is about three million, but not nearly so many in the death camps, and a very good number killed by the Soviet armed & Police forces and by interloping Ukrainian homesteaders in the nearly 2 years of Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland. Important to note that as this region was considered part of the USSR after the war, Soviets added these figures to their estimated war casualties-a figure of 20 million military and civilian combined. This number may well be accurate enough, but how many did Soviet firing squads, renegade partisans, and punitive starvation of undesireables(think Chechen, for example) contribute to this dismal sum?-a few million, I expect.
I read a conspiracy maven’s take on that. he claims he is unjustly being called anti semitic because he wants people to debate on it, like theres 2 valid viewpoints. Also, something about how the Jews in charge behind the scenes used it for their own nefarious purposes agains their fellow innocent Jews. Weird.
I also recall reading that it was horrible because most places, (including America?) refused to let Jews in, so they had nowhere to run to escape.
I recall anecdotes that the USA was very slow to increase quotas to allow the Jews a safe Haven from the Nazis. Yet another shared shame by most of humanity.
Jim
Denmark is currently blessed with a director (Uffe Østergaard) of a department of Holocaust and Genocide studies who has repeatedly denied the Armenian genocide – and only last week, when pressed by two journalists, accepted that there might have been a holocaust, if you really absolutely must look at history “objectively” and not with the more nuanced “relative” eyes he prefers.
Denmark is also so very fortunate to have a state television/radio which just a few months back denied the Armenian genocide in their flagship journalistic program (and which regularly blames 9/11 on the Jews).
We didn’t know then that there was going to be a Holocaust. Nor did “the rest of humanity”.
We did see the extreme Anti-Semitism build up from 1933 on. We refused to step up quotas. While we did not foresee the Holocaust, we could foresee yet another European pogrom.
I don’t particularly blame the US; I blame the entire world that turned a blind eye to the rabid Anti-Semitism that was public and frightening in Germany. I still blame to entire world that allows genocides to happen because "we shouldn’t interfere with the sovereignty of other nations ".
I firmly believe the UN should interfere.
Rune: that is sad and scary.
Jim
Russian Jews were fleeing pogroms under Tsar Alexander, perhaps also Nicholas II.
That was a little earlier but the pogroms were cyclical.
At least once per century and often several times per century; pogroms would sweep through parts of Europe. Nazi Germany showed every possible sign of another one starting up.
Jim
Can I lump them in under “apologists” for the Turkish government, and still claim I’m right? 
Sailboat
In all fairness, I wouldn’t compare the internment camps in the US to the concentration camps in Germany.
Reread the Post I was replying to please.
The comparison was between what Japan did and what we did and why we take it easier on the Japanese offenses.
**The Internment camps do not compare to the concentration camps in any meaniful way, shape or form. I never ever would want to imply such. **
Jim
I see your point, glad you were clear about it.
I did read (trying to find the citation) that almost half of the internees in the US internment camps were German and Italians. Anyone confirm that?
And Rune, that’s just frightning.
The two internment camps in Arkansas were Japanese. Although there were several German POW camps, I can only google the one at Fort Chaffee. There were several roughly following the Mississippi and a railway line in Eastern Arkansas. The POWs were used for agricultural labor.